School/Team Relationships 2

FIRST General Forum
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I was reading the other School/Team Relationships thread and it got me wondering about a few other things.

How much money do you receive from your school PTA, ASB, etc?
I think the max we have gotten from ASB per year is $2K if even that. We are also give the opportunity to work at the lunch carts (I’m not sure how much we make there).

Is robotics only a club or is it a class for credits at your school?
We have it technically as a 1 semester ROP class which earns us 5 credits for high school.

Who does all the PR work for your team (shirts, website, brochurs, fundraising, etc)?
We had some members of the team set aside for doing these things. They still worked on building and designing the robot though so not much PR work got done at all. Next year, it will be a whole separate teacher and class/club that will hopefully work much better.

Does your team work at school or a nearby college? (Where does the building take place and where are team meetings held?)
We have a small room inside another room dedicated to robotics. We rarely work in school hours but in off school hours we can use the large classroom as well. Just all of are stuff has to be kept in the small room inside the classroom. We also have a small shop room with a 6’ drill press, bench grinder, miter saw, combo belt/disc sander, and various other tools. We do all the machining at the local college

What is the general attitude of people in your school toward your robotics team? Do they think it is cool or nerdy?
Most people actually think it is pretty cool and want to do it but they don’t think they can handle the couple hundred or more hours we put into it.

On a more individual note, if your team group can’t decide on something or they are just sitting around lazy, do you try to get the group to work or do you just do things yourself?
I have found that groups can never decide or get anything done efficiently. I prefer to just take on the full job myself and it always works out nicely. Some groups or individuals just can’t take on the responsibility or by the time you are finished explaining, you could have done it yourself. I know teams swear by how strong their team is and I know it doesn’t do much for team building but I strongly prefer taking on the job myself. That way I know it will get done and get done right.

Last, who works with your team, Physics teachers, mechanical engineers, math teachers, art teachers, parents, etc?
My team works with a math teacher, an art teacher for PR stuff, and 5 JPL engineers working on the 2003 Mars launch and expedition.

That’s the scoop on my team, let’s hear about yours…

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  1. How much money do you recive from you school?

-I would say that we get just about a whole lot of ZERO from our school

  1. Is Robotics only a club or is it a class with a credit?
  • Our team is more like a club that gets a credit, the only reason our so-called advisors got us the credit was so we would be considered a team and therefore we could get more push for what ever, but I refuse to belive that is why they did it. I think it is just so they can make us follow more rules and be less like a team and more like mindless slave drones who have to do STUDY HOURS instead of working on the robot during the six weeks.
  1. Who does all the PR for your team?
  • At home it is an engineer or two and some students on our team organizes it all, at competitions it is me, who hands out flyers and talks about the robot and how it works.
  1. Where does the building take place and where are the team meetings held?

  • Our team is lucky enough to have part of an old mill building to work in we call it FIRST-Land because we don’t need a escort to go to the bathroom and such we have:

  • Common area

  • Two mech Rooms(151 and 166)

  • Animation room

  • Electrical and software room

  • Drafting room

  • Events room

  • All hands meeting area

All of these rooms are within shouting distance of each other so every thing works very well. We usually set up a half field in the common area just to pratice.

5.What is the general attitude of people in your school toward robotics?

  • Well first I’ll tell you about how big my school is, it holds well over 4000 students and there are 60 people on our team so I would say, Last year at a given time maybe 300 people out of 4000, even knew the school had a robotics team. Including teachers. But for those who know about it they really love it. :smiley:

6.On a more individual note, if your team group can’t decide on something or they are just sitting around lazy, do you try to get the group to work or do you just do things yourself?

  • I myself try to get every body to work on it, but there are other people on my team who just try to do everything at once and won’t let anybody else near the robot. this particular person also builds small robots in his spare time. If he reads this he knows who he is.

7.Last, who works with your team, Physics teachers, mechanical engineers, math teachers, art teachers, parents, etc?

-On our team(Just 151 not sure about 166) we have: Rough estimates)

  • Machine shop with like fifteen machineists (sp?)
  • Three drafters
  • Two mech eng.
  • One software eng.
  • One animation eng.
  • Twenty or so parents who help out with there kids particular disipline
  • Two advisors which I will openly say that I REALLY REALLY do not like.
  • We had two cool physics teachers but they quit cause they were getting flacked for stuff they could do nothing about

I hope this has answered all the questions asked, and have a nice day:D

P.S Any questions about what I have said just post a reply and i’ll answer them.

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How much money do you receive from your school PTA, ASB, etc?
We are actually fundend by the entire Appleton Area School District (~80,00 people). A pet project of the current Superintendent. We must keep enrollment open to all 3 Appleton High Schools, so we do. Let’s just say we get “enough”. Not as much as some of the Delphi teams, though.

Is robotics only a club or is it a class for credits at your school?
For the past 6 years, it has just been a club. Next year, however, it will be a class for anyone in Tesla Engineering Charter School or not in it. This year is the first that we were eligible to get a letter in FIRST. If you already got one, then you get a patch. It seems I haven’t recieved mine yet…

Who does all the PR work for your team (shirts, website, brochurs, fundraising, etc)?
Some of the less technically inclined people opted to head this up. But also, they did have people helping them do this (even people that were technically inclined). Nothing on our team is delegated unless it absolutely must get done. Everyone knows the work that needs to get done. This year, due to budget cuts, a bit less than 2/3 of the students got to go to nationals. Those who put in the most work, as evaluated by the mentors, were eligible to go.

Does your team work at school or a nearby college? (Where does the building take place and where are team meetings held?)
We actually work at our High School’s tech center. It’s a rather spacious area that we can work in. We have a machine shop at the high school that has lathes, mills, drill presses, welding tools, plasma cutters (fun, fun). Anything this machinery is to imprecise to do, we can do out at FV Technical College, which has a large machine shop at our disposal. This year a teacher (from FVTC) headed up teaching a few students the machinery over there. Lastly, an area machine shop let us use thier equipment to make our gearboxes. If I have a pic of these, I’ll show you. They are sealed and hella shiny.

What is the general attitude of people in your school toward your robotics team? Do they think it is cool or nerdy?
In physics class, everything thinks that “we can put together a nuclear reactor from a toothpick and pocket lint”. Hehe… okay, so I am exaggerating, but you do get experience working with things that normal students don’t get to. However, some other clubs are upset about our budget… they have a general idea.

On a more individual note, if your team group can’t decide on something or they are just sitting around lazy, do you try to get the group to work or do you just do things yourself?
The students make all the decisions. There are a few students that help pull the team together but a concensus is made on all the major details of the robot (shape, function, etc). Then sub-groups are split up and exact details are finalized. The engineers and teachers help give advice, and keep everyone on track during the starting phases of the build. After that, everyone pretty much knows what needs to get done and works together quite well.

Last, who works with your team, Physics teachers, mechanical engineers, math teachers, art teachers, parents, etc?
We have many teachers, engineers, and parents that help out with the team, from Plexus and Kimberly-Clark. A total of 16, not including parents. Mainly our teachers are Mr Schuff, Mr Reisweber, Mr Jones, and Mr Wegand. One of them have to be at the premisis in order for us to. If they are not there, we can’t do work at school. Our most active parents are Mr and Mrs Belling and Mr and Mrs Lambi.

Well, I hope that answers it.

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How much money do you receive from your school PTA, ASB, etc?
None directly, however the school is very supportive and provides much support in other ways and participates actively in our fund raisers

Is robotics only a club or is it a class for credits at your school?
Officially, we are an extra-curricular activity. For most of our students it works out better to do things this way in terms of college admissions. As a science class, Robotics would take the place of required science classes. It could be a technical class, but those are actually looked down upon by some colleges. Apparently they don’t want to deal with people who can bring some reality into the classroom.

Who does all the PR work for your team (shirts, website, brochurs, fundraising, etc)?
We all help, but we do have a group of students/mentors who direct the activity and do the planning. Every family is required to either provide technical support or do a fundraiser. Many do both.

Does your team work at school or a nearby college? (Where does the building take place and where are team meetings held?)
We generally can’t even hold a meeting at our school. We have had three different work areas in as many years. Last year we got to work in the basement of a powerplant. That was pretty cool.

What is the general attitude of people in your school toward your robotics team? Do they think it is cool or nerdy?
Since most of the elegible students participate, I’d have to guess they think it’s cool.

On a more individual note, if your team group can’t decide on something or they are just sitting around lazy, do you try to get the group to work or do you just do things yourself?
If it’s a technical decision, it keeps bumping up the chain until it is either decided or it reaches our technical director who makes the final call. Other decisions are either decided by the relevant commitee or voted on by the entire team, depending on the number of people affected. If people are just sitting around, we try and find something for them to do. Bored kids just get in trouble, one way or another.

Last, who works with your team, Physics teachers, mechanical engineers, math teachers, art teachers, parents, etc?
Since we’re homeschoolers, ALL of our parents are also teachers at the school. We also have some technical experts, such as a machine shop owner and some of our engineers, who help out and have no kids of their own. I’m kind of different in that while I’m a technical expert, I also have a kid who until recently was not old enough for the team.

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How much money do you receive from your school PTA, ASB, etc?
We cover a large area. With five active school districts, we collect a little here and there. Two school oriented groups give around $100 each, then we have a school in New York State, and they seem to have more money so they give about $1,000.

Is robotics only a club or is it a class for credits at your school?
In a couple of the schools it is considered a club, however, in the rest of the schools it’s not even considered a school activity.
Who does all the PR work for your team (shirts, website, brochurs, fundraising, etc)?
We have a group of girls that do all of the media stuff. The website is done by a couple of different people. Shirts are done by whoever takes the initiative to do them.

Does your team work at school or a nearby college? (Where does the building take place and where are team meetings held?)
Since all of our schools involved in from very rural farming areas, we don’t have the luxury of a large business or a college. We work at the Towanda Middle School in a wood shop!

What is the general attitude of people in your school toward
your robotics team? Do they think it is cool or nerdy?
In most of the schools nobody even knows what Robotics is. Since it isn’t considered a school activity in my school, if you say Robotics they look at you like you are talking about watching BattleBots on TV.

On a more individual note, if your team group can’t decide on something or they are just sitting around lazy, do you try to get the group to work or do you just do things yourself?
Hahahahaha…

Last, who works with your team, Physics teachers, mechanical engineers, math teachers, art teachers, parents, etc?
We have a teacher advisor from each of the schools, however, the actual robot building is worked on by engineers from all over our area.

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Wheelman,
A machine shop with 15 machinists? :eek: Wow. We usually do all the machining our selves at the college. I forgot to mention there is this really cool guy named Ross who owns a machine shop nearby and he has helped us out in crunch-time or with some difficult parts. There’s also a cool guy named Spence at the college who works for HiTech Products designing and making CNC Harley parts and he helps us with the manual machines as well as the CNC.

Jnadke,
Plasma cutter-s?? Like more than 1 ?? :eek: Geez. The time those must save to cut steel or curved shapes or just making all the field parts a little more charred. :slight_smile: We don’t even have one of them, heck, we don’t even have a bandsaw of our own. I doubt we will be getting any new tools in the near future though because we want to enter 2 regionals and all the money we have so far is about $2k.

Everyone,
It seems like you don’t get much monetary support from your school. We get the couple grand that we do because robotics is like our school’s sports team since there aren’t any other teams.
With so little money from your hosting school, how do you all do it? There are a couple of teams I know who go to all the regionals and the nats. Where does all the funding come from for you all?

What supply of tools does your team have?
Brought from home, owned by the team, borrowed, etc???
We have our own full set of tools that the team owns. And a gian red Husky tool chest to put them all in:D and there still isn’t enough room for them all. We have like the world’s largest socket set, cordless drill, high power corded drill, the sander and drill press, bench grinder, palm sander, circular saw, miter saw x2, wire strippers, crimpers, drill bits giant set, etc, etc, etc. We are pretty well stocked in that department. How about your team?

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When I say 15 machinists I mean that those are the guys who work at BAE SYSTEMS for forty hours a week some do more with the team than others but they all help out a little bit. I actually for got one thing the one thing our school did for us was not kick me and like three other kids out of the our schools crappy machine shop when we were making our wheels.

With so little money from your hosting school, how do you all do it? There are a couple of teams I know who go to all the regionals and the nats. Where does all the funding come from for you all?

We do it by having a huge budget given to us by BAE, I’d give you the number here but I don’t want to sound cocky or like our team is better than your cause we get more money so I’m not If you want to know send me a private message or some thing or IM me. I’ll just say that it is high. We also do alot fundraising and and raffles.

What supply of tools does your team have?

As a finsh to our season we have an awards night. The parent group our team has decided it would be nice to go out and spent like $500 on tools that they thought we needed the got some of the stuff we needed, but now we have like 30 diffrent types of screwdrivers WHO NEEDS THAT:confused:

Then electrical has all there crimpers and pinchers cutter thingys I have no idea how much of that stuff they have.

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They did the same thing when we got new tools for this last season. We now own a Dewalt 12" miter saw and a Delta 10" one. Why would we need 2 miter saws. The only thing I can think of is if we cut wood on one and steel on the other so we wouldn’t have to change the blade but we’ve actually never needed to cut steel for anything. There are also 6 $150 soldering stations, 3 soldering guns and 3 heat guns.
Maybe somebody heard of the imense excitement in electrical connection parties. :rolleyes: Somehow we also ended up with a wood chisle set:confused: Luckily there’s really nothing we’re lacking except a set of allen (hex) ball end drivers. Come to think of it for some odd reason we never really owned a whole new role of solder either???

9

.
With so little money from your hosting school, how do you all do it? There are a couple of teams I know who go to all the regionals and the nats. Where does all the funding come from for you all?
We get about a grand total of $1,200 from all of the school districts (5) on our team. We get the rest of our sponsorship for the actual robot from a few businesses and families. I would say we have over 100 sponsors, and they all give us a little money. Almost all of the travel is paid for individualy, if you want to go, you pay to go. After all of the sponsorship and travel money paid by team members is put together, we manage to run on $40,000 a year. Not much, but we have made it happen for the past 6 years.

What supply of tools does your team have?
Brought from home, owned by the team, borrowed, etc???
We have few tools in our wood shop. A few things are brought in by engineers. Our welder actually brings his equipment into the wood shop, and he sits down and welds until he is finished with everything.

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$40,000 a year yikes!!! :eek: And travel not included?? If that’s not much to you it sure is to me. Man, how many competitions do you enter anyway? I figure our team needs about 18-19 thousand dollars for LA and Pheonix travel included. (we are based in LA and have 30 members including mentors.) How do you figure your costs?

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*Originally posted by sanddrag *
**$40,000 a year yikes!!! :eek: And travel not included?? If that’s not much to you it sure is to me. Man, how many competitions do you enter anyway? I figure our team needs about 18-19 thousand dollars for LA and Pheonix travel included. (we are based in LA and have 30 members including mentors.) How do you figure your costs? **

The $40,000 a year includes travel. It also includes feeding the team if need be over long weekends. Traditionally we go to the Mid Atlantic Regional which is about 4 hours away, and necessity people stay from Wed. - Sat. while the rest of the team stays from Thur. - Sat. We then go to Nationals, which means flying(then you have to include transportation for about 4 hours to the nearest airport), except this year, we chartered a bus for the week! (Sorry, for the people who had to ride 22+ hours one way!) This year the team left Tue. and returned the following Mon. We then compete in the PA Robot Challenge. This also includes buying shirts for the team every year. One team pays almost $10,000 to enter competitions. Then you have to include construction costs, and travel. $40, 000 is a very low budget. Many teams have 1/4 million $ budgets on up. Most teams are fortunate enough to have a sponsor too! We don’t, we depend on a few small businesses, and families. If you talk to someone in your business team, I am sure that you will find that you spend much more.

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Currently the business team consists of me and my friend. The rest of them graduated and left us with nutin’. Next year although the PR/Fundraising will be a whole separate deal, the students will be all new people having not the slightest clue as what they are to do or the importance of it. Also, most of the robot team members are graduated too so it will be like 4 students who are making the thing and know what they are doing including me. We will still hopefully have our 5 engineers but the rest of the students will be new members.

When do you have to register by and when is the actual money due? Also, kickoff is in mid January right?

Also, what do you do when a parent says that robotics takes too much time away from schoolwork and grades suffer? I’m sure FIRST Robotics doesn’t matter to colleges as much as 10th grade English but I have honestly learned more by being on a FIRST team than in any standard school class. And it’s hands on, real world knowledge too.

Last, I will be one of the ones heading up the team next year. I was wondering what you do to keep things rolling throughout the 6 weeks. I see the ideal plan as this:

week 1: agree on overall design in 1 day and begin perfecting design
Parts ordering.
week 2 finalize design very quickly and begin actual construction mesurements and such.
week 3 all machining/fabrication
week 4 finish machining/fabrication begin assembly
week 5 assembly
week 6 testing/fixing/lightening.

Do you request meetingly reports from each subgroup to explain their progress? I was thinking that might be a good idea to keep everyone on track.

I know this thread got a little off of the title subject but it’s very informative nonetheless. Thanks for your help.

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How much money do you receive from your school PTA, ASB, etc?
None. This year we did receive 5K from the school board when we won KSC which in their minds paid for us to go to nationals.

Is robotics only a club or is it a class for credits at your school?
We are a club at one school and simply an activity at the other although students at both schools can do SPAM to not have to do a science fair project (depending on the teacher, of course).

Who does all the PR work for your team (shirts, website, brochurs, fundraising, etc)?
There is a sub-team that does PR but the website is independent of it. Parents often take over the PR parts b/c students don’t have the time or, well, the will to work on it.

Does your team work at school or a nearby college? (Where does the building take place and where are team meetings held?)
Fall meetings are held in a science classroom at either of the two high schools. Last year we had a large room at one of the schools to act as our building site as well as an area for meetings in the spring. We’re not sure where we are building this year.

What is the general attitude of people in your school toward your robotics team? Do they think it is cool or nerdy?
To be honest, not many people in our schol have an opinion either way. Most see it as neat but only for the dorks (although friends of team members know how much work we put it and see it as cool).

On a more individual note, if your team group can’t decide on something or they are just sitting around lazy, do you try to get the group to work or do you just do things yourself?
Our adults try to get the kids to work, usually by hinting at first then straight out telling them to. In certain tasks the adults will simply take over and do the task.

Last, who works with your team, Physics teachers, mechanical engineers, math teachers, art teachers, parents, etc?
-one physics teacher, severl mech e’s, one software e, one machinist, and 2 others who i’m sure what sort of engineers they are, several parents, and a 6th grade math teacher

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*Originally posted by sanddrag *
**Last, I will be one of the ones heading up the team next year. I was wondering what you do to keep things rolling throughout the 6 weeks. I see the ideal plan as this:

week 1: agree on overall design in 1 day and begin perfecting design
Parts ordering.
week 2 finalize design very quickly and begin actual construction mesurements and such.
week 3 all machining/fabrication
week 4 finish machining/fabrication begin assembly
week 5 assembly
week 6 testing/fixing/lightening.
**

My team tried to follow the Example Schedule on http://www.innovationfirst.com found here. It is for teams that know what thier doing though. See if that would work for you and your team.

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*Originally posted by sanddrag *
** Also, most of the robot team members are graduated too so it will be like 4 students who are making the thing and know what they are doing including me. We will still hopefully have our 5 engineers but the rest of the students will be new members.

**

My prayers are deffinately with you. Our team went through the same thing this past year. In 2001 basically the whole team graduated except for the Business and PR groups. We were left with three veterans on the build team. This resulted in a whole new team. In addition there was two of us on build and one in PR that had been on the team for three or more years. We had very few seniors, and almost all of the seniors were in their first year on the team. Many people weren’t to happy that it was an ‘underclassmen’ drive team. The year was a lot more difficult than I have remembered in the past. All I can say is do everything possible to keep structure and sinority. Don’t get powerful with the sinority in the wrong way, just have that so the underclassmen will learn how things work. For instance, use it in a way so the underclassmen know that when they are asked to complete a simple task when building the robot, that they actually finish the task, and don’t take 12 hours doing it.:mad: We will be going through another similar thing this year, hopefully it won’t affect us as much though. We are losing our whole PR team, and will be left with no one, so hopefully new people will sign up. Best wishes to you.

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How much money do you receive from your school PTA, ASB, etc? We aren’t funded by the Oconomowoc Area School District officially.

Is robotics only a club or is it a class for credits at your school? Right now it is only a club, but they are starting the wheels in motion to integrate it with a “Principles Of Engineering” Class or something like that.

Who does all the PR work for your team (shirts, website, brochurs, fundraising, etc)? We also have members on the team work on that, and almost everyone helps out with fundraising, because we need to do so much.

Does your team work at school or a nearby college? (Where does the building take place and where are team meetings held?) We do almost everything except our weekly Monday morning team meetings at our main sponsor’s (Quest Technologies) building which is about 5 mins from the high school. We have had very limited facilites at our school, so there is nothing really to do there, that is changing though, with improvements to the Tech Area of the school, so we shall see.

What is the general attitude of people in your school toward your robotics team? Do they think it is cool or nerdy?
It has gotten better over the years, people support it and will ask us questions and look at the bots, most kids think its cool.

On a more individual note, if your team group can’t decide on something or they are just sitting around lazy, do you try to get the group to work or do you just do things yourself?
There is that group of core people that will almost always help you out when you need it, but if people are just refusing I will more than likely take it on myself.

Last, who works with your team, Physics teachers, mechanical engineers, math teachers, art teachers, parents, etc?
We have 2 teachers, an electronics one and a physics teacher. Around 5-6 engineers from Quest that work with us, and alot of parents that are always willing to do something.

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*Originally posted by weedie *
**Best wishes to you. **

Same to you weedie;)

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How much money do you receive from your school PTA, ASB, etc?

We usually get a decent amount of money from our school (not liable to say exactly how much) but it is enough for us that, in the past, we have not had to do a whole lot of fundraising. This year will be different though. Not sure why - but I know we need to raise A LOT of money.

Is robotics only a club or is it a class for credits at your school?

As of this fall, we will have an after school class called ‘The Basics of FIRST’. I believe it earns you two credits - one first semester (for taking the class) and one second semester (for participating in the Build) You can only take the class once … but (obviously) can participate in the Build as many times as you want!

Who does all the PR work for your team (shirts, website, brochurs, fundraising, etc)?
We are supposed to have a subteam who handles all of that but basically is comes down to whoever volunteers to do that. Shirts are printed by our team members in the graphic arts room at our school. One of our teachers handles doing the website. Brochures are made by whoever feels like doing them. Fundraising has been pretty much non-existant up to this point (selling candybars are the only form of fundraising we’ve done up until now).

Does your team work at school or a nearby college? (Where does the building take place and where are team meetings held?)

For the most part, we work in our school’s tech center. We have a graphic arts room (for printing shirts, making brochures, etc.), a wood shop (good for building the crate in, or just to use for some extra work space), the machine shop (where we machine our parts), the auto shop (to practice in), and the tech center (two nice big rooms - one with computers and one with tables, where we work). We also have “the back room” which is a tiny room in the tech center where they stick all of us controls people :wink: Then there’s the Tech. Sometimes, we have our students go out to FVTC (Fox Valley Technical College) and machine more complicated parts there, that we can’t make at school. The neat thing about that is the students still do the machining at the Tech.

What is the general attitude of people in your school toward your robotics team? Do they think it is cool or nerdy?

… Most people at our school think it’s really cool or just don’t care at all. When I first joined the team, people in my class (who not on the team) Were kind of like, “why would you put in all that time to build a robot … … ?” But noe most of them think FIRST is pretty cool and admire the people in it for being able to put so much time and work into a program like this.

On a more individual note, if your team group can’t decide on something or they are just sitting around lazy, do you try to get the group to work or do you just do things yourself?

Depends on what the situation is.

Last, who works with your team, Physics teachers, mechanical engineers, math teachers, art teachers, parents, etc?

We have two tech ed teachers from our high school, a lot of engineers from Plexus and a few engineers from Kimberly Clark that help out with the team. We also have a former Plexus engineer and a photographer (which happens to be the father of one of our Plexus engineers!)

  • Katie
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