any one know a good way of trying to start a new team? i was on a team in high school and had a blast and wanted to see how i could go about starting a team in the area. any ideas or tips would be awesome.
Try presenting to a school in your area. First the school and try to find a teacher that is extremely interested in it!
If you want, I can ask my team to help. 
Awesome! Yeah just go to local schools and present them the idea. It’s really easy to get one started especially when you consider the educational benefits and the lessons taught in robotics are priceless.
Approaching the local school is a good first step.
There are a lot of good resources available for organizing and running a team on the FIRST site, especially:
http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/content.aspx?id=14034
Also, look under Marketing Resources.
Also, the NEMO (Non-Engineering mentor Organization) provides a lot of great resources: http://www.firstnemo.org
There’s a lot to starting and running an FRC team besides building robots. NEMO has an excellent forum here on Chief Delphi.
Good Luck! Let us know if you need help!
I have started 3 possibly 4 new teams just this year. I started with the superintendant and pointed out the benefits such as having local businesses and large corporations work with them. I gave them a few days and either emailed or called them back to set up an appointment with them. If I didn’t get anywhere I went to the principal. I also mentioned the local scholarships available for the kids.
In these trying day financially, most schools are struggling. A week or so ago I called a district and asked if they wanted to join. I got a resounding no. Today my phone rang and it was the same school who thought about it and changed their minds. They now have 2 teachers who want to help get it going.
Look for a district that has a FLL but no FRC. Explain that this is the next step. Usually once they have taken part of FIRST they want to continue.
Good Luck!!
When you approach the school, take a multi-level approach.
- Find an enthusiastic teacher. Most likely in the sciences or math. Possibly in Tech Ed. Success here will help a lot.
- Find out which school board members and administrators are science/technology advocates. Work with them. Use the FIRST marketing information for backup. Find out what they need and see how FRC addresses this. There’s a bit of marketing and salesmanship needed here. Some information here could/should be available on web, but most likely you will need to attend a few school board meetings and observe.
- Is there a parents’ organization which could be interested? Parents can apply a great deal of influence if they are so inclined.
- Are there interest groups in the community you can tap into; groups with special interest in the quality of technology education available?
Hope this helps. Don’t be shy if you’ve got questions.
Again, bon chance!
Have you considered starting with an FTC team? It is too late for this year, but some schools may be more willing to fund FTC the first year. After a year or so in FTC, they may be willing to start an FRC team as well.
And don’t forget that you don’t need a school. If you have a community group, 4H, Scout troop, community center, you can approach them as well. there are many teams that are not associated with any school.
The main items you need are:
Money
Place to build
Tools
Coaches
FIRST has new pages and brochures specifically on How To Start a Team (although I think their money estimates are low).
FTC: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/ftc/content.aspx?id=14666
FRC: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/content.aspx?id=5504
Good luck! FIRST needs people like you to keep the program alive!
I think it’s a great second step. To keep in line with FIRST’s mission, I’d suggest first finding a local technical/engineering/scientific organization that’s willing to sponsor a team. Then have someone who represents that organization be the one to approach the schools.
That is basically how FRC got started 19 years ago, with FIRST finding companies to commit to providing mentorship and technical resources, and those companies in turn finding schools to partner with.
I don’t want to be a killjoy here, but if you’re a college freshman, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend mentoring a team, let alone starting one. It’s a tremendous drain on time that in later years (say, sophomore and junior) you won’t have as much of.
Instead, see what competition teams your school has and get involved in one of those–or start one, if they don’t have one. I personally find that SAE Aero Design takes up enough time that I wouldn’t be able to mentor FRC–my FIRST involvement these days is limited to CD and maybe a regional over spring break.
Or, get involved with a regional committee or other support organization. If you do start a team, you’ll want to at least talk with that group anyway (great third step, or maybe second).
At some point you may want an existing team to give a demonstration. We may be the closest team to you and we have lots of students that love showing off this years robot, Tin Man V. I can’t promise as I am just one of the mentors but if at some point you want to do this let me know and I can ask the team.
And you plan on supporting these 3 or 4 teams how? Will it negatively impact your team in any way? Would it have been more beneficial to have included these schools in your team (or another local team) first before starting off so they could hit the ground running? There are a lot of ways to give students access to FRC and starting a team is not always the most prudent choice.
Growth is good but unsupported growth is bad. I would rather see a slower growth that we can maintain.
My team will be fine. 1 team already has 12 engineers and 4 teachers, another has 1 engineer and 2 teachers and the other 2 teams has 2 teachers as well.
Sure,
Plant about about 6 FLL teams in elementary schools, nurture them as they grow into 2-3 VRC/FTC teams at middle schools, and then harvest the FRC team that develops either when the first couple of student cohorts enter high school, or when they are ready to graduate from FTC/VRC.
As the FRC team is gestating, be sure to pay special attention to ensuring the roots created by the FLL, VRC and FTC teams get sunk deeply into the fabric of the community; and that the vines that start to spread out from the core group (to create a broad base of (more) FLL/VRC/FTC teams) get plenty of attention too, so that they can take root.
Don’t try to rush the processes. Growing upward too fast, or spreading out too much, can weaken core of the organism you are creating; and that can become fatal.
When the time comes to harvest the FRC fruit, I predict you will have a well-trained cadre of mentors, a business and political community that recognizes the value of flourishing STEM education opportunities, and students who are ready to grab onto the benefits of FRC with both hands. I predict a great “rookie” season.
On the other hand, you could try to create the team, the community support, the well-organized students, the mentors who have learned to work well with each other, and everything else, all in one big bang; and then pour lots of cash onto the result for 2-4 years. That can work out OK too.
Blake
Ehh I don’t think it’s too late for this year…our FRC team is considering getting an FTC team started in the community [oh, that sweet $500 registration credit!]. http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/ftc/content.aspx?id=18371
I just talked with our FTC regional co-ordinator, and she didn’t think it was too late to start. It seems their competition season is more laid back, somewhat like FLL.
What I might recommend doing is partnering with your closest FRC team, to start an FTC team which you can then nurse along as another poster said, into full-fledged FRC epicness incarnate in a year or two. This provides benefits for all involved: FRC team gets $500 credit towards registration, new FTC team gets to register for only $75 [but must still pay ~$1050 for KOP], and you get to mentor a team.
The only problem I can see is that it could be a difficult transition from FTC to FRC. Just a guess though, as I’ve never done FTC. But if you have a lot of underclassmen this year, it could be a nice intro to FIRST, and then next year graduate to FRC. Might be harder with an entirely new freshmen class next year.
I think you missed the point of what he was saying. Do all of those teams have a sustainable source of income? Do all of them have enough engineering mentors to build solid robots and to inspire students? (Sounds like there’s only 1 engineer on any of the three teams!) Far too often FRC is presented as “a good idea” to some teachers, then the team gets some grant money from JCPenny, and then they’re left to sink or swim on their own without any real engineers or experience. I would hope rather than starting “3 maybe 4!” teams you guys would start teams with sustainable practices and plans.
Like I said, 1 of the teams has 12 enginners and 4 teachers, 1 team has 1 engineer who was a professor of robotics at a local college ( yes I called him an engineer). My team has 0 engineers and at both competitions we were at, we won Excellence in Engineering Awards. Only 1 of these teams received the JCPenney grant.
The team who has 12 engineers on it will be a team to watch out for. They have a great plan in place. 2 of the teams I have already sent to rookie workshops. They both have FLL experience. The 3rd team will undoubtedly need somebody to hold their hand and I plan on it. They do have FLL experience as well.
If the 4th team plans on starting up it is in a rural school but they have a wood shop, metal shop, auto shop and they teach welding. They also have FLL experience. They have a retired engineer who teaches C.A.D.
I have seen teams who have started with a lot less who have gone on to become successful… mine!
and ypu don’t need to find the students you can just ask the FRC kids if they want to be in FTC so when the FRC starts then u can just stop doing FTc for that 6 weeks and u get $500 to your team. Me and half of the FRC is doing FTC and FRC.