I’m starting to talk to fellow FIRST alumni, who along with myself are interested in starting a rookie team in the Fall. I’m interested in knowing how teams such as FRC 229 Division by Zero, 125 NUtrons, 3929 Atomic Dragons, and several other college-sponsored team (excuse me for my East Coast bias) got their start. Any suggestions, advice, and steps that we could take upon accomplishing this goal. No matter how small, any help is deeply appreciated.
Hi Daron,
What school will you be attending?
If you would like to get connected to mentors from 125 and 229 let me know.
edit: just remembered you already have 229 connections lol
-Akash
As far as sponsorship goes, don’t limit yourself to obtaining sponsorship from one department or office. Many are willing to help out! Also - Don’t eliminate departments and offices just because they aren’t engineering-related.
Find whatever office supports your college’s student teams. Even though they may not fund things that directly benefit the high school students, they may take care of the mentors’ travel, food, etc.
There is also probably an office that handles corporate sponsorships for your college. Find them, and see if they’d be willing to connect you with some of those sponsors.
Since most of the mentors may be college students, it is beneficial to do several “How to Mentor” trainings before the season so that the mentors don’t get pulled into thinking they are high school students again and and end up taking away from the learning experience. It is very easy to get caught in that trap.
I’ve mentored/run a college-sponsored team for the past 7 years, so if you have any specific questions, feel free to let me know! 
Daron,
If this will be your first year in college I would urge you to think very carefully about undertaking this rather large task. It’s very easy to fall into the “omg robots” mentality as you navigate your college life and priority setting.
I was a member of Purdue FIRST programs until I realized that I was falling into that trap and wasn’t being an asset to that program because I had ignored the rest of my life too much. That was my fault, Purdue FIRST runs an excellent program.
If you are confident you can handle the work (which, given that college programs exist, clearly many people can 
) Purdue FIRST has also done a tremendous job in the past couple of years in documenting and collecting information on how college FIRST programs can be run.
A link:
http://www.purduefirst.org/college-conference/
Nica has also posted some related information on CD:
Good luck!
Short version: Please don’t.
Longer version: http://blog.iamjvn.com/2010/08/doing-first-while-in-college.html
I’m sorry for the late response to this thread. I honestly thought that this thread had died before it was started. By no means do I plan to take this on alone… if even happens. I’m more interested in hearing stories on how these teams got their start and became the successful teams that they are now. @Akash I’m especially interested in hearing 3929’s story. Realistically, if we did follow through with this I couldn’t see the team getting its start until the 2014 or 2015 season. There are about 15 of us showing interests: 1912 Alumni, 364 Alumni, and some non-FIRST related in between. Right now this is more of a dream than a goal.