Barriers to Entry: Why schools DON'T join FIRST

[Martinez]

With a new fall season coming up, I was curious to discuss what people think are the major barriers of entry as to why schools don't get involved with FIRST Robotics. Then possibly brainstorm what we and FIRST can do to lower those barriers. The way I look at it, the more we help those up and coming schools looking to Robotics right now, the more teams are likely to register in the late fall.

In my opinion there are to major hinderences:
1) Communication - basically getting the word out there and keeping people connected
2) Program Costs - $10,000 is a huge startup investment.

What can be done:
1) Better district level institutions - ok, so I just came back from a church district training conference but I realized that FIRST has almost no foundation in terms of supporting regions with teams. We have a huge huge way to go to match existing organizational structures. As I see it, FIRST sets a global agenda that is like clearing fields but its left to only other teams to plant seeds and then individual new schools to tend the crops. I don't know how much people know about Church Planting... but thats a huge burden to place on new people.

2) More Scholarship funding for start up- I thing one of the most successful programs I've ever witness is the NASA grant. Having just a small amount of money to "start the spark" is a huge help. From my experience, a team really can't begin to coalesse and take shape until there is a garenteed amount set aside to pay for the kit, if not the whole robot. It will be interesting to see what happens when I go back to Owego (for the third time) and say hey I'm willing to donate X just to get things going. But lets face it: $10,000 is a huuuuge amount of money and from new people perspectives can be used on alot of other things.

Thoughts?