My guess would be that going through anybody other than said director of athletics is seen as going outside or around the chain of command. Depending on the organization, that could be seen as an unforgivable sin.
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Our school does not provide us with any thing but a banking account simply because we have students from the surrounding area who do not go to our school. I think they should support an all-inclusive team, and I am positive we could get more funds from them if they supported our student system.
We moved school districts (and states for that matter) to find a home with a vocational center that supported multi-district programs. You might want to shop around…
While this sounds like a great way to keep a team thriving, as we are a boarding school, moving is pretty much impossible for us.
also, love the content from 95!
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I found out that our team did have out of school students a few years back. Because so much of my school’s culture revolves around students living on campus, it apparently was really bad for morale and team unity. So eventually this stopped being allowed. (also insurance policies about students on campus, the school being selective enrollment, and other things).
Wasn’t going to reply to this, but oh well …
Our team had absolutely no school support for the first three years, we worked out of a team member’s garage (and that’s a San Francisco garage at maybe 20x20 tops), but we did it and won awards at Newton.
We finally got a space at school in 2018; outdoors with no heat and no bathrooms after the building was locked down at 6pm. Additionally, we had one power outlet and the room flooded almost every day that it rained, but we still did it and won regionals.
This year, since the room we were previously working in in 2018 only had one exit and thus didn’t pass fire inspection, we couldn’t move forward with that space. We were allowed to build a shed to work out of on school property, but after two break in’s and over $10k in losses, that proved to not be viable. But still, we continue to work and have what I think is the best bot we’ve built so far.
We receive no money from our school, and the only real support we get is getting approved field trips for competitions to ensure student’s attendance isn’t impacted. Space for a practice field or a room dedicated to a lab or shop space, good luck. We’re only able to work on weekends thanks to the generosity of a few of the school staff members who show up on their time to disable the alarm for us for a few hours.
What am I getting at? First, a lot of teams are probably in the same situation as ours and yours, lack of space and funding, but they still persevere and get it done. They learn and they continue to compete and grow. I’d love more school support, but I’m not going to complain given that our school, like most, has just barely enough funding to operate it’s core programs, and we’re at a Performing Arts School which makes it even more challenging. You work hard on sponsorships, lean heavy on the support of parents, and document your progress as a team for those coming up after you.
Also, reach out to other teams in your area for help and support. We would have never had a team save for support from other San Francisco teams and never have gotten so far without the help of some of the larger, longer running teams in the greater Bay Area.
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We started as a school team. We are now a community team (via 4-H). We have found 4-H to be very supportive.
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How much space does your team get?
We have an old shop bay (45’x60’).
Do you have faculty members mentoring and coaching your team?
We have two: a senior mentor who takes care of things “school-side” and a programming mentor who also is our hype man at regionals.
Does your school provide transportation to competition?
One regional is in-state and the other is two states over from us. We must fund both trips.
Making my points short: nothing new to be said, but supporting those above.
The key is having someone on staff who believes in the team. They will need to make robotics a fixture in the school’s culture.
You will also need to show to the admin the value of supporting a FRC team. Our principal understands the value of an FRC team on campus and uses the team to spotlight our school’s dedication to STEM.
Invite entire admin team to your practice/training sessions. Invite the STEM teachers, invite the fine art teachers.
We participate in every event held in the school that is appropriate: meet the principal night for rising freshmen, Freshmen Orientation, Patriot Rush (club rush event for recruiting new members), etc.
Our team members give their favorite teachers/support staff a special invitation to each regional.
I will repeat: The key to growth within the school is having a teacher who believes in the team and is willing to shamelessly promote the team.
Like most school-based teams, we are subject to all of the rules and regulations of the district Purchase Orders. Our major donations are handled by the district’s financial office. We are very fortunate; our district is small enough that it takes less than two days from the PO being submitted until the order is placed.
For those “we need this tomorrow” urgent orders, we use our school-based account. Our school-based account is where student fundraising money is deposited (carwashes, SNAP, etc.). The account usually has less $4,000 in it. We are required to empty the account every year.
I have a great relationship with my principal and the school’s financial secretary. I have an open PO for “robot parts” that I can use in for these emergency items. We are not breaking any school or district rules. The principal knows that these situations are unavoidable and approves the PO ahead of the needed time.
But, this relationship took time to cultivate. Having a principal who understands the process of designing and building a robot is a must.
A secondary comment about an often read statement: the school only gives us a room.
Space in a school is at a premium. With class sizes being at 30 plus, a principal is hard-pressed to justify giving a room to an after-school club. In our area, a classroom sized space in an industrial park would cost a team around $800 per month. A medium-sized bay would cost about $2,400 per month. This does not include insurance.
I agree with a lot of what has been said here, so I won’t repeat it, however I can’t stress enough how important team media is.
Many people do not understand what robotics is just through explaining. Trust me, i’ve explained robotics to older relatives far more than I care to admit. Creating videos is an easy way to show what robotics is all about rather than telling. Don’t worry about equipment, cameras and software, you can use your phone and some free editing software (VSDC, MovieMaker 10 or DaVinci Resolve).
Here is a link to my team’s youtube channel (Team 624) aswell as some other great examples:
To answer your questions:
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We share a Large robotics center with 5 other FRC Teams, each with a ~1000sqft bay and a shared practice field.
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Our team has one teacher/faculty sponsor that communicates with our school and district to organize any activities where either party would be involved.
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Our district provides transportation only to competitions in our city.
Our team was originally supposed to be a school team but as the lack of school support became larger and heavier, it was clear that we would also have to adapt to certain restraints. However, we converted to a community team. So it may be a little different in your situation. Anyways. We also take pride in ourselves on the fact that we are a student lead team. This includes our drive team - for example, I am the coach. Not a mentor. We do have some mentors, majority of them from our sponsors who happened to hear about our program, as well as a few parents. We have no school staff on our team, although we have tried to gain some in prior years. They have not given us any funding, so we now allow students from other school districts to join, as well as countless home-schooled students. Frankly, our school doesn’t pay attention to what we do recruitment wise. We are most noticed sadly when we simply perform well at competitions. Benefits however are we have more time to focus on the surrounding community. This means focusing on outside recruitment, a larger and more diverse group of students, and a highlight to sponsors and potential sponsors. For example, we are in the county newspaper all the time. Because there is no funding, we obviously need more sponsors and grants, and are sometimes forced to limit our robot. We want to especially make sure that students don’t need to pay a fee to join the team. Sadly, when it comes to funding though, we have had multiple alarming problems in which our receipts don’t balance the checking account they keep for other organizations including ours (mainly because we don’t have a finance department). So we are very frustrated with our school half the time for not being able to keep track of how much money we actually have, and which sponsors send in money.
This also includes build site areas. I have gone on rants about how many build sites we have had in multiple other threads, so I will keep this one short. Our school provides us with no funding for a building, or a proper location. We have been in old stripmalls, church basements, garages, second floors of abandoned firehouses, a barn, the attic of a warehouse, and a old bar (our current location). Besides the puke stains on the floor, the bar is by far the best due to the space. So in summary, we get 0 space.
Finally, we do receive transportation when it is available. We receive an old box truck that we share with the marching band - but because of the timing, it’s difficult for us to get it due to other sporting events that take priority because we aren’t recognized as a school organization. 
. It also means that we need to pick it up at about 11:00 at night when the band gets back from Friday night football games. Then we need to get up at 4:30, drive to our build site, pack the truck, and drive to the competition. And like you, half the time, our faculty doesn’t recognize us either. Not the easiest life for 2539. But we work with what we have, and the community including ourselves are very impressed with how much we have done with so little.
Good luck; hopefully your situation improves.
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