Well, getting this information in my area has been problematic. Strangely, we Home Schoolers are not as well loved as we would like. So anyway, I’m starting this thread as a clearing house for the information.
Here are some teams that I can so far verify: (please send replys with any official corrections)
FRC 3737 - Roto Raptors - Goldsboro, NC - verified via team coordinator
FRC 122 - NASA Knights - Hampton, VA - verified by parent only http://www.team122.org/
FRC 619 - Cavalier Robotics - Charlottesville, VA - verified via team coordinator http://www.carobotics.org/
PS: My private email is [email protected] if you’d rather not post yourself. I will get official verification
Team 1038 has always and will always welcome anyone to our team who does not have a team, whether they are home schooled or attend public/private school.
I am a former homeschooler and 1519 Mechanical MAYHEM (Milford Area Youth Homeschoolers Enriching Minds) alumni. The team was and is mostly homeschooled students with a portion from private and public schools who don’t have FRC programs.
There will always be those who don’t like homeschooling or don’t receive it well but the same can be said about public school as well. I can’t ever remember a time when our team was criticized or not “well-loved”.
Team 95 has had numerous home-schooled students, at least one every year I’ve been involved with the team. We would be more than happy to have home-schoolers join up.
3737, the Roto Raptors had their rookie year last year, but we could easily qualify as a rookie team again this year… We’ve already got 20 active students (and still recruiting) with only 3 (or so) returning.
Don’t forget public school based teams that work in their building may have to deal with the school division when it comes to insurance. That said there are a bunch of teams in the greater Richmond area, do you have a more specific area around Richmond you are looking at?
I know that 2783 EOT was actually started as an FLL team for homeschool children. It later evolved into an FRC team with a nearly even mix of home school and non home school (public/private).
I know from the other team I have expereince on, 1747 HBR, that insurance with the school is the worst hurdle… 1747 lost shop access for a while due to the city school kicking out the county schools’ students due to insurance… with the dangers of machine tools, welding, and the robot itself, the liability is quite high.
Team 1640 (Downingtown/Exton, PA) is always open to home schoolers. In fact, our captain this year is home schooled. We’re not district-affiliated, so anyone who’s ok with the drive is welcome. Many of our students commute 30min+, some ~1 hour. (Mentors are even crazier, anywhere from 45min-2.5 hours.)
FRC 1640 - Team Sab-BOT-age - Downingtown/Exton, PA - verified by team mentor
Our FLL club is also community-based, making it open to home schoolers as well. Also, I’d check with MOE Robotics (Delaware…basically all of it), as I’m virtually positive they’re open to home school students, too.
For yourselves, I count 8 teams in the Richmond area. I know some teams must have school-driven policies behind membership, but I’d think someone could at least point you in the right direction.
I’d imagine a good many teams out there haven’t really thought of this issue, but would be more than willing to see what they could do to get a home school member onto their team. For example I don’t know of 422 having ever had a home school member, but if contacted about the opportunity we would do everything we could to make it happen.
Even though we operate out of our high school, Team 1124 (Hartford, CT area) has no residency/schooling/other requirements as far as membership goes. If you’re in the area, show up one day - we’ll be glad to have you.
Team 2584, Reseda Regents Robotics, has always had at least one member who is not attending Reseda HS including home schooled kids. We have even made a presentation to the San Fernando Valley Home School Parent group. The idea of competitive robotics was completely foreign to everyone there, and I think some thought I was trying to sell them something, but they were all very nice. So we will go back again this fall and try again. Most of the parents said that the kids were all booked up with other activities and that as a group they tend to move slowly, plan a lot, before they do something new.