Sustainability Workshop Welcome

FRC Sustainability Workshop Agenda Introduction 5 min Resources 5 min Who does what 5 min Sustaining the Organization 5 min Q&A 35 min

What is FRC Team Sustainability? It’s intended to be a challenge: “…a project too big, in a time too short, with a budget too small, and a team too large.” – Woody Flowers Challenge: keeping it fun? Solution: Acquire and maintain the necessary resources to continue successfully operating your FRC Team

FRC Sustainability Workshop What are resources? People/ Volunteers Parents, faculty, students, mentors Sponsors Money Grants, awards Donations, gift matching, Fundraising - Outreach Team fees Facilities and Engineering Skills Rooms Expertise Equipment Tools Money Peoples Volunteers Facilities & Engineering Skills

FRC Sustainability Workshop How to attract resources Use the force: Student Inspiralation Engage – “That looks fun” Inspire – “I want to do that too” Motivate – “I can do that” Confidence – “I know how to do it” Impact – “I can show others” Student excitement, interest, confidence – inspires others to participate

FRC Sustainability Workshop How to attract resources Use the force: Student Inspiralation Motivate Team: Other students Parents Faculty Volunteers Money Peoples Volunteers Facilities & Engineering Skills Use the force to attract key resources by creating opportunities for others to be engaged and inspired

FRC Sustainability Workshop Who provides what? Facilities & Engineering Skills Money Peoples Volunteers Organization/ Authority Grants Fundraisers Non Profit Status Parent/ Volunteers Students Faculty Mentors Fab Space Machining Tools Left side is the WHERE physical needs to run a program: space, tools for building, and skilled help, The middle is the WHAT business operations: you need The right is the KEY, without committed parents and volunteers it’s hard to run a solid operation School/Church/ Business/ Lodge/ Homeowner Training: OJT/ Workshops/ Industry Meeting Space Industry Sponsorships Fees Materials Skilled Participants: Mentors/Students

FRC Sustainability Workshop What is the key to sustainability? Parents and Volunteers are the key Parents Parents influence schools, PTSA Have industry contacts Most creditable Volunteers Usually parents, also can be faculty, students or mentors Peoples Volunteers

FRC Sustainability Workshop Students vs. Mentors What students can do Mentors / Volunteers help overcome obstacles Design by similarity, be creative Bring excitement, demonstrate student involvement Define team objectives, represent sub- teams Learn, experience, build, perform Funding, treasury, grant applications, non- profit status Design calculations, finalize design/troubleshoo ting Leadership/focus

FRC Sustainability Workshop What is the key to Volunteerism? Five Basics: Make your volunteers feel welcome: 1. Be accessible/approachable 2. Have a structure they understand & can see themselves in it 3. Open dialogue, decisions are transparent 4. Show appreciation for their time 5. Trust to help each other show the value and create opportunities for them to be engaged and inspired 1. Frequent parent meetings - Contact information Show interest in the kids and parents (networking) 2. - Assign leaders - Organize volunteer assignments 3. 4. 5. you’re not alone

FRC Sustainability Workshop What is the key to Volunteerism? A Basic Leadership Team Structure COACH LEAD MENTOR TOGETHER THEY Provide Focus and Direction Direct policies and actions Efficient decision process Effective communications Address feedback Responsible for directing policies and actions of the team - Focus and direction for what will be accomplished - Provide efficient decision process - Effective communications Address feedback Key leadership roles: - Coach – Addresses challenges, School Admin, facilities, liability, security, policy - Lead Mentor – Resource of other mentors, identify and address mentor availability and focus - Parent Coordinator – Resource for parents, coordinate parent focus - Lead Engineer – Facilitate design decisions LEAD ENGINEER PARENT COORDINATOR

FRC Sustainability Workshop What is the key to Volunteerism? The basics: Parent meetings Leadership briefs on status - Demonstrate actions are taken and accomplishments are realized - Openly discuss policies - Emphasize parent involvement Leaders must openly show appreciation to volunteers Forum for feedback - Encourage parent/volunteer engagement Difficult issues: resolve off-line and report  back in parent meeting Parents feel engaged - They network with others breaking down barriers to volunteerism Their concerns are addressed COACH PARENT COORDINATOR LEAD MENTOR Leadership briefs status - Demonstrates actions are taken and accomplishments are realized - Openly discuss policies - Emphasize parent involvement - Leaders must openly show appreciation to volunteers + Demonstrate they will be supported if they have problems + Openly recognize volunteerism – even marginal performance Forum for feedback - Encourage parent/volunteer engagement - Difficult issues can be addressed by team leadership; discuss, resolve and report  back in parent meeting Parents feel engaged - Their concerns are addressed - They network with others breaking down barriers to volunteerism

FRC Sustainability Workshop What is the key to Volunteerism? The basics: Parent meetings “Inspiralation” of the parents Provide volunteer opportunities =CONFIDENCE AND IMPACT Student briefings = HIGH VALUE (WHY WE ARE HERE) Treasurer Briefings = TRANSPARENCY, IMPACT MEASURES Money Peoples Volunteers Facilities & Engineering Skills Provide volunteer opportunities and impact Small/easy tasks Med task Major tasks Student briefings = HIGH VALUE - Visible skills development encourage team support - Address team progress and sense of accomplishment Frequent Treasurer briefing - Convey sense of open and honest handling of grants, fundraising, donations and fees

FRC Sustainability Workshop What is the key to Volunteerism? Money Peoples Volunteers Facilities & Engineering Skills The basics: Parent meetings (cont’d) Be brief! Do not waste parents time! Set agenda, touch core areas (all three) Allow time to socialize at the start and end Capture agreements and take actions for next meeting Encourage parent feedback, if necessary differ to after the meeting For major events create sub teams to manage and meet

FRC Sustainability Workshop What is the key to Volunteerism? The basics: Treasurer Assures sponsors that money is being handled properly Efficient reimbursement process reduces barriers to volunteerism Facilitate interface with 401.3(c) non-profit organization Money

FRC Sustainability Workshop Other Challenges? School/Admin/Community Support Parent understanding and support - Impact on student future; + Personal experience + Understanding of STEM career options + Improved scholarship opportunities Leads to Principle/School board/Community support Facilities & Engineering Skills School/Admin/Community Support Parent understanding and support - Impact on student future; + Personal experience + Understanding of STEM career options + Improved scholarship opportunities Leads to Principle/School board/Community support Social Suicide/Time commitment De-emphasize social dependencies - Pre-freshman awareness - Greater focus on STEM objectives - Parent support Personal accomplishment Fun

Business Outreach Presentation Personal Introductions: Hello my name is ________ , this is __________and we are students at RAHS, and members of the robotics team. Thank you for taking time to allow us to give this presentation. Tell the story of what inspired you to want to be an engineer or why you wanted to come to the school or why you joined the team (it should be your own PERSONAL STORY!!!!!!!!!) your goal is to Connect them to you personally & make it interesting and show that you WANT to be there Business Outreach Presentation

We are Skunk Works Robotics FIRST Team Number 1983 For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology Introduce FIRST as a Program: Share a high level version of the FIRST SPEAL FIRST stands for…. It was founded by Dean Kamen & MIT’s Woody Flowers, who wanted to create a game making STEM as fun and exciting as Friday night high school football Now over 20 years of games, and world wide Team 1983, is the number of our registration, now into the 5000s. Look at AND USE some of the statistics listed on “FIRST in a Glance” on the FIRST website (http://www.usfirst.org/aboutus/first-at-a-glance)

Mission of FIRST Inspiring students to be science and technology leaders Learning real-world skills Building Self Confidence Leadership Teamwork FIRST’s main goal is to inspire EVERY student in the program. It is designed so… Each student gains real-world experiences that make learning science, technology, and math exciting by linking them to real-world engineering challenges. Students and industry and business mentor work side by side and we learn from their experience As we learn we are also challenged and given opportunities to become leaders on team and in community

FTC + FRC + Practice Robots (2+) Who We Are Our Team Our Robot Present a broad picture of our team: Our team runs year round, including during the summer We have over 80 students and 20 mentors Every student receives over 180 + hours of mentor guided training FIRST creates a new game every year, simulating real world challenges and constraints of limited time, resources and budgets In only six weeks we have to design, build and program a robot that is ready for competition We also gain business presentation experience and connections with industry leaders 84 Students • 25 Mentors • 4 Robots • Year Round Operation 44 FRC + 40 FTC FTC + FRC + Practice Robots (2+)

2015 Competition Season Winning Alliance at: Auburn Mountainview District Event Mount Vernon District Event Philomath District Event Won District Chairman’s Award at Philomath Competing at Spokane Regional Event Tell about Last year’s success: We competed in two district events, and we were on winning alliance at one We also Qualified for the District Championship in Portland where we won on the field and won the Chairman’s Award, both qualifying us for World’s. We qualified and attended the international Championships in St. Louis, it was our 8th trip to world’s in 8 years! At St. Louis we won most of our qualifying matches and played to the finals in our elimination bracket (Galileo field was one of four fields, about 400 robots total at the event) Very proud to also win the Chairman’s Award at Spokane District Event. This is the most prestigious award, recognizing the team with greatest positive impact for FIRST in the region

St. Louis World Championships Competition Events 2015 National Events Regional Events Auburn Mountainview Mount Vernon Philomath Spokane Regional St. Louis World Championships District Events What does competition season look like? Competition season follows right after the six week design and build window: This year we will compete in at least two District Events We hope we will be able to have another strong robot design and advance to district championships and also qualify for International Championships Travel to competitions, we have as many as 47 students and 10 mentors, at each event, travel costs are a substantial part of our yearly budget. Events are all volunteer constructed and run, so they need many volunteers, we’d love you and your business to consider helping for a day or weekend Scout • Build • Drive • Practice • Educate • Compete

Year-Round Outreach Efforts As a year round program we not only build a robot to compete… we focus on inspiring more students about STEM we do a lot of outreach and introducing robotics to many people in the region. You can list some of these, don’t need to use them all!! Summer Workshops: We Organized and executed ten summer introduction to robotics workshops Elementary school kids Local libraries and Boys and Girls Clubs Hands on challenge & experience, programming and building Community Events: We take the robot and drive it at many events at schools 4th of July Parade Vintage Air Challenge Air FRC Rookie Workshop: Introduce Rookie teams to the basics of FIRST ROBOTICS COMPETITION (FRC), teach them basics such as Team Organization Fundraising Robot Building Programming Business Outreach: Introduce FIRST and the value of STEM for each student at local aviation and engineering businesses Spread the FIRST mission Create partnerships, gain support, identify intern & employment opportunities Community & Industry Events Summer Workshops Business Outreach & Engagement FRC Rookie Workshop

We use sponsors’ support in many ways Robot Construction Practice Field Travel Expenses Outreach Opportunities As a year round team our sponsors help is critical to our success! Here is a partial list for how we use the money and support they provide: We purchase materials and parts to build two robots. A competition robot and a second practice robot. This allows us to continue testing and refinement throughout the season We build a practice field to test system and programming improvements, we also make this available to other local teams Help us travel to three regionals In Northwest) as well as the International Championships in St. Louis Business contacts and places where we can provide robot demonstrations, introduction to robotics workshops, and other ways that help us spread the story of student value of STEM and FIRST farther into the community.

Getting Involved Mentoring Monetary Support In-Kind Services Internships After seeing this presentation we hope you want to help our team or support FIRST: There are many ways you can help: We accept monetary donations, and we will recognize your support in our team announcements, banners, and if you give us enough we’ll put your logo on the robot too. We always are looking for new mentors and people with skills to share with our students We have some sponsors who also give us in-kind fabrication, printing, airline tickets, and other assistance. If you have an something you want to offer, we’d be happy to see if we can use it. FIRST runs on volunteers, so if you or your entire staff would like to help at an event we can connect you to the coordinators

FRC Sustainability Workshop What Can School Administrators Do? Make FIRST Robotics programs co-curricular. Students should get some education credit. Coaches need to be paid. Teams need tools, shop space and practice fields. There should be as much media attention and publicity as any sports team get.

TEAM MARKETING AND FUNDRAISING Marketing is the concept of aiming your organization directly towards it stakeholders

GUERRILLA MARKETING Guerrilla Marketing is the process of relying on your time, energy and imagination rather than a big budget to get your word out and engage people.

The Marketing Secrets of the Grateful Dead Create a unique business model Choose a Memorable Brand Build a Diverse Team Experiment, Experiment, Experiment Embrace Technology

The Marketing Secrets of the Grateful Dead Encourage Eccentricity Put Your Fans in the Front Row Free Your Content Be Spreadable Give Back

Fundraising in General Stay away from the things that have low ROI Stay away from the things that require too much work for low return Involve the team members in the funding of their team Create the BUZZ, the EXCITEMENT and the TEAMWORK

Four Big Things That Work Spaghetti Dinner & Dessert Auction Letter Writing Campaign Business Outreach Program Industry matching/Grants

Business Outreach Detail Obtain Contact Information for Aerospace, Engineering, Tech and community involved businesses – parents, mentors, stakeholders Develop Presentation Script and Format Train All Team Members – Involve Parents Assign Teams – Seniors with Freshmen, Juniors with Sophomores Every Team Calls Businesses on the List and Schedules Presentation Times Every Team Does a Minimum of One Presentations

FRC Sustainability Workshop Contact Information FIRST Website - www.USFIRST.org FIRST Washington – www.firstwa.org FIRST Wiki - www.firstwiki.net/index.php/main_page FIRST forums – http://forms.usfirst.org/index.php Events/Teams – www.usfirst.org/whatsgoingon Chief Delphi – www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/portal.php Non Engineer Mentor Organization – www.firstnemo.org Skunkworks 1983 Team Website – skunkworks1983.com Gary Miller, Skunkworks Robotics; Gary.P.Miller@Boeing.com Steve Burke, Skunkworks Robotics; Steve.Burke@wsbdc.org Steven Wright, Skunkworks Robotics; Steven@wrightmarks.com Robert Steele, Coach Skunkworks Robotics; Robert.Steele@highlineschools.org