Advice needed!

FIRST General Forum
1

Hello.

I dont usually post here. Im more of the reader but i felt i needed to ask for the amazing frc community for help. I’ve been with frc for the past 3 years now on my 4th year I am worried for my team 2637 (Peninsula Panthers)… We have gone through way too many troubles some may not even be able to imagine. Between 2years ago and last year we lost 6 amazing mentors with years of frc knowledge. Not to mention our head advisor as well. Our team miraculously was able to make it to the elimination rounds for the 2013 inland empire regional. Though we didnt do amazing we did okay.

one major issue was that half the season consisted of the parent volunteers being taught about frc and how to mentor. Though I have faith in them I fear it may not be enough. Especially since we lost some of our most influential members in the past couple years. It really didnt help that we start this year with our school threatening to cut the team due to lack of funding. Anyone that has gone through their senior year and played their final years in frc know what I mean when I say that I want this year to be different.

Now I am asking for any and all help that you selfless students mentors parents etc can do to help my beloved team out. Not money. I am not asking for pity. Here are some things we could use your help on.

How to get players to join and STAY

How to get companies to sponsor us. Not high companies (ie boeing, raytheon. Our district has a controversy with that long story)

Ways to raise money as a team

Where and how to get frc experienced mentors. Problem with this is our school is unable to pay them. It would have to be volunteering.

How to properly train inexperienced mentors in everything frc.

I cant think of everything. But any help will be gratefully accepted. Again thank you and if you want to contact me my email is [email protected] thank you again.

Hope to see you all in the future,
Kevin

Edit: if you know of links to old threads relating to anything I listed that would be awesome and in sorry if any of thse questions sound repetitive.

2

Hi Kevin,

Lots of questions you ask are problems faced by many FRC teams frequently, so don’t feel that you are alone. The fact that you still have motivated parents is already a great start.

To keep students, honestly, the best you can do is show that it will be fun - go to off season events with the team, show off at pep rallies, etc. Bring students to workshops to learn about how they can contribute. You can never guarantee that the kids will stay, I know Peninsula HS and know how many extra currics you have, but demonstrate the value of being on a team.

Honestly, raising money from small businesses is a very doable goal. Create a fundraising packet and have students go door to door asking for donations. Think of materials you need, call up companies and ask for specific item donations (eg. computers, sheet metal). Read up the FIRST NEMO guides.

If you have a hard time getting mentors, partner with an area team. 294, 330, 1197, and other teams are all in close proximity. Work with them. Most mentors do not work for pay, ask students to see if their parents know engineers who are interested.

Invite new mentors to talk to other mentors, and if you get them early enough, invite them to offseasons to get a better feel of the events and how they run. Battle at the Border in SD is next weekend (Oct 12), and SCRRF Fall Classic in Hollywood is Oct 19.

3

You also should get in touch with your Senior Mentor, they have resources beyond the teams to help. Here is a link to the listing of Senior Mentors by state/region

http://www.usfirst.org/community/volunteers/first-senior-mentor-program

4

Hi Kevin

Take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Feel better?
George had some great things to say especially about partnering with other teams in your area.
Some teams pay there mentors? Sign me up :smiley:
I’ve been doing this for over 14 years and seeing the students design and build a robot is enough pay for me.

One thing we do to raise money is we make a robot catalog. We ask parents/relative/companies to buy parts for out robot. We have parts from $5.00 (a box of rivets) to $5000.00 (regional registration)
We also rent out students for $10 an hour for a pair.

Good luck this year and I hope we see your teams for many years.

5

Dear Kevin,

We went through a similar crisis a few years ago. Sounds like you’ve got three key problems with student retention, mentor retention and funding.

I agree with the responses above that to retain students, you need the program to be fun. A also think it needs to be rewarding to the students and to provide a sense that they’ve accomplished something worthwhile and also learned something valuable. Probably the most valuable things your students learn have nothing to do with engineering or robots, but with how to work as a team and to communicate clearly and effectively.

When I ended up leading 1640, I really had no idea where mentors came from. Parent volunteers are a great start here, particularly those parents having technology backgrounds. Of course, with parent mentors you need to be prepared for their departure with the graduation (or departure otherwise) of their children. If all of your mentors are parent mentors, continuity becomes a challenge. Over 2/3rds of 1640’s mentors are non-parents (of 1640 students). To recruit non-parent mentors, you need to make it easy for them to find you (because by-in-large you cannot find them). This means “advertising”, but in the community sense and not generally in the corporate sense. To retain non-parent mentors, they need to understand that they are doing something worthwhile and also need to become real stakeholders in the team. In 1640, these mentors by-in-large create and maintain the culture. They also need to have fun.

For fundraising (excluding the companies which have specific programs for FIRST grants), we find contacts in local technology companies and make a rational case for FIRST sponsorship. This doesn’t work in every case, but it works often enough to keep us in robot parts and tools.

We also run fundraising events. Some restaurants (such as Applebees) are open to things like pancake breakfast fundraisers. We also host an FLL scrimmage.

Good luck.

6

If you have people joining the fall, then you need to give them an activity that will get them to stay. Build something using wood, do basic competitions, get them into the spirit early, and not only will they stay, but you’ll have a fruitfull FRC season.

Local sponsorships are easier to get if you have a contact into the company (parents working at companies, friend of a parent, etc.). Additionally, you can look into local companies and stores and do cold approaches. You’ll never know until you dig.

You can literally google this for a million ideas. There’s nothing but time that’s stopping you from doing them all. Sell food, host fundraising events, microsponsorships, etc.

Quite a few FRC mentors are volunteers. You can blast a request onto social media (Chief Delphi, Facebook, Twitter, local newspaper, etc. If you get the word out to members of your community, who knows who will be willing to get involved or who is lurking out there.

Additionally, if you’re really struggling to get mentors, perhaps consider moving meetings to accommodate mentors (6-9 PM). It’ll prevent you from deterring new mentors.

So, you want to be careful on this note. It is my opinion, and the opinion of the team, that you want to play to a mentor’s strengths. That is to say that if a mentor isn’t technical, but he or she is strong in finances, see if they can handle your budget and work with the finance folks (raise money, etc.)

If you have mentors who want to be trained in FRC specific material, I’d say that they can use the same material that students use. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found myself using 358’s or 1114’s resources.

  • Sunny G.
7

Another place to find mentors is Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, and youth sports. Many of the adults are ready to move inside when volunteering. Most of our mentors have come with that back ground.

8

Great idea! Your senior mentor, Kevin, is Eileen Kahn, who is great about bringing in resources for teams (She has started a lot of teams up in the Hollywood area).

9

Yeah. what Jimmy Nichols said…and there is a lot of good ideas and suggestions in this thread already.

The first question I would want to ask is “Why?” Why the mentor exodus? Ask “why” 7 times to get to the root cause of the problem. Why did the mentors leave? (They were treated badly) Why were they treated badly? (The main sponsor did not pay for their rooms when the team traveled) Why did the sponsor not pay for their rooms? (The sponsor … you get the idea.)

10

I have a little advice for a few of your concerns.

If your original parent HS is threatening to cut funding it wouldn’t hurt to search for other options, ideally a home where the admin will go out of their way to find you *extra *funding because they believe in your team’s mission as much as you do. Our current home, at a local vo-tech center, is such a place.

Grant applications (local companies as well as the big ones) and fund raising request letters got us enough money to attend two regional events and champs last year. We used to do other things like selling concessions, selling light bulbs, raffles, etc. These events would take a large amount of effort to coordinate and execute and result in relatively little income. The hardest part of letter writing is to identify all potentially interested companies. In-person follow-ups can improve your return if needed. Don’t think of it as ‘asking for money,’ think of it as ‘selling advertising space’ on your robot (hat thousands of people see and may be televised, on your team’s t-shirts, on your team’s website, etc. Show the potential sponsor that sponsoring your team is good for them for more than philanthropy’s sake.

We try to train new mentors along side students during preseason. This includes training former students on how to be mentors because this is a tough transition. We pick an interesting pre-season project, then break the students and mentors into small groups with a specific task, then they work together to complete their task, and then everything is integrated together. I have found that learning for the sake of a short-term goal (like CAD’ing a part needed in an hour or in a week) is far more engaging than learning something abstract because it might be used in 4 months (like going through SolidWorks tutorials in October because in January you might need to CAD part). It also breaks down the rather intimidating task of designing and building a robot into manageable chunks, which keeps students and new mentors from being intimated by it. Being able to check off short-term goals also provides a sense of accomplishment, which keeps students engaged and returning to meetings.

You are not alone. Also, try to take the long view on things: it’s unlikely that everything will be the way you want it this year, or next year, or even four years from now.

Literally none of my mentors were still with 95 when I came back from college to coach, maybe 8-10 of them were lost due to retirement, job changes, moving, personal/professional commitments, mostly harmless reasons. About 50-60 totals years of FRC experience was gone as well all of our access to machining and fab space. We built our next robot with hand tools in a classroom and could only attend one regional. Four seasons later we have a great home in a HS vo-tech shop and CAD lab, attended two regionals and champs, and won our first regional since 2001! I have been exactly in your shoes before, and I am sure you will be able to turn things around, but it will take time. I would suggest being careful and deliberate at this stage, you are essentially rebuilding the foundation of your team, and it must be robust and sustainable if it is going to endure.

11

How to get players to join and STAY
How to get companies to sponsor us. Not high companies (ie boeing, raytheon. Our district has a controversy with that long story)
Ways to raise money as a team
Where and how to get frc experienced mentors. Problem with this is our school is unable to pay them. It would have to be volunteering.
How to properly train inexperienced mentors in everything frc.

  1. we have FIRST Fridays. The first friday of every month is spent on team building games and hanging out. This really gets the new students to feel as if they are part of the group and creates a sense of “team”. It is this sense of “family” that will help you keep your members.
  2. Smaller sponsors. Try putting together a book explaining the program and have members go to small stores and companies. YOu would be surprised how motivating it can be when you promise a portion of each sponsor they bring in will be set aside to pay for their travel to competitions!
    We also find it very helpful with sponsors when the community is aware of your team. Call and set up appointments to visit your town council, mayor, local organizations such as Elks, Lions club, UNICO, Etc. This REALLY helps.
    If your town has a parade…GET IN IT! Visibility is the key to local sponsorships
  3. 195 finds great success bringing our robot and sitting outside store fronts. YOu can raise from $500 to $1000 per day. Especially if you can hit a grocery store before a holiday. Remember to have a nice display, pictures, robots etc.
  4. There aren’t any experienced FRC members (well there are very few). The reality is you have to grow them from within. Get them to drink the FIRST kool aide. Enthusiasm of the students is key to the mentors staying and WANTING to be there. Try to ask parents of key students who have graduated to STAY with the team! Our team has mostly mentors that use to be parents many years ago…now empty nesters…we still support and mentor the team. Also on mentors…it is just as important for them to bond as it is your team members. See if one of your mentors is willing to host a mentor appreciation night where they can just hang out together, bond and grow as friends. This is key to having the group be tight nit and stay together year after year.
  5. I think it is important to write everything down. Do you have a handbook? if not, get one from another team and modify it. Many teams have these open and available. Take the time to have “mentor training” classes where they can ask questions.
    never underestimate the value of team building, bonding, etc. This is key to success of the team.