Hi. I am a teacher just starting up a FIRST team at my school, Delton-Kellogg High School. We are located in Southwest Michigan, between Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids. I was just wondering if any teams out there, particularly in our area, would be willing to mentor us and “show us the ropes”. We are a small school (around 700 students) and are really just getting started. I have a core group of kids ready to go, but that’s about it. We have not lined up any sponsors or have any engineers/technicians as of yet. Any advice as we roll into this next phase?
We are interested in attending any workshops being put on this fall.
Thanks!
as far as sponsors go… start looking into it now and go for the biggest tech companies in your area
and not even tech. companies…look into anyone that wants to give y’all money…we sent letter to literaly every business in our town asking for support thats always a good way to pick up a sponsor…its hard for a first year toeam to get one though…it took our team 3 years…this was our first with a “corporate sponsor”
u need to look an dget your name out to the community…whether it is by sponsoring a big event…holding a meeting for the communtiy
be persistant and dont give up… 
Hello and welcome to FIRST!! The first thing I would like to suggest to you is to GO HERE and look on the bottoim of the page! This page is a list links to teams from Michigan in the 2002 competition and also it has a link for teams in Michigan who are willing to be mentors. You can also sign up if you would like to be mentored by other FIRST teams here!
Welcome to FIRST…
Hope you and your team can have many sucessful and fun (i’m sure they will be) years ahead 
Since your in Michigan and my team is in Indiana we cant help much in the physical building aspect of this whole thing…but one thing that i can help with is this…
TechnoKat Team Handbook (PDF file)
TechnoKat Team Handbook (Word DOC file)
It’s basically what it says; its a team handbook that tells about team organization and team guidelines and so on…
This has proven to be very helpful for our team and your team is welcome to use it and modify it for your own use… (if i’m not mistaken a few other teams have used it and liked it quite a bit)
Hope that helps some.
Welcome on bord!
Nice to see new teams forming.
I’m a student and I participated in FIRST this year with the only Vermont team, Team 885. We’re a rookie and I learned a whole lot this year. Since I’m an exchanges tudent from Germany I’ll be going back home this summer and then I’ll try to start a team there. If you have any specific questions about anything, feel free to email me at [email protected]
Your next step would really be to get some money!
I think you know that it is pretty expensive?!? $5000 entry fee to get the kit from FIRST etc. and then $4000 for each tournament and te nationals if you go. That adds up. You need to pay for shiping your robot, the additional parts that it is built from and so on. Try writing letters to local companies ad to big businesses that are doing robot-related stuff. Maybe you can even find someone who is willing to let you use their machine shop. Try to go with your students to companies that have the kind of machine shop that you need and tell them what you’re doing, what it is all about and so on. Maybe you get some engineers interested.
Try to assign tasks wthin your team: -generell organization (of meetings and everything); -robot building; -robot driving; -fundraising; -playing field building (this year a goal or two had to be built to be able to meassure exactly what your robot’s dimensions should be , where a gripper for a goal should be located and so on and to practice)
and every other taks needed ( i definitely forgot somthing here, just not usre what 
As said, feel free to email me, Phil
Our team probably would be happy to help you out. We are from Holland, Michigan and don’t see any problem with you coordinating with some of our leaders. I’ll talk to some of them tommorrow and figure something out. After that, I’ll have one of them get in touch with you.