To all rookies!
Here, we have provided some documentation that we are using and/or have found helpful over the years. We hope this helps any rookie teams out there! Items here are organized in a Timeline fashion so that teams can work through step by step organization.
Summer – June-August
1. Plan out your Budget. Decide how much money you will need to run your team.
- See our budget estimate from the 2005 and 2006 Seasons
- FRC Teams run on anywhere from $8,000 to $100,000+
2. Plan out your Pre-Season. Decide what the team will do and how the team will be organized.
- We planned out the tasks we wanted to do in Preseason in this document. It includes potential team projects, sub-team descriptions, engineering competitions for team meetings, mentor presentations, and some general tasks.
- Some organizational tips from NEMO
- A few hints… (advice for rookies) from NEMO
- Develop a Wish list of items & tools to get donated
3. Recruit your Mentors
- Collect Information with a Mentor info sheet
- See our first Mentor Recruiting Presentation
Preseason – September-December
4. Recruit your Students
- Advertise an Info Session
- Student Information session Presentation
5. Meet your Parents
- Send a Letter to all of the parents of students on your team: Sample letter
- You can follow the letter up with an email if you have parent emails
- Host a Parent Info Session: Sample Presentation
- Get your Parents to Sign-up to Help: Parent’s sign-up letter, Parent Info Letter
6. Start Fundraising!!
- Decide your fundraisers or have students develop ideas: A fundraising form
- Run a Patron Drive to get donations from the community.
- See our Fundraising Ideas
7. Run your Preseason
- A sample All Team Kickoff meeting, or another Kickoff Presentation
- Sub-team sign-up sheet
Build Season – January-February
8. Build Season Organization
- Sample Build Season Schedules
- Have your Build Season Kickoff:
- Have your students & mentors divide into subteams. We have them fill out this sheet
9. Organize Your Travel
- Example Permission Slips
- Example Trip Sign-up Sheets
10. Promote your Team & Successes!
- Thunder Highlight Reel
- Write Press releases
OTHER INFO
- A FIRST Inspires Brochure summary