Here in Oregon we have come together into what we call FIRST Force. 7 teams that share ideas and fund raise as a group. The Force goes to larger companies (HP in our case) and asks for support. It is great. The teams came together and did a scrimmage last spring in their parking lot for the employees. And this fall they made it happen…
Anywhere there is more than one team in an area this is the way to do it.
My team, #95, gets students from 5 highschools plus homeschooled kids, we have about 18 kids in total, myself included, and 6 engineers, all from different companies. Job or school boundaries shouldn’t mean anyhting in FIRST. As for funding… all of our funding was pulled, as well as our workspace. We had nothing as of June, but after asking around about who knows who in local companies, we scraped up $9.5k and workspace in a little under 2 months. Don’t loose hope fellow FIRST teams, just rally together and work hard.
Joseph - Do you know of any huge VA company that would be willing to help out multiple teams? (I was thinking Dominion VA Power.) With this being a rural area and already having sponsorship from the only large company around here it is hard to find other businesses or people willing to sponsor us even though we placed second at VCU this year. A rookie team starting less than 15 minutes away from us and FIRST raising entry fees didn’t help either.
Very interesting warning. In Northern Virginia, we experienced a similar problem where there are so many teams in such a concentrated area that fund raising was nearly impossible. We eventually had to turn to our own school as one of our main sources of fund raising. It’s very hard in First populated cities to keep a team going. We almost did not make the entry fee this year and may have folded after one year. As far as I am concerned, I think that FIRST should regulate team formation. Even though spreading the program is a good thing, sometimes there are just too many teams in one area. Therefore, if a school wanted to start a new team in an already crowded area, FIRST would say no. While this seems to be hindering the creative potential of many students, that school should then seek to join in an alliance with another school and form a two school team. This would cuts down on the number of students not participating at all. FIRST should definitely consider a system like this.
The quest for funding really can be a quest, and it is generally a required for Robotics in general. But I agree that there is a difference between a quest and mission impossible. Pretty soon, at an exponential growth rate, FIRST prices may end up being a significant portion of the American (and International, at that) Economy. In addition, there has been a recession, and although it is getting better, it is doing that at a VERY SLOW pace. This takes away profits that could otherwise go to teams. It is very sad that this is happening, because teams suffer and fold because of it. I think it is time for massive government funding of the FIRST program, to rescue teams like 384 that are really suffering. I agree that this is one (although the ONLY) downside of FIRST.
384 is not suffering by any measure, but many local teams are. Just want to clarify that.
I think they are funding us already through something known as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
So, what are other teams that didn’t make it doing this year?
I think we’ll be having some sort of para-FIRST comp, and working on 3ds max.
Team 1541 had a great season, we loved every minute of it. We are from Midlothian High School, and I feel that starting a team here was a great move for us. We exposed the FIRST program to a whole new audience, myself included, who would not have gotten into it had it not been for the new team. We worked really hard to fundraise, we had a massive aluminum can drive and brought in close to 3000 pounds worth of cans. We also got a good amount of sponsors, mostly through parents and friends. Basically, all I’m saying is FIRST has definately changed my life, and if my school hadn’t started a team I would never have been a part of it.
I guess we are lucky at George Washington High School in Danville. I first started looking into FIRST in the mid 90’s but knew funding would be an issue for this area at that time. As time has passed and things evolved I was approached by the Superintendent and Director of Gifted Resources to do an enrichment program after school dealing with robotics and knew that FIRST was the ticket. We have had a great build season and look forward to VCU. Our team is mentored by 5 teachers and the Work Services Coordinator from the school. We have not gotten any outside help or sought any outside funding. The district officials seem to be very excited about what we have done and the effect it has had on these students. If all School Districts would or could help in this way it would be great and take the pressure off outside funding sources when times are tight.
As I read through this thread it occurred to me. This is like a business that has only one customer. When that one customer stops buying, the company folds. Answer to the problem, get more customers. Some teams are very lucky to have a single sponsor that can meet their fincial needs. The problem comes when that sponsor can’t continue to support them; the team folds. The answer is get more sponsors. For a team or business to have a long range future it needs to have a broad support base. All the money doesn’t have to 9in fact shouldn’t) come from one place. Get out and beat the pavement a little and you’ll find that there are a lot of smaller companies willing to pick up part of the bill. Build a relationship with your community. Show them that in order to have technically capable people to fill their jobs they need to be supporting organizations like FIRST. Don’t take this as bragging but during robot season we get the community involved. Many of the local businesses post “Go Robotics Team 343” on billboards outside their place of business. Places like McDonnalds, the Local Auto Parts Store. The Boat Dealer, etc. Our team is not sponsored by a single company it is sponsored by what we call “The Oconee County Business Partnership”. Sure it’s more work but if your goal is to have the team live on then just like in business you need to work to diversify you income base.
As nukemknight said, their is a new team 15 mins away. That’s the Franklin team I sponsor. nukemknight is from team 616, in Courtland. 616 didn’t participate this year because of a lot of complicated politics that I don’t feel like explaining… but part of the problem was corporate funds in the area.
The big business around here is small potatoes compared to some of the other localities that other teams are in. With the creation of the Franklin team, the available funds were cut in half and both teams suffered last year. This year the teams wanted to merge together in order to put the corporate funds together and push their team forward. This failed due to the politics I spoke about earlier and 616 is the one that noticeably suffered. Not to say that 1610 didn’t suffer. They lost the mentors that 616 was bringing to the table as well as the additional students to assist in the work load and the experience with FIRST that came with them.
I believe that every high school ought to be involved in FIRST, that’s not to say they have to have their own team. If you’re team finds itself close to another team, you ought to work together toward the common goal. Which isn’t winning, it’s learning. Hopefully the school boards in this neck of the woods will learn that before next year’s season.
How to cut a cake in Robotics…
First, get the cake
Second, get the saws all
Third, you cut the cake with the saws all… And the cake pieces go flying :yikes:
Hahah, Team 1730 has so much fun 
So this thread was resurrected by fluke but I think it could serve as a learning tool for teams looking at sustainability. The thread is from 2005 but we are still facing these problems. Of these teams here is where they stand 7 years later (I took the team list from 2012 as some teams may not have registered yet). Green means they are still around Red means they did not register in 2012. If you are an alumni of some of these teams and it turns out you just merged please let the CD community know how that went.
346 L.C. Bird - Chesterfield
384 Tucker - Richmond
405 Richmond Community High School & Richmond Public School & Richmond Community High School
414 Hermitage Tech. Center - Richmond
416 Armstrong - Richmond Now 3709
422 Maggie Walker - Richmond
539 Trinity - Richmond
540 VCU/Henrico Education Foundation - Richmond
638 Clover Hill - Midlothian
975 James River - Midlothian
1033 - Benedictine - Richmond
1086 -
1093 Collegiate - Richmond
1172 Richmond Tech Center - Richmond
1222 ???
1467 Home School Robotice - Chesterfield
1522 Hanover High - Mechanicsville
1530 Thomas Jefferson - Richmond Now 2998
1541 Midlothian High - Midlothian
1545 Freeman High - Richmond
1599 Atlee - Mechanicsville
Nearly 50% of these teams no longer exist in the same form that they did in 2005. Two have created new teams in the past 4 years. Let’s not let that happen in the future. Pay attention to sustainability and make sure you guys all have a rainy day plan Ed Baker posted a link in this thread to a presentation that was adapted from 234’s at Worlds.
I added an old team, and added some information
Actually $10,000 is a lot of money. Quite a lot of money. Our team has spent many long hard months doing car washes, light bulb sales at a variety of venues, other fund raising events, restaurant fund raisers, etc. We have also had the students out tracking down and following up on just about any source for donations, grants, etc. The students and adult volunteers are worn out worn out from all the fund raising and yet at this point we only have approximately $5000 raised for the year. That is enough for registration at one event, but nothing else. No spare parts, no supplies, no tools, no extras of any kind.
Our fund raising efforts are ongoing, but at this point we will probably not be working with much more. There was a time when we got some financial support from the school district, and that made things easier. But at this point we are lucky to have our school supply some space for meetings. We also used to get more cooperate sponsorship, but most local companies have dropped all support and it takes a lot of work to raise even $5000 if most of your corporate donations are less than $100. I wish we were a town with have a JC Penny or other company that supports FIRST, but for now we need to just chase as many small donations as we can. The economy is tight and in some areas there is just not a lot of money available.
Still, I would hate to see our team decide to merge with another local high school. I know if that happened many of the students would just have no way of making it to meetings on a regular basis and would drop out of the program. I know there are companies that really understand FIRST and are willing to make a significant contribution. There are also locations where fund raising events can solicit a more significant response. But please do not assume these opportunities exist for most of the teams out there.
This thread raises some very key points.
To give some level of summary, the critical components which contribute to the FIRST experience include:
I think we can all agree that we would like to see as many students have the opportunity available to them to participate in a FIRST program in their community. Considering that agreement, students are not the limiting factor towards growth for FIRST.
Sponsorship has become significantly harder to secure for many teams, both in rural, suburban, and urban areas. Companies have cut back, though many do still maintain a high level of commitment to the FIRST program and the services it offers. It is veyr true that with a local regional it can be possible to build and compete with a simple robot for around $10,000. This sum of money, though not small, is significantly smaller than the many teams whose annual opperating budgets exceed $40,000. Ultimately from the discussion on money, we can conclude that though operating at a higher budget is becoming more difficult, we seem to somehow survive by cutting back on projects, and sharing resources within our areas.
The fundamental limiting factor that I wish to raise on the subject of new teams and the growth of FIRST in geographic areas which are already dense with team participation is the topic of mentorship. Industry mentors are critical to the success of a team, and the inspiration of students. It isnt that our teachers are bad, but they need help and often times do not have the hands-on engineering experience to lead the design and construction of an FRC robot. Mentors are absolutely critical and I think if you talked to any FIRST team mentor they will tell you just how much time they dedicate to the program (whether sponsored by work or not). The problem with so many new teams is that there are not enough active mentors able to support them.
This sentiment is shared with first hand experience. I am a mentor for ILITE Robotics (1885) and Herndon High School Robotics (116) in Northern VA. As has already been said, yes we are much better off in the DC area than other areas with FIRST due to the high number of engineering companies and government contracting ($$) BUT this year resources have become more tight and the persistance of several local teams at starting new rookie teams as opposed to opening their team to numerous high schools has split valuable sponsorship and spread the critical mentorship thin.
Gary Dillard said it perfectly:
Splitting into 2 teams to get “credit” for growth is the wrong type of growth, as would creating a rookie team at the new school instead of including them with us.
If a team is looking to promote growth for FIRST, I would recommend looking towards setting up ladder programs such as FLL and FTC and opening your teams doors to students in your entire community. FLL and FTC are WAY cheaper, and operate with systems which are much easier for non-engineering parents to become involved.
PLEASE: Heed this warning, and understand good mentors are even harder to find than sponsors. (So go thank your mentors… I know I do every day)
I agree with many of the comments you made, however, this statement above is much harder to do than you may think.
Most of the teams in my local area, Richmond VA, are based out of local high schools. These schools have rules regarding who may participate in their extracurricular activities. Students from different schools in the same county may not be able to participate. To bring Joe Student into your school for robotics would be troubling to many school administrators.
How does this thread keep getting bumped?
By fluke, and then by re-analysis. I think what KelliV did a good follow-up to the warning from a few years ago. With that said, I wonder if the warning has any merit – are the teams no longer registered to due (natural) attrition or primarily due to funding issues caused by donors being spread too thin?
