The farm system for our FRC team is… non-existent, and I’m looking to rectify that. Our middle school does have a team, but participation is spotty at best. And to my knowledge, our elementary schools do not have an FLL program. I’m wondering what order of events to undertake:
I had thought of working with our middle school to fill up their program, since it’s already somewhat established, then working down to the elementary schools. I then realized that might put them in the same boat that we’re currently in, with no program before them. So maybe we establish the elementary program, then work forwards?
Our FRC team is relatively small, so I don’t have a lot of students to spread across, and I’m wondering how best to go about this. TIA!
Can you elaborate on what you mean by “farm system?” Are you referring to a series of programs in elementary and middle schools (namely FLL and/or FTC) that feed interested students in to your FRC team?
The easiest way we built retention was starting with FLL at elementary age will feed middle school FLL which can feed your FTC and FRC programs. Generally there is always wash so the higher up you go the less teams needed.
It depends a bit on how your school district is structured. For us, we have 1 high school, 4 middle schools, and 12 elementary schools. It would be a lot harder for us to try to start 12 FLL teams than 4 FTC teams (or even just 1 FTC team at the high school and allow devoted middle schoolers to come attend that).
I think a lot of districts operate this way, as elementary schools tend to be smaller and closer to the students/more distributed throughout the city/county.
It’s actually fairly straightforward from what I’ve seen, as long as you have some teams locally.
Really all you gotta do is communicate to students and parents: “If you found value in FLL, here’s the next step”
It’s good to identify what value people find in FLL - for us, it’s a solid mix - some people see the mission/vision overall valuable, some people see the tech skills as more valuable, some people see “building robots is cool!” and that implies value… Tailoring the message for the assumptions of the audience (and the age) will help.
But in terms of actual work… lots of low-effort options. 10 minute sessions where you present to the lower-level teams… Just talking to coaches, and getting them to talk to their team members… Inviting teams to a build night or a competition… things like that.
They’ll have a big impact. Spread your net wide, there’s plenty of folks interested in FRC but need to be shown concretely what the steps are to join
To start I would recommend getting to know the administration and teachers of your target schools as you need to know how friendly they will be to having a FLL/FTC teams.
Then you need to think of mentors, are your current mentors willing/able to take on that load? What about the high school students, does your school system allow them to volunteer at the other schools and how would they get to the other schools?
I would start where you can find the teacher/mentor who wants to do this and is going to commit to becoming a part of your greater program. If it’s in FLL at the elementary level help them get that off the ground. Maybe its bringing someone else on board at the middle school. Committed teachers will bring students with them and help set a standard for what additional programs in the district need to be.
I’m unsure if it’s the best approach, but I’ll share what our FRC team has done in a similar sounding situation. We are in a town of ≈6,000 people that has one elementary school and one middle school. We’ve had an we’ve had an FTC team since around 2011 but I’m not exactly sure how we were using it until i joinrd in 2019. Essentially we’re an FRC team that usually has 12-20 active participants.
In fall of last year, we reintroduced our FTC team as a middle school program and had enough interest to require creating a second team. I’m not sure on what worked the best for recruiting, but we went to multiple middle school orientation type events as well as attending our local summer farmer’s market monthly. Every event we attend, we have an FTC field with the previous year’s FTC bot and two 2-wheel-drive printed mini-robots. We’d encourage kids to try driving around the printed bots and sometimes the FTC one.
For 2024, we got more interest in our FTC teams and we had to create a third. We also exchanged the printed robots for a kit robot pictured below (we have ≈5). We also out the blocks from rover ruckus/Freight frenzy on the field so they can move them around/stack them.
We’ve also intended to get FLL teams up again for a while. This fall our lead mentor worked with some parents who had an interest in starting it up and they have gotten 2 teams running. We’d be happy to be more involved in the future, but we’re currently letting them do their own thing (although maybe providing financial support?) Anyway, we’re saying that they’re in the PHRED PHamily of teams.
Sorry if that was too much information, but I hope there was something helpful within.
We have a small school district and haven’t had the resources to start a FTC team yet. We still get good recruitment because we opened the team to 8th graders (share the same school building). The important part is getting students interested before high school, as that’s when a lot of other extracurricular options open up.
We started a new FRC team 6242 specifically for 8th graders and 9th graders. We are using it as a tool for developing in a calmer manner instead of jumping straight into a sub team and we wanted it to be as non-intimidating as possible
It certianly wouldn’t be a bad thing to do. My school system only recently revitalized our FTC team, whereas before we only had 2 FLL teams. Students graduating elementary school would not find a team in middle school to join and would fall off. I have seen a significant increase in FRC participation since our FTC and been brought back too life. We also now have our own “rookie” team at the high school level for high school students and new students to the program.
