Can you start another FIRST team in the same school? I ask this because our current team is no longer a club, but is part of another program(which has requirements that I think excludes students from FIRST) . I would like to start another FIRST team but as a robotics club, I would like to keep it this way so every student to have an equal chance of joining.
any suggestions or ideas you can share with me???
100% allowed. Talk to Martians (494) and More Martians (70) both out of Goodrich HS
Yes.
In NYC, Westinghouse High School have Team 354 & Team 2681.
In Bronx Science High School have Team 1155 & Team 2265.
Also team 340 (GRR) and 424 (GRR2) from Churchville-Chili High School in Churchville, NY.
do you have to have a minimum number of students to start the other team?
It’s certainly allowed. There’s questions though -
- Will your new team be welcomed by the school administration?
- Do you have mentor support?
- Do you have financial support?
- Will there be hard feelings between the two teams?
everythings ok, but we need to work on the financial part of it
Here’s my perspective on these 4 questions:
Will your new team be welcomed by the school administration?
More than you could ever imagine.
Do you have mentor support?
We share two mentors, but the girls have a separate advisor and seperate mentors.
Do you have financial support?
Yes, but it takes that much more work to fundraise. Each team is now in a competition to bring in the most money and do the most community outreach.
Will there be hard feelings between the two teams?
Not at all (unless one’s on red and the other is on blue for a match). It’s like one giant family really.
We’re in our second season of 2 teams/1 school and couldn’t be happier. If you have any questions or need help setting up the second team, feel free to PM me.
Aewsome! Thanks for the offer, because we are seriously considering breaking off and forming a new team.Just one question…
Most people who know team 647 know us for our military image,
with a new number, what will people recognize us as?
they can be army while we will be air force,it will be like branches of the military(but were cooler:D )
It could be the Brigade, the Unit, the Force…etc.
Or, you could be the Cyber (other animal) Corps.
Cyber Tooth Corps ?
The wolves comes from our school mascot, but I kinda like the Cyber wolf/pack Force
I like that
sounds kool:D
Being an Alumni of 340 and 424, I can say that having two teams is a great idea for a school! Please visit their website here for information on the two teams. Click the links on the left hand side for information on these teams.
International Academy had two teams for some time. The founder of team 469 did so because they did not get into the original team (which does not exist anymore) and realized first was about inspiring everyone, not the select few that already knew what they were doing.
The administration did not like it, the other team did not like it and the rest of the school was rather sceptical. Yet, 9 years later, 469 stands as the only AI robotics team to remain, and it has been decently succesful over the years.
I would encourage you to also communicate with FIRST HQ early on in the process to determine whether or not the new team would be considered a rookie team, based on the criteria for the coming year or receive a recycled number.
Having two teams in our school is great!! And don’t worry about one team on the blue alliance and the other on the red, what we do is cheer for purple!
When I scanned through the other answers, I don’t think I saw anyone get to the real heart of this matter.
As far as I know, an FRC team is required to have at least one student that has not graduated from High School (USA) yet, one responsible adult, and $6000 to give to a FIRST regional. There might be a few other criteria, but If there are, I don’t think that they would enter into this discussion.
In the sense that matters in this conversation, schools are nearly irrelevant. A school could lend its support to 20 FRC teams if it cared to. A school could choose to lend it’s support to none if it cared to.
What matters is the that the students and the responsible adults choose to form a team, figure out from where to get their funding, and where to do their work. Often a school (equipped with motivated educators) is the best choice. That is a large part of why there is often a 1-to-1 correspondence between teams and schools; but that doesn’t limit teams to affiliating with just one school or limit schools to assisting just one team.
Blake