1. Sustainability Workshop
Welcome

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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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 (

19. 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

20. 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 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+)

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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.

25. 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

26. 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.

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

28. 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.

29. 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

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

31. 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

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

33. 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

34. FRC Sustainability Workshop Contact Information
FIRST Website -
FIRST Washington –
FIRST Wiki -
FIRST forums –
Events/Teams –
Chief Delphi –
Non Engineer Mentor Organization –
Skunkworks 1983 Team Website – skunkworks1983.com
Gary Miller, Skunkworks Robotics;
Steve Burke, Skunkworks Robotics;
Steven Wright, Skunkworks Robotics;
Robert Steele, Coach Skunkworks Robotics;