Starting an FRC Team: In Detail

By Kevin Ross - FIRSTWA Chairman

This guide is intended to help you get your FRC team started. Ramping up an FRC team can seem like a an enormous burden. However, if you approach it in a logical way, it really isn't too bad. I have done this myself a couple of times.

There are easily 100 getting started guides out on the internet. They all have good information and always the best of intentions. However, some of them are quite scary to read! For example, some of the guides will suggest teaming up with a large multi-national corporation and getting full use of their machine shop facilities, access to large warehouses to setup full sized practice fields, and what appear to be endless resources. While that would be nice, it is a rare exception to be so lucky. It turns out most teams have done their rookie work with nothing more than a simple toolbox and a cordless electric drill in a physics classroom.

I have a different approach to starting a team. It all revolves around not overwhelming you. A rookie FIRST team often times focus on just getting a robot built. Perfect! If you are able to throw in a few more program goals, even better. Do as much as your team feels comfortable with.

My Philosophy

FIRST projects, especially the FIRST Robotics Competition, are first and foremost a chance for your students to get involved in a team focused on science and technology. We encourage and celebrate everyone who participates in FIRST, and give the students a huge green light in going forward with STEM as a focus of their studies. More than that, it is also a chance for them to work together as a team to accomplish what most professional engineers would consider an impossible task: Design, build, test, and compete with a robot in just 6 weeks of build time. While competition is focused on the robot, our program is not. Our program is focused on the students and the process they are going to implement to achieve this difficult goal. This is a learning project for them, and a chance to get excited about some facet of science and technology that will motivate them to pursue a technical field as a career. It is also a chance for them to learn that they may not like science and technology, but might instead enjoy leadership, graphic design, logistics, or some other facet of the program. That is also fine. As long as they have taken advantage of the opportunity to be involved, we are happy.

To meet this part of my philosophy, I encourage all teams to allow the students to handle a majority of the organizing tasks. We want the students to take charge of their own team rather than being passive participants. They will, as high schoolers, need guidance and direction from the team advisor. Provide them with some accountability and be a good steward of the timeline. I would very much encourage a team coaches/mentor/advisor to allow the teams organization to either succeed or stumble on their own. Help them learn to be team leaders. They will naturally focus on the robot. With your help, they will also learn the teamwork and leadership skills at the same time.

The FIRST Culture

Before we jump into the meat of starting a team, I wanted to tell you just a little bit about the culture of FIRST. It is perhaps the single most powerful part of the program. FIRST is based on the ideal of Gracious Professionalism. GP is why the FIRST program works. FIRST teams treat each other with a great deal of respect and compassion. It is considered to be an honor and a responsibility to insure that other teams succeed. We are competing like crazy with a strong desire to win, but not necessarily at the expense of the other team. To be Gracious and Professional is considered the highest honor in FIRST. The Chairmans Award, which is our highest honor, has nothing to do with your teams robot. This award celebrates the team who demonstrates Gracious Professionalism. This might be through helping other teams, working with community, and a range of other things completely unrelated to your robot.

The biggest impact you, as a rookie team, will feel from Gracious Professionalism is that other teams are eager and willing to help you succeed. Our FIRST community is a complete eco-system that thrives when all of our participants share this attitude.

The power of this ideal can't be overstated. The notion of Gracious Professionalism is what creates an environment where no team or individual feels pressure or embarrassment when participating in FIRST. It allows every individual to shine in an environment free from ridicule and shame. It is this single ideal that creates the enormous amount of change in the students. Confidence rises, achievement is celebrated, and their imaginations are released from the shackles of peer pressure.  The only real peer pressure you will find at a FIRST event is in support of Gracious Professionalism. It is a most positive experience.

Getting Started

At the highest level, you will need to accomplish a few things to get your team started. More details about these items appear a little later.

Letting us know you exist

As a good initial step, be sure you have contacted your FRC State Chairman or FRC Regional Committee. In Washington state, that would be Kevin Ross. You can find the contact information at the bottom of this page. The FIRST volunteers on our regional committee are ready and willing to help you. Letting them know you are interested in starting a team will gain you access to resources and potential funding sources that you may not know about. Regional committees know about the local grants available to new teams.

An email address that we can reliably contact you on, and that you check on a regular basis, is critical. Unfortunately, many new coaches or mentors end up creating a special account at yahoo or gmail, then never get around to checking that email inbox. PLEASE, sign up with an email address you are likely to see on a daily basis. We do not spam you, sell your account info, or otherwise pester you with unrelated information. There are times when we get chances to apply for grants or present your team to potential funding sources on very short notice. For your benefit, we need to insure we are communicating with you in a timely manner.

Washington state FRC team leaders, mentors, and other interested parties should all join our mailing list on Yahoogroups. It is where we announce important information about our program. Click here to join our yahoogroup. If you are a team advisor, coach, or mentor, you should absolutely join this group.

Grants and Sponsors

We have a number of sources for grants and sponsors who know about our program. We know that this program seems expensive to schools and students. The FIRSTWA volunteers are usually pretty good at helping track down funding with you. We have no funding of our own, but are developing a network of sponsors who may be able to help.

FIRST teams are usually self supporting. Fundraising and involvement with local businesses is how our program exists. It is part of the package. Rookie teams can usually find extra support for getting started, as it takes a season or so to get on your feet. We have rookie grants available. We also have special grants for Boeing employees who are mentors.

If you get turned down for a grant, don't panic! Contact FIRSTWA, and we will attempt to help you find alternate funding. We have a pretty decent track record at getting teams started. It may require some fancy footwork on both of our parts, but we are pretty good at getting it done.

Talk to your school principal

Most teams are based at high schools. If you are at a school, you should be sure the principal is aware of what you are doing. Most are quite supportive. You will need their support for after school access to the school building, time off for the students, and other school related administrivia.

Recruiting students

Getting students interested in participating requires them knowing about the team, and being inspired about the team well in advance. We suggest recruiting students very early in the school year before they manage to fill their schedules with other things. We have posters and brochures for you that can help. We also have DVD's showing the events.

Recruiting local mentors

Local mentors come in all forms. Engineers are great resources, retired engineers even better as they have a little more time available. Building a robot is likely to be outside your scope of expertise. Actually, it will likely be outside your mentors area of direct expertise. However, this program is setup in such a way that most engineering or mechanical type people can actually build a robot with a little bit of help from other teams.

Get the parents involved

Your students are about to wade neck deep into a project. It is important that their parents have a basic understanding of what is going to happen. The students are going to spend a lot of time on this project during the robot building season. Parents will like this program. It is time consuming, but the students will learn a huge amount about themselves during the process. Our best advice is to have a meeting with the parents sometime between mid November and mid December. Try to get some parents to help out. There will always be logistics issues, fundraising opportunities, food and transportation needs, and best of all some parents who want to join the team as mentors.

A Proposed Budget

FRC teams cost approximately $12,000 on average to run for a year. Some teams can spend as little as $9,000, others spend nearly $50,000. It all depends on your circumstances.

A typical rookie team will have about a $12,000 budget if they can participate at one local event, say in Seattle.

Registration Fee	$6,500
Robot building supplies	$2,000
Tools	$1,000
T-Shirts, buttons, food misc	$1,000
Shipping and Transportation	$1,000
Practice field	$500
Total	$12,000

Hotel and transportation costs vary based on your location and how your team decides to travel. In general, your team will spend Thursday and Friday nights at a hotel. A small subset of your team will also be there Wednesday night. The event runs Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

It is not uncommon for a convoy of mini-vans to handle the transportation. Other schools get busses. Some school districts provide free bus service, some require you to pay for them. In general, plan on $150 a night for every 5 students you can cram into a room. Some teams have the students purchase their own food and pay their own travel expenses. Other teams work it into their overall budget. There isn't a requirement on how your team chooses to handle this. We would like to insure that all students on your team are able to travel regardless of their family finances.

Many school districts will allow your team to claim a per student / per-diem to help cover the costs. Check with your school administration to see if this would qualify as a field trip or ASB trip.

Introducing FIRSTWA

To clarify how FIRST operates in our state, an introduction is in order.  FIRSTWA is the state operations group partnered with FIRST (in New Hampshire). FIRSTWA is an all volunteer organization who is chartered with implementing and supporting the FIRST programs in the state of Washington. The programs include Jr.FLL, FLL, FTC, and FRC. Each program has a state wide partner who plan, organize, and implement the programs.

FIRSTWA is a division of the Seattle Robotics Association, a 501 c(3) non-profit. We are teamed up with the Seattle Robotics Society to bring technology education to our state. In reality, FIRSTWA is a very small group of dedicated volunteers who rely on the FIRST teams across the state for help. Our resources are intended to help you.

A Little More Detail...

Seasons

The FRC year is broken into three major divisions (we call them seasons), and you will hear most mentors and teams discuss things in terms of the three divisions.

• Pre-season
• Build-season
• Post-season

These seasons, much like any other sport, have their own flavor of activities in support of your team. At a very high level, here is what happens during these times.

Pre-season

The FRC pre-season usually starts end of August as school starts to wind up. It ends the first weekend of January. Your regional committee will be working on planning pre-seasons workshops and events. These events are usually done in conjunction with the other FRC veteran teams. As a rookie team, you will want to know about these events. Another great reason to start communicating early.

FIRSTWA holds a monthly mentor meetings. There is one scheduled for the last Thursday of the month during the pre-season. This is a great place to come meet mentors and student team leaders. You can ask questions, help with plans for our region, and otherwise get yourself educated. Check the schedule on the front page of www.firstwa.org to see when and where a mentor meeting might be held.

Pre-season is also when a lot of fundraising happens, recruiting new team members, bringing new students up to speed.

Build-season

The build season starts the day the contest is announced. Usually, it is the first Saturday in January. All teams around the world meet up in kickoff locations to watch the new game, get their kit of parts. Most kickoff events also have a discussion period, a sample field setup so you can see the game in a little more detail. The FIRSTWA kickoff events typically have breakout sessions for team members to get with other teams to share ideas about how to play this game.

Your team then has 6 short weeks to determine how to play the game, design and build a robot, test the robot, pack it up in a crate, then on the day after Presidents day, ship it to FIRSTWA for safe keeping. This is a very busy time for your students and mentors.

Sometime during the month of March, we will be having the Seattle Regional FRC contest. Check the FRC calendar for the date of the next event.

Post-season

This season starts the day after your last event and usually closes the last day of school. This is usually the quiet time for most teams. Typical teams will demonstrate their robot at fundraising events, fairs, elementary schools, and other venues. Fundraising is also common this time of year.

Recruiting Your Students

A goal of our program is to get students involved in science and technology. There are going to be some students at your school who will naturally be attracted to FIRST. There will be others who we would like to see, but may require some additional recruiting efforts on your part. The goal of the FIRST programs are to increase the number of students going into science and technology. To actually increase that number, we need to get students who otherwise wouldn't take interest.  This is an intense and exciting team sport that should be open to anyone who wishes to participate. We want these students to be inspired to find a passion. To serve these students best, we need them on your team.

We highly recommend removing any barriers to being on your team. Some basic level of committment is going to be required by the team members. It should be a relatively low level! This is a big project that could potentially consume a great deal of time. It is very common for students to have many activities they are involved in. For your FRC team, this is generally a good thing. You are going to end up with a core group of kids for whom your FRC team is their world. You will have other students who are also in Drama, Band, Basketball, ASB presidents, work after school, etc. Your core group of kids are going to be inspired to be there every time. The other students can make it whenever they are able. Let them work around their own schedule. We discourage making rules about being at every build session. It isn't realistic, and will reduce the participation on your team.

The advantage to this approach is that students who are involved in other activities can introduce your team to other programs in your school and fine useful ways to leverage that to your advantage. For example, someone in the schools video production club may be able to bring resources from that club to document your efforts. Having kids who work after school is a perfect way to get your team known in the business community.

This is also a program that should cater to both girls and boys. Experience tells us that girls are very well suited to this task, and that they should be encouraged to work with the team. They turn out to be excellent engineering candidates, and also excellent leaders of many teams.

If at all possible, work with your FRC Committee to arrange a robot visit from another school. Hold an afterschool meeting for the robotics 'club'. We have video available for you to show, and also some recruiting posters you are welcome to have printed. Tell everyone on your team to bring an interested friend.

Experience tells us that kids are very interested in FIRST, and that is very obvious when you see the growth that happens in the second year teams at most schools.

Mentors

Mentors are typically adults who are willing to help your team. We like to get engineers from various industries to come in and work with your team. Mechanical engineers and software engineers can add a lot to your team.  Anyone with above average mechanical skills and a knowledge of a wide variety of subjects can be a huge help to you. Machinists, hobbyists, and carpenters can be just as valuable. Mentors are by no means limited to just engineers and technical people either. FIRST competitions have a large number of logistic, fundraising, and administrative needs that often times can be aided by parents or other volunteers.

Some corporations encourage their employees to get involved with FIRST or other non-profits. Boeing mentors (employees and retired employees), for example, come with grant money for participating. Microsoft employees are matched with a cash hourly donation from Microsoft. Other companies have similar programs.

Recruiting mentors often times starts with the students. Some of them will have parents qualified to help out, or will know someone who is. This is something you should routinely ask your students to talk with their parents about.

As with any interaction between your students and adults, you should follow your schools procedures on background checks.

Registration

Registration for FRC officially starts in October. There is an online system that is operated by FIRST. We don't have a link to this just yet, as it changes every year.

The basics of registration are pretty straight forward. You will enter your teams information with FIRST. They will assign you a temporary team number until the registration is completed.

Once completed, your team will be assigned a unique team number. This is a permanent team number that your team will keep into the future. A team number becomes part of your teams identity, and you will see people referring to themselves as Bob Jones, FRC #361 which tells you which team Bob is with. Your team will eventually wear this as a badge of honor! In general, older teams have lower numbers. The oldest teams in Washington state are Team 360, 372, and 488.

Fundraising

Fundraising is a challenge. This is a great challenge for the students as they will need to develop both a plan and a presentation. Since the amount of money raised each year is fairly large, the team will need to develop a fundraising group to help. Funding typically comes in the form of grants and donations. Grants have a formal process to be followed, while donations and sponsorships are a bit less structured.

First year teams are often times eligible for rookie grants to help them get started. This is a huge help to new teams. However, these grants are typically only good for the first year or two, and your team will be expected to start working on additional funding. This is a great place to find a parent or two who have some initiative. Raising $10-$15K is well beyond the scope of bake sales.

The State of Washington has some grant money available to start new teams. There is a page in the FRC portion of our website with more information about grants.

Boeing graciously offers employees (current and retired) a $6,000 grant to work with a school. Each team is eligible for only a single grant per year. Having a Boeing employee involved with your team is a huge benefit. Check the grants section of our website

Tools and Equipment

About $500 to $1000 of your budget is going to be spent on tools the initial year. If your school has a shop facility, it might be less. In general, you will want your FIRST team to have its own toolkit, as you will be taking it offsite for several days.

We have a few quick suggestions on what you should be thinking about. We will have an in-depth tools and equipment discussion during our workshops and elsewhere on our site. We suggest that the team purchase whatever toolset is available from Costco or Home Depot that comes in a large plastic storage case, costs about $100-$140, and looks like a good assortment of tools for working on a car. You need wrenches (SAE and Metric), hex wrenches, a socket set. The nice thing about the kits in the plastic storage boxes is that at the end of the day, you can quickly see what parts are missing. You will also need a cordless electric drill. We suggest a sturdy, 12-volt or higher, 1/2" chuck. DeWalt, Makita, Ridgid, or any other major brand is fine. You will want two batteries.

This is not a definitive list, but these two items will hopefully set the tone. You don't need a rolling toolbox with thousands of dollars worth of tools to accomplish FRC. If you have such things, great. If you don't, $500 - $1000 is going to outfit your club very nicely.

Where to Build

To build a robot, you are going to need a few things in a facility:

• A bathroom for long evenings
• Access to the building after school hours and potentially on weekends, hopefully heated
• A place to make a minor mess. Aluminum shavings, saw dust, noise.
• A place to drive your robot around when it is built.
• A place to store your robot and tools while you are away
• Access to the internet

Basic hygiene facilities available after hours and on weekends are very important.

As for building the robot, you will attempt to cleanup your minor mess, but don't plan on removing aluminum shavings from carpet without some effort. A hard floor often times works better. You will also be making a great deal of noise from time to time, especially if you use a power miter saw to cut aluminum. Many teams setup the saws outside for cutting quanities.

The field that your robot operates on is usually about 56' x 28' in size. Think basketball court sized. Very very few teams have access to an area this size, so we tend to trying things out in cafeterias, hallways, or perhaps a clear area in a large classroom or shop. Most teams will build examples of important field elements, and fake the rest.

You will also need a safe place to store your robot, parts, and tools while you are away. The robot roughly 3'x3'x 5' tall (depending on your design). The kit of parts comes as two large plastic tough boxes (3'x1.5'x1'). The tools are suitcase sized. Some robots are stored in lab space, a lockable store room in a shop, or left in someones personal basement.

Access to the internet is important as most of the documentation for the contest is stored online.

Ok, you might be asking yourself, what about the huge shop with milling machines, lathes, welding equipment, and the rest. Well, if you have access to those resources, use them! We know that many schools don't have that equipment anymore, so it isn't necessarily required. Having access to such tools does expand your possibilities. Finding someone outside of your school who can mill or machine a part for you on occasion is a huge help, but not a pre-requisite to getting your FIRST team started.

Part of engineering is working with the resources you have available and budget for. It creates great opportunities for creative thinking and resource management.

Examples of places to build your robot:

• High school shop
• High school physics lab
• High school theatre scene shop
• Parents garage
• Local machine shop
• Church basement
• Local company that can loan you space
• Cafeteria

In Conclusion

Your FRC experience will be intense. Your students experience will be intense. You are going to permanently change the directions of some lives by doing this, and changing them in a most positive way. Thank you for participating. Please contact us if you are feeling overwhelmed. We can help.

You will have many more questions than we can put into a single document. Thats fine. We have lots of answers, and will be happy to answer them in an interactive way. PLEASE be sure we have a way to contact you. The following will allow you to send the FRC State Partner an email to get things started. If you are registered on this website, you should see our full contact information.