Has anyone in the past or currently hosted a FRC team with a middle school. If so what did you think and if you have experience with a high school FRC team how did the two compare.
I believe there is a team in Arizona or Texas(Maybe there’s one in both?) that is a middle school team. Then there’s a high school team in the same district.
Also there are plenty of teams that are a K-12 school (ie. 330) that allow younger kids on the team, or non-school affiliated teams that allow younger students on the team (1902).
EDIT: The team I was thinking of was team 1484 from Texas. http://www.thebluealliance.com/team/1484
Unfortunately, it appears that they didn’t compete this season.
Team 155 is a middle school team and has been competing strong since 1994. There used to be a high school team in the same town but they stopped competing after the 1996 season.
That would probably be a big concern of mine with starting a middle school team. I would hate for students to do FRC for 3 years in middle school then go up to the high school where there is no such thing.
I’d also be concerned about stretching the resources available too thin. In 2011, we were struggling to come up with the money to go to Championships after winning in Virginia. Our board of education stepped in and paid for our registration. Imagine if there were two FRC teams (one at the middle school and another at the high school). I just think there would be a constant competition for sponsors, even if they went in together and agreed to split the contributions.
Wouldn’t struggling for sponsors be a huge concern in areas with 2 High school FRC teams too? Thats one of my biggest concerns about getting Funds when 2 or more teams are in the Windsor - Essex area. but then again there are a ton of manufacturing plants, and a lot of factories (right across from Detroit).
Sorry if this seems really ignorant, but I thought to compete in FRC you had to be in grades 9-12? I must be wrong if some towns have middle school teams. This would actually be great for my team if we could allow in 7th and 8th graders. We have a really hard team recruiting since we’re not through a school. Could someone verify this?
FIRST states that high school is FRC’s intended audience, but makes no black and white rules about who can and cannot participate. Many teams limit participation to these age groups for their own reasons, but nothing says that your team has to.
During several Coaches Calls last year, the presenters admitted that there was some “leeway” on the minimum age, with FIRST deferring to the team coach to determine if the young child was mature enough to deal with competition at that level, BUT the maximum age would be strictly enforced.
Yes, that would also definitely be a concern. However, neighboring towns is not the same as being in the same town. If someone started another team in one of the other Brunswicks, sure there would be some competition for sponsorship, but we would at least still hopefully be able to rely on North Brunswick residents. There are towns, of course, that have multiple teams and it works for them. It just might be risky to go ahead and started a middle school team in a town without an existing program for both the funding reason and because it would really kind of suck to be on a team in middle school, have a great time, and then get to high school with nothing to continue that.
I totally understand why people wouldn’t want to do FLL. I think FTC might be a good solution in that case. It’s a step up from FLL and a step down from FRC and would probably work well. If the students want even more of a challenge, then going up to FRC can be explored.
There is enough of a problem with FRC teams starting up and not being able to sustain themselves. Obviously, it has worked in the past (and works quite well for 155 apparently), but I just don’t know if middle school students would be able to handle FRC. It is a lot to take on, even for high school freshmen. It seems risky to me considering where 11-13 year olds tend to be in the social, emotional, and cognitive development and whether that’s really compatible with the environment created by FRC.
Just to throw a wrench into the discussion, school districts vary throughout the country and world such that the terms “middle school” and “high school” can encompass non-traditional definitions. I know of at least one district where “high school” is just juniors and seniors. In another middle school is 6-9th grade.
As a counter to your argument, high schools are generally more spaced out than the high school/middle school clusters. High schools have a strong community build up around them and an almost definitely area to call their own.
I believe there are 3-4 high schools that partake in FRC in gwinnett county, and all three high schools are kind of right next to each other. We’ve managed to stay off each others’ toes.
- Sunny G.
To answer many of the concerns raised. With 155, they allow the high school students to come back and work on the team. The reason the high school team dropped out was because of burnout from the mentors. Otherwise, they had the resources to maintain the two teams. The Techno-nuts are from a small town with only one middle school and one high school.
As for having multiple teams in one town, I now work with a team in Worcester, MA and we have had as many as 7 FRC teams in our city. Back then it was a struggle to find sponsorships and make sure we weren’t accidentally asking a small company that was already sponsoring another team. Of the 7 teams, 3 are left (the others went to Vex). All three now have the same main sponsor and each have other smaller sponsors. The Vex teams, FRC teams, and FTC teams are all fighting for the same sponsors but luckily there are a lot of companies and with the economy getting better it is getting easier to find sponsors.
Just to confirm what the others have said: The only distinction FIRST makes, at least with FRC, is that a student is pre-college. (JFLL, FLL, and FTC are a little stricter, IIRC). Any further minimum age is left up to the teams; I joined in grade 8, along with a couple other students on 330. It was several years before another student under grade 9 joined officially, though.
Confirming what EricH said above, officially the only mention of age for FRC is pre-college. I had to look before the 2011 season when I made the mistake of giving middle school students (7th graders mostly) the option of competing in FRC or VEX and they chose FRC. There was no problems with it officially but I was very nervous of having incredibly young children around power tools. We had to have some very specific rules regarding use of the larger machines (students under a certain age were not allowed to use the mill or the lathe). The biggest problem we ran into was that many of the students were so small that they couldn’t actually use the tools. Crimping wires was a pretty funny sight to be honest.
That being said, I think these students got it in a way I’d never seen before. They added a lot of value to the team and I’m glad we gave them the chance. Probably wouldn’t do it again though, simply put, I think that most of these students would have been better served by competing in FTC or VEX as it would have given them more chances to iterate which is important at that age.
Confirming a confirmation…I agree with Andrew when he says that the younger kids add value to a team. My high school team had 5th graders (considered to be middle school in my district) on the team for two consecutive years. (One only did the year, the other was our lead mentor’s daughter. Also at the time, we didn’t have any program in place in the district for them.*) They brought a unique element to design, as they saw the world in a totally different light than the high schoolers or the adult mentors. It’s similar to the jokes that ask how do you put an elephant in to a refrigerator?
You open the door and put the elephant in.
How do you put a giraffe in a refrigerator?
You open the door, take the elephant out and put the giraffe in. (Duh!) 
A pre-schooler or a kindergartener will get this right more often than not. An adult however is baffled.
*Not saying I completely agree with them being on the team, but it wasn’t my call, they learned a lot, made the team better, and safeguards were in place so they wouldn’t be harmed.
Just remember safety and logistics. Will parents be okay with their 12 year old using x, y, and z tools/can they use them safely? Will they need constant supervision at events or will they be allowed to roam freely?
My experience with middle schoolers through FLL make me think the answers would be no, but its up to whomever is starting the team to determine if that is enough to shut down the idea.
I don’t think having middle school (in my school district, that was 6-8 grade) students on the team is an issue. I just think having a team run entirely by middle schoolers is risky in a number of ways that I’ve previously stated.