Team 263 needs help

[Rikithasta]

Yet again we're fighting our Board of Education to get our team back, after a full year without a team - they had canceled all activities except those who participate in competitions which excluded robotics. That should give a general idea of how much they like us.

I'm trying to look for a list of disolved teams to help our case at the board of ed meeting - the catch is that said meeting is in two and a half hours - 8 o'clock eastern time, and it's currently five thirty.

If anyone knows where i can find such a list, or anything else that might help our case, please reply or send me an email. Thank you

Jessie

[sanddrag]

What exactly do you mean by disolved teams and how does it help your case? I guess I'm a bit confused as to exactly what you're looking for.

[Madison]

There are probably more than a hundred teams that have disappeared throughout the years, if not more than that. Are you trying to find specific information about what happened to them or information for the Long Island area?

Locally, I know that East Islip HS (311, The Red Jammers) is defunct.

I've got to run so I'm sorry I can't help more. Good luck!

Talk to them about, given how large Sachem HS is, there's a disproportionate amount of time, money and energy spent on sports teams that don't serve most of its students.

[Cynette]

check out this thread for help with a school board presentation supporting FIRST:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=46406 The thread mentions a "white paper." Those are always very helpful! Good Luck!

[Mark McLeod]

Here's a list of all teams ever on Long Island including dissolved teams. The defunct teams have their last competition year listed. Some teams signed up, but then dropped out before ever competing.

http://www.team358.org/files/li_teams/

[the_unknown]

Thank you everyone for your help, as for the sports teams argument, our school takes anything we say on the matter as an attack and basicly ends in them asking us to step down.

Rob
Aftershock 263

[Rikithasta]

I was actually looking for what Mark linked, thanks. I'm sorry I wasn't more clear, I'm in so many places at once at the moment.

Jessie

[sanddrag]

If you can, watch the beginning of a Kickoff video. Maybe even show it to them. There's a lot of good stuff in there (that Dean says) about why FIRST is important. One of the older ones (I'm thinking 2002 or 2003) is probably better for the "it's not about the robots" type of content.

[nuggetsyl]

How good is your football team? Schools spend around 200,000 on football teams.

[JamesBrown]

Originally Posted by nuggetsyl

How good is your football team? Schools spend around 200,000 on football teams.

Would the ban on your activity still apply if you got the team privately sponsored. When our school board wanted to cancel sports some students and parents mentioned that the Robotics team may be better to cancel because it was expensive and served less students, the arguement seemed alright until they realized that the team recieved no money from the school board or the city. It may be something to look into regardless of how the meeting tonight goes, Try to find local companies to donate money and or a workspace. If you find these things the school committee will have alot less power over the team.

Jamews

[the_unknown]

Sachem Robotics was primarily funded from outside sources. The schools budget for our team typically covered advisors and transportation (to regionals, Nationals was paid for by students / surplus sponsorship money / fundraising). Unfortunately one of our primary sponsor Symbol Technologies was forced to cut back their donation the last year we ran, and I believe they have plans to sponsor another team this year. As for local companies, there aren't many large ones left, and asking for sponsorships was something we planned on doing once we had permission to have a team.

As for a workspace, considering that we have two highschools a considerable distance apart and neither of them have companies that would/could provide a workspace nearby, we are kindof forced to used the schools area. Many students would be unable to get to are build area and probably not join. Along with this, if we were independent of the school, then people joining to fufill the National Honor Society club requirement would probably not join as there would be easier ways to meet the req. (While these people typically join just for the req., many of them do learn something and stay with the team)

[AdamHeard]

So.... How'd it go?

[Madison]

I'm hearing that they got it back.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by M. Krass

I'm hearing that they got it back.

That's good to hear


I sympathise with stories like these/ Our relationship with schools has been... well, awkward. We're not quite sponsored, but they haven't kicked us out of the tiny room we keep our stuff in. Good thing we have Northrop Grumman as a sponsor.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

I am sorry I didn't get in on this earlier. You school district needs to know the number of students this program puts on the road to college. The numbers are far higher than an athletic program or school club. When you ask a parent what they want to see (and they are the ones paying the taxes) they will tell you they want their student to go on to higher education. Although many students are already thinking about advanced education, there are a number of students who are not.