Posted by colleen, Student on team #126, Gael Force, from Clinton High School and Nypro.
Posted on 5/12/99 6:23 PM MST
Does anyone know exactly how many colleges are part of a sponsorship of teams?
working off my idea below, if there aren’t that many… maybe someone (i suppose i’m volunteering myself, but i don’t mind) can email then individually asking for a letter or an outline of their programs, etc. for those cool people like dan who are taking on the starting of a team where they are heading to this fall…
(if anyone knows off-hand, at the advice of Mrs Trax i’ll be emailing lori, so i can ask her too)
colleen
Posted by Frank, Coach on team #97, Psychedelics, from CRLS and MIT.
Posted on 5/12/99 7:07 PM MST
In Reply to: How many colleges have teams? posted by colleen on 5/12/99 6:23 PM MST:
Well the MIT team has been in existance for a few years now, but it
almost completely changes membership every year or two. Here’s how
we’re set up.
Money…
The Institute gives us very little for being a student group here. We
get most of our funding through sponsorships from local businesses and
individuals. It’s really hard to get enough…couuntless hours of
calling companies and telling them about FIRST. Luckilly the Cambridge
area is very receptive to technology programs. We’re still one of the
lower budget teams though and couldn’t afford buttons this year and
a few other staple items. We sacraficed these for allowing almost the
whole team to travel to FL.
Participation…
The robot is designed by the CRLS high school students and MIT
participants (all students). We build in a machine shop on campus
and train the high school students in use of the machines before the
competition so that they can use them when the time comes. We have
no MIT faculty members involved in the competition and no teachers
from the high school. We’re entirely student run.
Travel…
This year we attended the NJ Regional and FL. We rented a van and
chartered a bus for the regional and arranged for shuttles to get us to
the airport for FL. For both competition a small group went down on Wed.
night and the rest ofthe team arrived for the competition days.
Well that’s all I have time to write. If anyone has any questions
about the way we make a university team work, feel free to ask!
Frank
Team #97 MIT/CRLS - '99
Team #111 WildStang - '96-'98
Posted by Daniel, Student on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Henry M Gunn Senior High School and NASA Ames.
Posted on 5/12/99 7:19 PM MST
In Reply to: An outline of the MIT team (#97) posted by Frank on 5/12/99 7:07 PM MST:
Thanks for doing that! Colleen had a great idea, I’d love to hear how some of the other teams are run too!
One question. You work in the MIT shop, but how does the administration deal with the liability of having high school students in there?
Also, do you build the robot in the shop, or do you bring machined parts to some other location?
These are exactly the issues I’m working on at Cal right now, so any input would be very helpful.
I’ll see you in Florida…
-Daniel
Posted by Frank, Coach on team #97, Psychedelics, from CRLS and MIT.
Posted on 5/13/99 7:35 AM MST
In Reply to: Thanks! Question time… posted by Daniel on 5/12/99 7:19 PM MST:
They let the students use most of the equipment as long as they are
directly supervised and have gone through that training I spoke of.
We assemble the robot in the shop while parts are being finished.
It’s all in one place.
OK…now back to studying for finals 
Frank
Posted by Jon, Engineer on team #190, Gompei, from Mass Academy of Math and Science and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Posted on 5/17/99 6:44 PM MST
In Reply to: An outline of the MIT team (#97) posted by Frank on 5/12/99 7:07 PM MST:
This is my first year with WPI but i’ve learned a bit about this team so i’ll share it with y’all.
The WPI team has been in existency since back in 1993 (rug rage i think…), and its membership is made up of around 40 ‘students’ (MAMS juniors and seniors & WPI undergrad and grad) and 5 ‘coaches’ (i call’m grownups).
The robot is designed and built by the ‘students’ (mostly the HS kids in brainstorming sessions) and everyone who wants to learn to use a machine gets to. The actual machining is done by whoever has the skill needed to make it happen and the actual building happens in a WPI machine shop.
The drivers and human players are HS kids, the on-stage coaches are wpi, and the grownups end up bestowing those tid-bits of knowledge that can only be learned by experience.
All of the branches of the team have students which share the responsability with either a wpi or coach representative.
The team seems to have a good deal of variety to it as people move in and out of the reach of the team.
We have a range from wide-eyed HS juniors and WPI undergrad who’ve never seen the competition to veteran WPI undergrad that came from the HS level with 4 years of experience already!
Travel
We went to the Philly and Hartford regionals, and Orlando for the grand-finale.
During that time between shipping deadline and regionals, we designated the Travel Team which was composed of the drivers/human players (squad 1 and squad 2), WPI/HS pit crew, mini-intelligence branch, and a grownup to reign over the chaos.
For Philly, the travel team rented a 15pax van and drove 5hrs from Worcester to Philly on wednesday while the rest of the entourage took a comfy bus and showed up fashionably late on friday to serve as a cheering squad in eliminations.
For Hartford, we’re close enough (