Engineering and Robotics program in danger

[Jimmy Nichols]

Another perspective to think about:

Our team was asked to leave the school this year, due mostly in part to the economic times. The school board, nor the school administration financially supported the team. Our teacher was a Technology Education teacher. They were forced to cut his program, as it was an elective and not at state required course. He fortunately, did lose his job and was asked to teach some different courses, but he lost his big lab we used and our dedicated spaces were reallocated by the school administration to storage and a classroom.

In our situation, the school board has always been extremely supportive, but the school principal has not. He was not against our program, just not supportive. We wanted to approach the school board when all of this was occurring, but our teacher feared that the principal would not look favorably at this and so he asked us to hold off. So in May we moved all of our equipment out and when school started back we began probing the school for space to no avail. We finally ended up leasing a space at a local mall that was extremely excited to have us and gave us an extremely low rate for the size and amenities.

Without our intervention, the school board did hear about what happened to our team and it was brought up at a school board meeting. Yet it did not lead to any efforts to get our team back in the school.

But we like the new space, and it should open up a lot of new opportunities for exposing others to FIRST and our program.

[xitaqua]

Jimmy,

Thanks for sharing your story. I think your team story is a great example of how you guys were able to think out of the box and find another venue to be able to continue participating.....

Which mall are you guys in ?. Are you guys there year around ?.

I plan to go from St. Louis to Washington D.C on April 26, to attend the 2nd Engineering and Science Fair in Washington D.C. I would love to stop by and visit, and if you guys are interested demo a quad-copter robot a group of volunteers are building and plan to demo at the Fair, we hope to have it interacting with a FIRST ground robot by 2016.

Cheers,
Marcos.

[staplemonx]

Here is another piece of data that has come out recently http://www.atomicrobotics.com/2011/1...reer-interest/

Combine this with things like the Brandeis University Study and you have a good amount of data to show why robotics is a better investment than other projects. http://www.usfirst.org/aboutus/impact

How ever when i talk to other FTC or VEX teams i believe that is where the school can get the biggest bang for their buck, the teams are a 10th of the price and teach many of the same skills.

[Jimmy Nichols]

Originally Posted by xitaqua

Jimmy,

Thanks for sharing your story. I think your team story is a great example of how you guys were able to think out of the box and find another venue to be able to continue participating.....

Which mall are you guys in ?. Are you guys there year around ?.

I plan to go from St. Louis to Washington D.C on April 26, to attend the 2nd Engineering and Science Fair in Washington D.C. I would love to stop by and visit, and if you guys are interested demo a quad-copter robot a group of volunteers are building and plan to demo at the Fair, we hope to have it interacting with a FIRST ground robot by 2016.

Cheers,
Marcos.

Marcos,

Thank you! Our current lease is for 5 months, through the end of April. Our hope is to raise enough funds to sign a 1 year lease starting on May 1. Once we moved all of our stuff back in, we realized we didn't want to move back out.

I am hoping we are in St. Louis for the championships, competing. But if not, We would love to have you stop by and check out the space. As the date grows closer PM or email me. Our space is in the Cincinnati Mall, for those somewhat familiar with Cincinnati, it used to be called Forest-Fair Mall. It is located at Exit 39 off of I 275.

[jreuter]

Jimmy:
Finding space at a mall is an interesting solution. I'd be interested in understanding the costs involved, and how you are managing liability issues. Please send me a private message if you are willing to share this kind of information.

Thanks,
-Jeff

[GailJones]

Hi Jimmy & Jeff,
We're in the same position - lost school sponsorship, looking for new space and 501(c)3 status. The big question is who will take the liability. Renting space in a nearby shopping center is an interesting option, but I'd really like to know how you handled the liability, if you don't mind my asking.
Thanks, Gail

[Jimmy Nichols]

Originally Posted by GailJones

Hi Jimmy & Jeff,
We're in the same position - lost school sponsorship, looking for new space and 501(c)3 status. The big question is who will take the liability. Renting space in a nearby shopping center is an interesting option, but I'd really like to know how you handled the liability, if you don't mind my asking.
Thanks, Gail

Gail,

We are still in the mall. We signed a 1 year lease at the end of the initial 5 months. We formed a fund within our local Community Foundation as our 501(c)3 fiscal agent. They just make it too easy. We are only charged 2% annually and they handle all of the thank you letters for donations, taxes, audits, check writing, etc. We can usually get reimbursed within a day or so for purchases. This was the best alternative for us. It gave us 501(c)3 status immediately without all the headache of filing taxes and handling audits, etc.

We purchased insurance that covers damages to the facility as well as to our property/assets and covers thefts. The insurance covers injuries to a certain extent, I don't recall exactly as I didn't set-up the insurance. I know we have recommended to all of our mentors to purchase liability insurance for themselves as a precation (similar to what teachers get). Feel free to PM with your email and we can chat more and I can get some more details if you need it.

[xitaqua]

Hello All,

Indeed we are in very tough economical times, and my advice to teams is to rotate competitions, the same way master gardeners rotate crops.

My current recommendation is to do a four year rotation:

High School
1) No competition - hold LEGO MindStorm Summer Camps.
2) FTC
3) BEST Robotics
4) FRC

Middle School School
1) No competition - hold LEGO MindStorm Summer Camps.
2) FLL
3) BEST Robotics
4) FTC

Elementary
1) Draw a robot
2) Build a robot out of cardboard
3) No competition - hold LEGO MindStorm Summer Camps - Build Robot.
4) FLL

[BJC]

Originally Posted by xitaqua

Hello All,

Indeed we are in very tough economical times, and my advice to teams is to rotate competitions, the same way master gardeners rotate crops.

My current recommendation is to do a four year rotation:

High School
1) No competition - hold LEGO MindStorm Summer Camps.
2) FTC
3) BEST Robotics
4) FRC

Middle School School
1) No competition - hold LEGO MindStorm Summer Camps.
2) FLL
3) BEST Robotics
4) FTC

Elementary
1) Draw a robot
2) Build a robot out of cardboard
3) No competition - hold LEGO MindStorm Summer Camps - Build Robot.
4) FLL

Why would perticipating in more programs be less expensive? By keeping with the same competition every year many resources can be reused season to season. Initial startup years are undeniably the most difficult and expensive. Why would teams want to go through this every year?

Respectfully, Bryan

[Siri]

Originally Posted by BJC

Why would perticipating in more programs be less expensive? By keeping with the same competition every year many resources can be reused season to season. Initial startup years are undeniably the most difficult and expensive. Why would teams want to go through this every year?

Respectfully, Bryan

Absolutely. Though, as I understand it, a plus side of BEST is that they give you the kit and you use the kit and only the kit. I don't know what sort of resource investment (non-overlapping with the other programs) would really be involved. ...But FTC?! With FRC! And FLL -- Enough FLL parts to run summer camps? Maybe I'm missing something, but my wallet hurts.

Still, if you had the infrastructure already--for instance if your larger organization usually does FRC, FLL and FTC across the grades anyway (and have enough for all your students...), you could rotate more freely.


Also, elementary school was not so long ago for me (...I can claim), and I have to say drawing a robot for a year would not have satisfied me, and I doubt it'd engage most of my FLL kids now. Cardboard, maybe. Household items? Also not ideal for the middle-high school kids, as for the camp year they're really only engaged over the summer plus some prep work. Maybe not so bad if you were a freshmen in rotation year 1, but what if you started in year 4? Many of my high school kids would probably just walk out.

[xitaqua]

The rotation is just a template, each community needs to custom to their need and figure out where in the process they want to start implementation.

The purpose of the summer camp is to teach the volunteers about robotics so they can teach the students and raise money for robotics. Teams can raise $1000 to $3000 by holding summer camps.

The system is not perfect and it is in different levels of implementation in twelve communities. We have been implementing it since 92'. The goal is to have sustainable learning communities

We are having a cardboard robot contest in Missouri this saturday, with cash prizes raised for the robotics club:
http://www.masrf.net/main_site/pdfs/...bot%20Club.pdf

Cheers,
Mark Chew

[KelliV]

Originally Posted by xitaqua

The system is not perfect and it is in different levels of implementation in twelve communities. We have been implementing it since 92'. The goal is to have sustainable learning communities

I think I'm missing something here. So I have a few questions.

1) Is this a school district where all grades (K-12) are in the same district and share resources?
if so...
1.5a) Do you share resources between age levels? So is the FTC kit with the HS kids one year and Middle School the next?

if not...
1.5b) Is sharing resources between districts possible and how do you go about it?

2) How do you keep sponsorship when teams turnover?

3) How is this better than combining the 12 communities to create a few solid FTC, FLL, and FRC Programs under a 501c3 or something?

4) How many years does it take you to recoup the initial purchase of all LEGO kits for the teams and upkeep as LEGO Mindstorms changes?

[Siri]

Originally Posted by xitaqua

The system is not perfect and it is in different levels of implementation in twelve communities. We have been implementing it since 92'. The goal is to have sustainable learning communities

I'm interested to know how your communities start this setup. We're on stronger footing now, but there was a time when we couldn't dream of investing enough to make FTC viable, and if we'd dropped FRC for FTC, we'd have lost most of our sponsors. The kids are more than happy to volunteer at FLL, but given the number of students that come from FLL or have significant experience otherwise, 3/4s of our team would not grow significantly (in STEM) from this.

How do you engage students? How do you engage sponsors? Engage the community to let you run camps? How do you retain mentors to come back alternating years (or do you not have mentors with FRC-specific skills, etc)? Are all your teams attached to schools? Where are they -- do they all have BEST hubs nearby? How large are the areas they cover and with how many students and mentors? What's the average, 4-year-average, annual budget? Is there anywhere this hasn't worked? How do kids that go through this cycle differently (for FRC or FLL their first year) handle it? Also echoing KelliV's #4, but for FTC.

Originally Posted by xitaqua

We are having a cardboard robot contest in Missouri this saturday, with cash prizes raised for the robotics club:
http://www.masrf.net/main_site/pdfs/...bot%20Club.pdf

Ah, so it is general household materials. I can see that, then. Do you find you have lower engagement in years you don't use the word "LEGO"? We've found elementary schoolers' (parents') ears are uniquely tund to this word. (You should see the interest difference between "Join our Robotics Club" and "Join Our LEGO Robotics Club" at some elementary schools.)

[xitaqua]

Siri,

Thank you for your post, I think the one thing I think is key is to have someone that looks at the program from a long term perspective. My recommendation is 12 years, so if I am starting the program new in a community, I look for parents that have students in Elementary School or teachers. And I coordinate meetings for them at public places such as Yogurt shops. Once you have a core group of 3 to 5 folks, we move the meetings from quarterly to monthlly on telecom.

You bring a good point that LEGO mindstorms bring more folks to join, but that's counter to our strategy, in the beginning we want to find the "hard core students", the ones willing to engage without the "gritter" and once we have those parents engaged, them we discuss with them what platform they like to engage and ideas of fundraising the money.

A key of the program is to be "platform neutral", so we at Mark Chew Academy, we do not favor a platform over another, since we really have no "vested interest".

Once the 3-5 leaders figure out what they like to do, I work with them to find sponsors, and I keep teams at 7-12 students. If there is more interest we split the teams.

I write a paper every year on this subject, the latest published paper is enclosed.

For photos of past activities, checkout us on Facebook and Like Us :
Mark Chew Academy

Cheers,
Marcos.

[xitaqua]

Kelliv,

Thank you for your inquiry, every learning community is different, so the way they fund the assets might be different, some of them do not belong to a school district and might be home schoolers or in another country such as Brazil. All the projects allows everyone to participate, even for teams funded by single gender organizations such as Girls Scouts, I still have male students participating but on a support role. So we try to integrate all levels, so for FLL, we have H.S students as mentors.

Sharing resources depends on the community, and we recommend follow a stakeholder model where we divide the total annual cost by 12 and anyone contributing 1/12 of the budget get's to keep the robot for one month of each year, so for a $12,000 program, if an organization donates $1,000 then that organization owns it for a month, most likelly the organization will let the team keep it, in exchange for demos at their site for the month allocated to them.

We encourage teams not to seek large grants, and look for sponsorship around $500 to $1,000 or no more than 25%. Usually once a team has already started, we use new sponsors to sponsor "demo robots" that will not compete....such as $300 to buy parts to build a right arm for a robot that was built out of cardboard.

Lego Mindstorms you can buy at a toy store for around $300, have a summer camp for 7 students at $50 each, you usually recover over one session. Some teams get the money for LEGO Mindstorm from professional organizations or borrow from other teams in exchange of the summer session fee.

Cheers,
MC

Originally Posted by KelliV

I think I'm missing something here. So I have a few
questions.

1) Is this a school district where all grades (K-12) are in the same district and share resources?
if so...
1.5a) Do you share resources between age levels? So is the FTC kit with the HS kids one year and Middle School the next?

if not...
1.5b) Is sharing resources between districts possible and how do you go about it?

2) How do you keep sponsorship when teams turnover?

3) How is this better than combining the 12 communities to create a few solid FTC, FLL, and FRC Programs under a 501c3 or something?

4) How many years does it take you to recoup the initial purchase of all LEGO kits for the teams and upkeep as LEGO Mindstorms changes?