<p>How would one go about starting one in their school? Advice greatly needed and appreciated!</p>
<p>first go to a computer science/engineering teacher to sponser it. Then get people to join. Then build an amazing robot and compete.</p>
<p>Yeah. Make sure the adviser is into the idea, or really doesn't care.</p>
<p>It's really annoying when your adviser stops you from doing practically anything because it's "hazardous" or "too expensive" or ... basically she doesn't want to deal with it, and won't let you deal with it either.</p>
<p>More specifically, how would I go about finding materials for use (local sponsors or order which'd get pretty expensive)? Should the students be part of a compilation effort of one robot to compete each year or individual projects? I doubt there are any teachers at my school with engineering experience (closest would be the auto tech teacher) so would it be a trial and error kind of thing or should I try and find someone with robotics experience (student or...)?</p>
<p>Look into FIRST - it is a robotic competition. Maybe you could find an experienced school to mentor you and give you advice. see if any local businesses that employ engineers are willing to get involved/sponsor you
<a href="http://www.usfirst.org/%5B/url%5D">http://www.usfirst.org/</a></p>
<p>Thanks a lot swimcatsmom!</p>
<p>Assuming that you have no problem recruiting people and getting mentors and a supervisor... </p>
<p>Fund-raising is a must before you can enter competitions like FIRST. Make sure you have really good sponsors... You'll need all that money for sure. We spent like >15k [or something in that range] this year. The entrance fee and the kit fees are in the thousands, so it all adds up.</p>
<p>Oh, I didn't read the other comments. You should get Google to sponsor you. They sponsor a lot of teams. Just talk to them. Have your PR group do that or something.</p>
<p>Our team would be happy to help you =] but... what state are you in?</p>
<p>Why do you want to start one?</p>
<p>aquamarinee- I'm in Nevada and would greatly appreciate any advice you and your team could give!</p>
<p>Myarmin- I'd like to start a robotics team for my own personal experience as well as to help offer something that I think other students at my school would enjoy. Hoping we could do some local competitions just confused on how I should get started (really just in the planning stages as of right now).</p>
<p>I'm in California XD But that's okay! We can still help you... remotely. Hahaha. </p>
<p>So, how far have you gotten on planning? Is recruitment going well?</p>
<p>FIRST is the best place to start. You're in Nevada, so you already have a regional in your state. Our team was actually at the Las Vegas Regional this year, it was a great regional, nice blend of rookies and seasoned veterans. Also, on the FIRST website you can look for teams in your area. Contact one of them and see if they can help you start up your own team. When you get your school involved, look for corporate sponsors. From your funding, you can decide if you have enough to do FRC (big, 130lb robots) or FVC(smaller, 15lb robots). </p>
<p>An FRC team can get quite expensive with $6000 initial event registraion + kit of parts, then you'll need additional robot construction funds, and travel funds. Make sure that you have enough money, or a plan to fundraise before you start. FRC is really a rewarding experience. </p>
<p>FVC is quite a bit cheaper. If you want it to be a small team with your friends, this is more feasible because you don't need school involvement and you can build at home or wherever. You can build a pretty good bot for about $600 and event registration ranges from about $200-$500. Travel usually isn't much of an issue because they are one day events.</p>
<p>As far as the core initiative of forming your team goes, first off, find students that are interested. If there is a strong interest for it at your school, work together to get a teacher interested and involved, and then work towards the administration. (Trust me, you'll need them later for money, trip approval, etc.) The teacher does not have to be the most technically qualified, but definitely someone that is interested in seeing the program grow. Try to get the teacher and adminstration interested before school ends so that you won't get pushed to the side with all of the back to school hooha. When you look for sponsors, don't just target the big companies. There are tons of little companies out there that wouldn't mind putting a few hundred dollars towards a good cause. Every dollar counts. Event registration begins in October, so make sure that you get everything together as soon as school starts, although they have a little slack for rookies.</p>
<p>You can PM me personally and I'll send you some more links to resources and stuff to get you started if you are interested. Hopefully we'll see you as a rookie team next year!</p>
<p>(Sorry for making this so long, I really love robotics and I'll never miss a chance to get anyone else interested)</p>
<p>-Noelle
FRC 108 SigmaC@T Robotics (SOAP)</p>
<p>Planning not at all concise thus far. Have a teacher advisor in mind that is interested and I think recruitment for kids should be good (though won't really know until the club is up and running).</p>
<p>Some more advice: </p>
<p>Make sure you have some good mentors who are willing to put in a LOT of time during Build Season [which lasts 6 weeks]. Engineers who can program in C are a plus, if no one on the team knows C very well. I think that the best way to learn is just to join FIRST and do a competition. That's how my team learned everything during our first year... simply by doing it. We would prepare off-season and everything, but I think that that part didn't do so much. Actually going to the competition and seeing the other robots was more useful, along with the whole building process ofcourse. So, I advise you to do one of the competitions and not simply "prepare" for the competition during your team's first year. You'll want to keep training kids as the years pass because you'll need people to keep the team alive and well after you graduate :)</p>
<p>Oh, and you'll definitely need a machine shop to do a lot of the work on the robot. Make sure you can find one that will be willing to help you out.</p>
<p>At our school, the physics teacher sponsors it...so maybe a physics teacher at your school would be interested.</p>
<p>HAHAHA.....that has to be the nerdest club ever.....what a loser!!!!!!!!!!!!</p>
<p>Thanks you guys for all the help! Definitely gonna do FIRST to start off. Hope to see some/all of you next year (if all goes well). =)</p>