FIRST Robotics Rookie Team

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>Hey guys, I want to start a FIRST Robotics team next year and I just wanted some advice on how to go about. I've watched some of the competitions on youtube and researched about it (somewhat I guess) and it looks like the coolest thing ever! </p>

<p>I know its a lot of work and has people doing all sorts of jobs -building, programming, treasurers, etc. It's expensive (teacher said total costs can range $8,000 - 10,000?), and it's a lot to take on (that might be an understatement). But I like challenge, so yeah. </p>

<p>TL;DR:
-What's the whole process of this? Do you start strategizing before the 6 week period?
-Any good fundraising ideas? How did you make ends meet?
-Can you take me through what each job does (programming, building, strategy)?</p>

<p>Thanks! :D</p>

2

<p>bbbuuummmppp~</p>

3

<p>Have you thought about starting with VEX? Although it too can be costly, it may be more practical. </p>

<p>My daughter did VEX Robotics during high school and learned some amazing skills beyond the expected designing, building, and programming that is necessary for competitions. Additionally, she has friends throughout the US and the world, as a result of qualifying for four world competitions.</p>

4

<p>At our school a couple of kids went and joined a FIRST club at another school. They worked with that club for a couple of years to learn the ropes, then brought what they learned back to our school to start the club. Successful clubs work pretty hard a lot of the year. In the fall they are fundraising, working on marketing and logo design, developing a newsletter and website, recruiting team members, setting up their lab space (that was a lot of work and expensive the first year), recruiting mentors (big deal, mentor quality will make or break your team), ordering t-shirts, etc. I know they did an application to NASA for funds that took a lot of work, but netted them about $5,000. After the season they worked on some outreach to younger kids, etc (that gets points in the awards process).</p>

<p>The six week window is very, very short to figure out what you want to do/design, build, and test. You gotta have a lab with tools in place at the beginning to have a chance of getting a robot working. One big piece of advice is don’t be overly ambitious. There are often several ways to score points – in your first year it might be good to pick ONE way and just work toward that. The stop at the end of the season is a hard stop – you can’t sneak in any more work if you didn’t get it done before the competition.</p>

<p>Someone else can probably give you all the teams you might consider, but some of ours last year were:</p>

<p>Design/CAD
Build
Programming
Awards
Marketing - Newsletter & Website
Fundraising (everyone had to help find sponsors and write thank you notes – people asked local businesses, we looked for businesses whose owners had kids at our school, asked local manufacturing businesses, a few big companies like JC Penney give to a lot of teams, some parents made donations)
Safety</p>

<p>There was a group that built a mock up of the actual performance space (pyramid and slots last year), I don’t remember what they were called.</p>

<p>Someone had to take care of all the paperwork to make sure the entry was done on time, send forms back to FIRST by a certain date confirming all the parts were in the kit, etc. </p>

<p>The first year the team also had a “wish list” that they published to the school community. They got some tools and stuff like a shop vac donated that way.</p>

<p>You really need a lot of support from parents, mentors, and any teacher who is in charge of your club. You can’t really have the lab open without an adult there at most schools. And parents can help provide food, transportation, etc.</p>

<p>Oh, our kids’ team won the Rookie Inspiration Award their first year. :)</p>

5

<p>Yeah, I would suggest starting with FTC the first year, get a dedicated team and really learn the ropes of robotics. Then, when you’re ready, move on to FRC the next year when you know what goes into it. Walk before you can run. </p>

<p>–Sunny Aggarwal, FRC Team 303, Newton Division Champions</p>

6

<p>Thanks for all the feedback guys :D~ I’m seriously considering starting with an FTC team right now…</p>

7

<p>So did you check out the new FTC game for this year?</p>

8

<p>Hi, I’m actually involved in starting a rookie FRC team this year as well, so I thought I’d offer my comments:</p>

<p>I agree with intparent on all of her points. The FRC build season is extremely intense, and will punish you if you aren’t prepared for it. I would definitely recommend having some experience under your belt beforehand. I don’t have any experience with FTC, but I participated in an out-of-town FRC team last year before starting up a team in my city with a friend who had been involved for 5 years, and several mentors with 10+ years of experience.</p>

<p>Secondly, FRC is very expensive. You list $8-10k, but this seems fairly low to me. The cost of just the rookie kit of parts + registration for one regional is $7500, I believe. Once you add the potential for travel costs, plus another regional, plus parts not included in the KoP, plus tools, etc. it can get expensive quick. We plan to have a $50k budget this year. You don’t raise $50k doing bake sales - you’ll want to write lots of grants to local and national companies to cover most of your costs. These can be time consuming, but are a great way to fund your team.</p>

<p>Besides just fundraising, there’s a myriad of other things you’ll need to do before the build season starts. You need to find a space to build and test your robot, as well as store your parts. You need to find mentors who are familiar with aspects of the build such as CAD, electrical wiring, operating machine-shop equipment, programming in your desired language, etc. You have to recruit a really dedicated student base that will put in the hours to make your team successful (and believe me, you’ll have long hours during build season). Before the season ever begins, you must have these things in place or you will be seriously behind before you ever get started.</p>

<p>Because of this, you want to start early. We registered our team in May, and worked during the summer to raise money and recruit students. Only now are we really starting to see money coming in from grants, and we’re still working hard to apply for more. In order to really be successful in FRC, you have to treat it as a year-round activity, not just something that lasts for the build season and maybe a month or two beforehand.</p>

<p>I know I might sound a bit negative, but I really don’t want to discourage you! I just want to make sure you understand just how much work has to go into starting up an FRC team before you get overwhelmed by it all. I don’t know much about FTC, but it sounds like a good stepping-stone for an FRC team. I do recommend getting involved in any nearby FRC team, even if you have to commute (I drove about one hour each way to the team I joined last year). You’ll be able to see firsthand what goes into an FRC team and build connections with experienced people that will be able to guide you in the process of starting your own team.</p>

<p>Whatever you decide to do, I wish you the best of luck and hope to see you in competitions!</p>

<p>Edit: Whoops, I just realized this thread is three months old! I’ll keep this post up in case the OP or anyone else is looking for more information about starting an FRC team.</p>

9

<p>@sunnya97: Yeah, i just checked it out! It looks pretty awesome and after hearing everyone’s advice about funding, I was leaning towards FTC anyway. Not only that but there seems to be a grant for rookie teams if you’re part of the first 1000 teams to register. Talk about incentive :smiley: I’ll definitely be talking about this to my CS teacher tomorrow :)</p>

<p>@evanatch: Thanks for sharing! Your advice was helpful! I realize that funding may be an issue, so I’ll definitely try to start out with a FRC team first. Even if that doesn’t work, maybe an engineering club? Just anything that will get people interested/experienced…Most of the students at my school aren’t really into anything STEM related (or at least interested enough to start clubs), mostly sports, so we’ll see. Thanks again!</p>