Hello, my name is Kyle and as you can tell I am part of team 1672. I just found out that or adviser would not be returning and that we have to have a new one to continue our club. Our problem is that current teachers do not want to be an adviser and that so far nobody even from the outside wants to apply. My crisis is that how do I go about trying to get a new adviser? Does anyone have any ideas for me to go about advertising our club to get a new adviser? Please help my team is desperate.
What are the requirements for the advisory position? Is there an age requirement? Time commitment requirement? Do they have to be some type of teacher or industry professional? Could you possibly get an alumni or parent to take the role, simply so your school allows you to continue?
Pro tip - get more than one mentor. One adult running a team will lose their mind.
I suggest demoing at local companies with the explicit goal of recruiting mentors and having a ‘bring your parent to robotics’ day to get parent involvement as well.
Unless they have been a “White Gloves” team and plan on remaining as one, then at the bare minimum they need two adults.
Just to be clear, I am with you on the multiple mentors part; however, I just think having a definitive answer on how they ran their team will help the conversation
What are the school district restrictions on the adviser?
Does it have to be a teacher at the high school?
Several of our high school coaches in other sports come up from the Middle School and Elementary schools.
Does it have to be a teacher?
Our head coach is a substitute teacher with the school district, although I think he’s taken ZERO sub jobs. He is a fantastic engineer, and would be a great teacher if called upon.
What is the work load for the adviser, and can a more active parent booster group take on some of that work load?
Does the adviser have to be present every time the team meets, and would it be possible to have 2 advisers to trade off on that burden?
We have 3 coaches and any one of us can keep a meeting going if another can’t be there.
If you can identify why people are saying no you’ll be well on your way to identifying ways to mitigate those concerns.
Hi kylemikableh,
It may be helpful to your cause if you provided a more detailed description of what your previous adviser did on the team, or rather what you would expect this new adviser to be responsible for! As of right you’ve posted a rather sweeping and general “Help us do stuff” outline.
Some things to consider:
- Is there a particular part of the team that needs advising?
— Mechanical, Electrical, Software, Administration, Riveting, etc. - If it’s more generic can you specify certain topics that they would likely need to help on?
- What type of structure does your team currently have?
— How many mentors, what do they do and where do they need support?
— How many students, … - How hands on is this adviser? Adviser as a term is pretty loose and open for interpretation so any extra details on this would be good!
- Does this person need to be present/local or can they be remote?
I’d suggest talking with your team to help understand and define the your needs in order to create a more comprehensive request for assistance. Having this would also help anyone you get to hit the ground running!
Best Regards,
RM
-Sent from my iPhone
This is false. All teams must have two adults working with students at all times. So sayeth the YPP.
You need to break down the problem a little bit:
-
What are the school’s requirements for your club advisor? Does it have to be a faculty member, or are you allowed to use a parent or other mentor? What are the rules for student supervision – does the advisor have to be there for every second you’re meeting or can the load be shared with other mentors or a subgroup of mentors that the school has approved? What other tasks are required of the advisor?
-
Make a list of everyone who meets the requirements that you could possibly ask. Don’t necessarily confine yourself to the more obvious choices like science or shop teachers.
-
Develop a clear businesslike sales pitch that is as concise as possible. Address what’s involved, the time commitment, the benefits to the students and to the prospective advisor, what help will they have with team management from the parents and other mentors, and anything else that you think they’d need to know to make an informed decision.
-
Start working through the list. If someone tells you no, ask why (in a non-pushy, friendly way). This information might help you refine your pitch for the next person you talk to. Is it that they don’t know about the program, know but don’t like the program, concerns about the time commitment, pay, schedule conflicts with other commitments, don’t think they know enough about robots to do this…
As a note: FIRST’s requirements for team registration require 2 adult team contacts in TIMS that have completed the Youth Protection Program process. Hopefully you still have access to one of those two people or your team paperwork for next year with FIRST is going to be a bit more challenging.
I never said they had to recruit technical mentors. There are plenty of non-technical people looking to get involved in volunteer activities.
The age requirement to work as an adviser at our school is 21. Also, a background check will be run after an interview with the school principal.
The current structure (or lack there of) for our team is saddening. The program was started in 2005 and since we are proud to have all student built robots. But, it has always been the responsibility of the students to learn the concepts involved in creating a competitive robot own their own time. Our past mentors have tried their best given the knowledge they had prior to FIRST (mechanic shops, programming careers) and low resources to help us build a robot that at a minimum completed a single task, but a lot of the essence of FIRST got forgotten in that process.
We have struggled to retain students in the program due to the fact that they were not learning how to build a robot, if they were competent they could help, but otherwise they had to figure out what they could do by themselves. So, instead students just stopped showing up.
This past year we had two advisers(a retired teacher and her neighbor). But, honestly I am going to say that the majority of the research was put on me. None of the members or mentors on the team knew CAD other than me. So, I designed the robot based off of the strategy we collectively created in week 1. I don’t mind doing this and would do it anyways since I love to build robots. But, I am graduating this year and the team needs someone who can competently aid in designing and building the robot, as well organizing the team.
Part of our problem is that with do little to nothing to prepare members for the season during the off-season. This is due to teacher contracts, and lack of mentors. Also, we haven’t necessarily had the knowledge to teach students.
For this last season, we were given a $15,000 donation from our school’s foundation which allowed us to buy some tools and robot parts to at least get into the modern era of FIRST (new motor controllers, more than one RIO, new aluminum tube, saws). And we have more money in our budget with hopes to do something in the off-season before the end of this school year or over the summer.
So, at this point we need an adviser that is capable of overseeing operations, keeping students safe, aid in building + designing, and supporting the growth of the team.
We know the time commitment is huge for a FRC team but, if you know anyone feel free to PM me and I can give you even more information if you wish.
TLDR: We need an adviser to have a club at are school otherwise we can’t meet and we need some kind of technical support to actually get a robot built.
Hey Jacob,
I used to be very familiar with your team back in high school. I would highly recommend that you ask assistance from parents and your fellow students and attend a school board meeting or PTA meeting. Let the administration have a better understanding of what you need and why. You may need to prep for the meeting and show them what students have experienced through the program.
You are bound to find support if your school foundation gives you 15K a year.
If you need additional help, please feel free to send me a private message and I can get you in touch with a few local teams who can provide more help.
In addition to going to neighboring companies and inviting parents, see if you can get any help from the school administration on this. When we were founding what would become 3946, Gixxy made arrangements with school administration to give us contact info of the incoming teachers as soon as that list was legally available so we could do personal appeals. We got Jesse, our first head coach, as a new teacher. As he was looking to leave teaching, the principal was going to specifically recruit for a robotics head coach if we didn’t have another already lined up. This would work as if we did not have, say, a tennis head coach. Is there any way that a portion of that grant could be used for a choach’s stipend? Allocating 10%-20% as a stipend would make the position a lot more attractive.
Yes, I believe previous advisers were offered $3000 for the entire season. At the beginning of this school year our principal posted a job listing for a robotics mentor with engineering background and no one called about the listing. That is why our old adviser had to get her neighbor to help out.
I find that with the amount of time required to run a organization like this, no one will be willing to jump in for $3000 unless they already have a passion for it. I have a contact in our school’s foundation that is familiar with the program (her step-son was our lead programmer in 2014) who I will reach out to and see if any of the grant can go towards paying an adviser. I just have to get the “ok” on that because the grant is specifically supposed to go towards parts, tools, transport, and competitions fees.
I’m having trouble getting support for the program from current teachers because some of them have mentored in the past and now have kids and know that they cannot make the time commitment. But, I will reach out to the school administration about new teachers because I am aware that their are a bunch of new teachers coming in to fill empty positions next year.
I might suggest reaching out to your district, MAR, directly, as they might have local connections that are able to help. The email listed on their website is: [email protected]
If you don’t have any luck getting a response from that email it looks like there are also some additional contact listed on THIS page.
Kyle, I have passed word on to your neighbors 1676 to see if there’s anyway that we can help. Feel free to PM me.
Can the principal re-post that listing, and give you a link (that naturally you’d post on CD/email to MAR contacts/otherwise make known to the FRC community)? It may just be that there wasn’t enough knowledge of said listing.
Wow guys, I really didn’t expect this much help and so fast! It really means a lot that so many people and teams care about every team. I have read many of your suggestions many of which none of us thought about and will be attempting many of them in the upcoming weeks. I will keep you guys posted 
I’ve noticed that your team website is not functioning at the moment(I followed a link from The Blue Alliance and got a blank page). If you were to put up a page on your website describing your need for an adviser along with a job description and a list of things to expect, that might help you reach more potential candidates for the position.
Oh wow that is an amazing idea! And yeah im incharge of the website thats on me ill fix that 
I’m so sorry to hear that Mr. Light is leaving, but I suppose it is for a well-deserved retirement. I remember the day 1672 was formed.
Definitely get some of the MAR folks involved. Don Bosco has a team, and 1676 and 223 are near by and might be able to help, even if it is just to explain to prospective mentors what to expect