Well, yea, 288 people if we get all 4 buses full. Not everybody has handed in their permission forms yet.
Well Team 1382 (ETEP Technology High School, São José dos Campos, BrAzIL!!!) has actually received a whooole lot of attention! We are literally the Elite students at our school, I suppose (with the exception of me, of course, i’m no genius), all the kids worship us (although some spit behind our backs) and everything we touch turns to gold…anything involving robotics, anyway! (LoL) Just kidding!!!
But we do get a lot of attention, and it’s great. Teachers & staff are so supportive and most students are too. I’m proud of the impact we’ve had on our school, it’s really made people look at us and treat us differently…We’ve been on national media (Rede Globo, which is like ABC/NBC in the States). That’s been pretty helpful…Johnson & our school have contributed financially to the project, and being on tv/newspapers/magazines & all makes money look like it grows on trees!!!
I guess it’s because we dont have any sports teams at all at our school, and we dont take “normal classes” (we learn electronics, mechanics, computer science, telecommunications, etc) so our school values FIRST so much more than any other regular high school would…
But I feel soooo bad for American schools that dont receive any credit for their efforts…nearly every team works just as hard as the next and its sad to know that in some cases their not being recognized for it!!! But just wait! I agree that FIRST will take over the world someday! WhooHoo!
Thats tremendous wether or not you get the full 288. I’d doubt that 288 of the 1000+ students at my school even KNEW we had a robotics club.
Well now that sounds familiar. My school is a “pre-engineering academy.” PLTW is required cirriculum for frosh and soph years and it was like pulling teeth to get the administration to agree to having a drama club because it wasn’t directly related to our school’s “theme” (and yes they call it a theme).
That said, I think a lot of our support comes from the local administration. It’s very odd, but it seems like it only comes from one level. Our district is very strict about things like class trips and spending money =P so it’s a bit of a project to get forms and permission to go to regionals (forget nationals) and all that. But our “local” administration, like our principal, is really supportive. We get excused absences for competitions and we display our robot at our freshman orientations. (Someone drives it around with a box of programs on it and incoming students are told to “please take a program from our school’s robot.” Haha it’s like the epitmoe of geekiness, it’s great.)
But then, when you get to the student level…well, they’re either on the team or couldn’t care less. =) I dunno if I have a whole lot to complain about though. We were at the SBPLI regional and the judges were asking about the size of our team. We said we were pretty small, we could stretch the number to about 25 if you included everyone who only showed up at a few meetings. Later on the in the conversation we mentioned the size of our school (250 students) and the judge said, “well, then 10% of your school is on FIRST.”
Excellent point. =) Heehee.
As far as other aspects of the school go: We get just as much yearbook space as everyone else (right next to TSA, Physics League, Math Club…haha) and we’re featured in the school paper every once in awhile. Our school announcements are student run, so basically if you want to talk about how our team did at a regional, you just show up in the broadcast room the next morning and tell the SGA President to let you get some camera time and you’re in.
And yes our annoucements are video. =)
Our school is sort of a mixed bag so to speak. Our board is sort of weird. Just the other day, they sent home a letter that said that if something in PA state legislature gets passed, they may have to shut down ALL extra-curricular activities. sounds like manure (or other word) to me because just a couple years ago, they spent like a million bucks on getting Nexturf for our football field and about 1/2 mill just this year cause the lights on the field are “too bright.” However, we do get on the announcements and stuff and I don’t think we get a lot of resistance to going away although I’m not the coach so I don’t know everything that is going on. Grades do have to be up for us to go on trips, but that’s a given.
Yearbook I think we got a page or two last year, but my name and one other team member’s name was spelled wrong and my name has 4 letters (but it’s not fred). I guess our board is okay, but our coach does have to do a lot of campaigning and arguing for us.
I think this whole thread is pathetic in that the schools shouldn’t be needed to be argued with to support an organization like FIRST. I mean, what is school for anyway. I am not the hardest-working school student and stuff, but I do work a lot on robotics stuff. As for other students at school, they see battle bots and missing school. Nothing about what really goes on. I.E., us winning the Chairmans Award twice in a row means nothing to most students even though it probably gives our high school a great reputation in the FIRST community.
Compared to other respones, I think we get a pretty good response from our school.
We get $1000 from our Associated Student Body (which on shirts is spelled Assciated student body 
)
We also get to be part of the spring sports assembly and show off our robots. This year we got 4 minutes to drive the robots and finished with a hang off of the basketball hoop supports. The crowd went wild!
We get 1 page in the yearbook, and we’re in newsletters/newspapers.
Almost all of the students at our school know about the Robotics Team, but that’s partly due to the fact that our advisor is one of the most, if not the most, popular teacher at the school. He was even “Educator of the Year.”
We don’t get money from either of our schools. MCHS did donate space for our first South Bay Lego League Tournament that turned into the largest So Cal Lego League Tournament. RUHS donates all our workingspace.
We woo’d an english teacher to go with us to Phoenix regional. He was SOOOO pumped up he talked endlessly about it at teacher meeting and his english classes. It gained us 3 new members, he’s now willing to do the school paperwork for field trips that weren’t being done. He’s going to try to get us into the pep rally to hang from the bar envy that you got to do that. We’ve now managed to convince his best friend, and an awesome popular education advisor, to attend nationals with us.
We hadn’t been in yearbook except a blurp when we won 2001 national championship. Last year tho a team member was on the yearbook team and got us 2 pages. This year we pursued the yearbook pages at both schools. Our graphics guy created the pages to make things easy for them - doesn’t mean they used his page per se, but the pics and words were there for them to use.
This year our superintendent, asst superintendent, and principal attended So Cal Regional, and took a tour of the pits. Thank you to So Cal teams who inspired them from the pits - especially the chairman’s award winner from New Jersey.
This year MCHS superintendent attended the So Cal regional. They all met a parent from our team who is in with Boeing, who is working with our retired school district technology director (now on the board of the foundation who handles our money). These power houses have scheduled a meeting now to get a robotics curriculum in our school hopefully by next year, funding for teachers working with robotics’ teams, and working towards regional funding!!! The principal is talking about getting a CAD teacher to teach not a machine shop curriculum but a robotics’ curriculum (important distinction!!!).
Having heard from Hawthorne team about their robotics’ curriculum, we’ve been inspired and hopefully will be gaining from their expertise about running all of that.
In addition, Hawthorne is sponsored by Disney Imagineering. short story Disney Imagineering was so “taken” by the FIRST program, they scouted teams who could benefit from their unique sponsorship. Hawthorne’s robots have won their 3rd quality award at So Cal yesterday. Their quality is what attracted Disney Imagineering, who has since helped mentor their classes into awesome classes and opportunities for their students.
So - ta da - thanks to Hawthorne, if I understand it right, Disney Imagineering has now agreed to be a sponsor at So Cal regional for next year.
So our “minimum” regional (no frills) will be much more than minimum next year.
Try to show your schools the benefits of the program fom an education standpoint - and also find one person who really believes and understands what you are doing - one voice can go a long way - that might be a teacher, a principal, a school board member, a respected business leader, who knows.
And, for your next education steps - there are many, many colleges who know and value the FIRST program. Just look at the scholarships list - those are reserved for FIRST students - encourange your teammates to apply and take advantage of the great opportunities at those schools. Many other schools do not have unique FIRST scholarships but the FIRST experience can give you an edge on their general scholarships.
And lastly, I am part of the Engineering Education Committee at Rolls-Royce, and part of the College Recruiting Team. Rolls-Royce supports FIRST teams form the Engineering Education budget because we believe it is truly education and a great value to us as a company. FIRST participation can be a big “plus” for a job applicant, and FIRST veterans are eligible to start our college Co-Op program a year ahead of other students.
The companies that sponsor FIRST and FIRST teams know the value of the program and that is why they invest. They are investing in YOU because someday you will be in the job market and thru FIRST you will be a better person and a better engineer or scientist or whatever else you choose to be.
Keep a big picture view, and know that even if your school doesn’t get it, there are many, many, many colleges and employers that do.
The Upper Darby High School Robotics Team, 357, gets great support from the Upper Darby School District. The Superintendent and the School Board encourage and support the development of our team. We get coverage from the school newspaper and the High School’s TV new program. We have always been part of the yearbook. This year we have two pages in the yearbook highlighting our activities in and out of school. The Superintendent has approved changes to the High School curriculum to create a new computer programming course that centers around FIRST Robotics. We have excellent access to the High School after school and on weekends.
We are very fortunate to have this kind of support. 
We always talk about how much our school does for us…or how little =). They wouldn’t even put good luck at nationals our rookie on their little announcement board until someone raised h**l at a school board meeting about it. They are overly strict on the team with permission slips, $, disciplinary things and such and they give us no place to put last years runner up trophy (it’s sitting in one of our teacher advisors classrooms) and I wouldn’t be surprised that tomorrow at school we won’t get a good spot on the morning annoucments (over the PA) and we won’t get somewhere to put our FIRST PLACE TROPHY…i hate school
From the school’s point of view they love the program, or at least the superintendent does , a lot of the teachers are interested and we have four advisors. They give us transportation wherever they can (airports, SBPLI Regional, etc.). Only time they weren’t behind us was last year at Nationals when our school wasn’t allowed to have field trips “going over bridges” (We live on a big island you know 
so you need to use a bridge, ferry or plane to get off). And they wouldn’t allow the advisors to go - but we taped everything for them…including the roller coasters
Unfortunitly a lot of the students (or at least students higher in the hierarchy) don’t like us because we get like 4 x as much money as the other clubs. But hey none of the other clubs need to buy yards of metal or lexan. Well yeah, but they complain to the student council about it.