Thought, everyone please give input

Other FIRST-related Organizations
1

I’ve been to a number of competitions between regular season, plus I’m looking to go to a number over the summer. If you’d rather chat with me personally, email me at [email protected] and tell me which competition you want to talk at, or if you would rather not post publically.

Anyway, there was an idea that came up about building an alliance system between teams, to help more so on those non-technical issues such as management, finance, marketing, HR, etc.

We haven’t gotten far into the actual development of this idea. We’re looking for members who might be willing to work on it (mostly through email) and start laying the foundation of it. The summer is the perfect time to start working on this stuff, and we’re looking for lots of input on this. This could be the start of an amazing alliance.

Please let me know any thoughts, comments, questions, etc. as you think of them. I will try to keep as much as posted publically, but in honesty we don’t have a lot laid yet, so we’re looking for other peoples ideas in this.

Many thanks to everyone who gives us ideas, and even more thanks to those who want to help us out.

Yours in FIRST,
Leon O. Machado IV
[email protected]

2

Well, it could be a website-based resource.

Amongst the featured resources could be a Fundraising Database, similar to that located at http://www.chopshop166.com/cgi-bin/fundraiser2.pl, but more extensive, a Project Cost Calculator with tips for finding a realistic estimate in terms of a season of FIRST’s cost for a team’s particular situation, samples of letters, presentations, etc. (for Sponsors, Community, etc.), sample organization maps for various possible team structures, coach necessities (documents, lists, links to resources, etc.). What do you think?

EDIT (more ideas!): Dug up some old ideas I had that never went anywhere…

A [font=Verdana]FIRST HowTo Database, which will offer comprehensive answers to a number of questions that are frequently asked by both rookie and veteran teams alike. Individual users could submit information into the database. Imaging “How to Build a Rookie Gearbox” by Andy Baker or JVN, “How to Structure a Team” by so-and-so, “How to Find Sponsorship” by so-and-so, etc.[/font]

3

Sounds like a great idea.

Needless to say (and I forgot to say it originally) I think we would need people of all different backgrounds as part of this. Everyone’s skills will be put to use.

Just so everyone knows, I’m a Business Management major with a concentration in Operations. So I know how to organize, run, execute, plan and lead.

I know we need webprogrammers, but we’ve had trouble finding them. Anyone care to step up to the plate on it?

Thanks.

4

I can do HTML, JavaScript, Flash, some PHP and MySQL (learning quickly), and I can image design in Adobe Photoshop 7.0. Oh, and since I like you, I can host the entire website for free on my personal UNIX webhost. :wink:

EDIT: Read the EDIT to my above post, Leon.

5

Sounds great. We have a webserver currently, but I do believe it might be limited in scope. If you would contact me at [email protected], we can discuss personally how you can intergrate into our system. I’m going to contact our webperson, so hopefully by the time you email me, I’ll have more answers for you.

Thanks again.

Leon

6

Check out the FIRSTwiki How-to section. We are desperately needing articles that aren’t on the ‘hard’ things, articles on management, fundraising, recruiting, etc.

7

Looks great. We’ll probably be able to reference when we get up and running, if that’s OK. It looks like you have part of the system up and running well. We shouldn’t need to try and trample over each other, part of the reason we suggested an alliance. Many thanks.

Leon

8

Team 30 is currently working on pretty much all of these areas of our team. Keep us updated on the forums or feel free to PM me; I’d be more than happy to help you organize the project and/or contribute something along the lines of what Aignam has been suggesting.

9

Sounds great. Email me at [email protected] if you don’t hear from me in a while, just in case I get caught up in things. I’m hoping to post updates in this forum for everyone to see. TTYL.

10

I think many teams are thinking along the same lines! After many many e-mails and private messages on Chief Delphi, sharing thoughts on the non-technical side of mentoring a FIRST team, Jenny Beatty of Team 007, Cheryl Miller of Team 294 and I founded the FIRST NEMO organization.

*FIRST NEMO (Non-Engineering Mentor Organization) is a support group and information exchange for those non-engineering mentors who help with all the behind the scene glue that holds the teams together. Travel (hotels, endless meals), parent involvement, fundraising, business plans, dealing with the FIRST logistics. All the “unfun” stuff, as one of the students labeled it. We hope to seek out all the NEMOs who don’t realize they are part of a large community.

We want to make it easier for rookies, so they don’t have to reinvent stuff that others already have learned, sometimes the hard way. We want to help FIRST get constructive comments from a group of NEMOs. We have met many NEMOs over the past 3 years. We have a lot to learn from each other. We have started a forum on Chief Delphi to exchange information and hope to host workshops at the FIRST Regional events next year.

If you are a college or adult mentor interested in joining NEMO contact Red Head Jokes (Cheryl, Beach Cities Robotics, Team 294), KathieK (Kathie, RAGE, Team 173) or Robomom007 (Jenny, Parkville Robotics, Team 007) by private message or email to sign up. Please include in your message your name, Team number, Chief Delphi screen name, who you are (i.e. college mentor, adult mentor, parent, etc.) and any skills or background you bring to the team (i.e. science teacher, programmer, travel coordinator, chef extraordinaire etc.)

Together we can make our jobs a lot easier! Join FIRST NEMO today!*

11

Can you post any more information about this? Thanks.

12

FIRST NEMO is for sharing ideas about the non-technical side of things. Like how to approach new sponsors, successful fundraisers, generating team spirit, team organization, etc.

It’s the other half of a team - the yin to the engineering/technical yang side. We think both sides are necessary to have a successful team.

If you are interested in knowing more, PM me.

13

Don’t know for sure what I could help you with, Leon, but I’m willing to help with whatever I can…

Let me know, [email protected]

14

Maybe something like one of those email/news service (news groups?) things can be set up. I’m not quite sure what they are called, but I know you can add them to email programs like Outlook and you constantly get new “emails” regarding different things. Since there are so many websites out there trying help people, maybe this could be a different twist.

15

Question

We already have FIRST Wiki, which is a “How-To/ DIY” site for FIRST stuff. Wouldn’t it just be easier to use that Leon, instead of making another organization/ website that (from my understanding) does the exact same thing? There’s no need to “re-invent the wheel” as a friend of mine put it.

Perhaps I am not understanding the concept, but to me it sounds like what FIRST Wiki is/ does.

I don’t mean to burst your bubble, I admire your wanting to help, but if we have too many similar websites that do the same task, things could get really confusing.

16

That’s not all we are, but we do have a How-to section. And it is in desperate need of articles!

17

I see your point…and I’m not sure if this is how the idea was originally intended, so maybe I’m modifying it a bit…

But what if it were less a collection of articles and more a collection of people? Sort of like a really big collaboration project. Like FIRSTwiki meets ChiefDelphi.

Getting ambitious now, aren’t we? :smiley:

I think Ryan makes a good point, but I don’t think we need to totally abandon this idea. With some modification it could be a really useful project. Does Leon have any comments?

18

Just so everyone knows (cause I haven’t replied in 30 seconds) I have a ton of comments to this. Some of your responses are good, some of you have missed the point of an ‘alliance’. I’ll post later tonight. TTYL.

Leon

19

FIRST NEMO is intended to be a resource for people - a “collection” of people if you want to view it that way - to discuss the “soft side” of managing a FIRST team.

FIRSTwiki is a place to post papers, etc. and FIRST NEMO is a place for mentors to share ideas and bounce ideas around.

I think, anyways. Is that what you had intended to create Leon? If anyone wants to talk about it more in person, I will be at WPI on Friday and Saturday for BattleCry…

20

I will be more then happy to discuss it at BattleCry. I’m going to be posting more ideas. There are some things that I think many people have missed in this, and I’m not sure if I can get them across in writing, but I will try. I’m going to try to work on this tonight, and hopefully at battlecry you can find me and we can discuss this further. See you at BattleCry.