Cost of going to Championship
 

It is curious to see that of the 12 teams that were on Einstein last year, and could go to the World Championship for free, two are not going: 207 & 548. My guess is that it had to do with costs associated with travelling to St. Louis.

What additional costs/challenges are there to going to world's, other than the entry fee? Does anyone have any ballpark figures on how much travel and other expenses are for an average team (as if there were an average FIRST team:) )?

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

The registration for one event was free, and a bid was open for Championship (as though they had won). Championship itself wasn't paid for, technically.

The biggest expenses are then travel and hotels, neither of which is cheap for any team going to St. Louis but doubly so for 207 out of California. If you have a resource like a paid-for event, you may find more inspiration or bang for your buck in staying closer to home.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

I think it'll cost us around twenty grand.....

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

These teams were offered automatic spots for CMP not a free ticket. They were treated the same as HOF or Legacy Teams. They still had to pay their registration costs.

There is no free lunch... or free CMP...


We are a team that usually takes about 25 students to CMP. Our costs are in the neighborhood of $9000 for airfare,
$8000 for hotel $5000 for registration $2000 for shipping pit supplies/incidentals...so a total of approximately $25,000 to attend.
We are from Seattle so your airfare might vary... we get our airline tickets early...

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

Maybe I'm mis-remembering, but I think when we won the Regional Chairman's Award in 2010, the entry fee was waived.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

We have our initial registration/the cost of one regional waived. After that we were on our own.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

That would be news... we have won RCA three times and had to pay the registraion fee every time. I believe that this year NASA will pay the registration fee for Engineering Inspiration winners and last year they gave $3000 towards registration but no one that I know of gets out of paying the registration fee.

I do believe that some regionals may have separate awards that they give that might cover registration or part of it but those would be specific to regionals.

If anyone out there knows something that I don't please add to the conversation.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

So this is interesting news from one of the 2013 Einstein teams. I didn't know that.
It really amounts to the same thing. A waiver of the initial registration is the same $$$ as paying for CMP. I stand corrected.

I guess I missed that somewhere along the way. I never saw that announcement from FIRST.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

FIRST would not waive your entry fee, maybe a third party payed it for you.

As far as I know, waiving the Einstein team's entry fee was unprecedented.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

What happened on Einstein last year was unprecedented.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

Exactly. Future Einstein teams, don't expect free registration*.

*unless this is a new thing, that would be cool

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

I apologize, I did in fact mis-remember. I delved back through some old emails from that time, and yes, we did still have to pay that fee. I don't know where I remember it from, but I could swear that at some point, the championship fee was waived for the winner of some award or another. As others have said though, it could have been a third party of some sort.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

Teams on Einstein last year had their entry fee waived this year.

By waiving the 5k initial registration, FIRST basically gave any team that would have otherwise returned a free championship. (At least free registration)

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...einsteinreport

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

It would NOT be cool, because it would mean Einstein was sabotaged again.

The FIRST community is better than that.

Unless you mean Einstein-winning teams getting their registration paid.... They already get invited. I honestly don't think there's a reason to - as mentioned above me, the reason their registration is paid this year is because FIRST wasn't able to make it right any other way after-the-fact.

Knocking on wood, and crossing my fingers, and wishing, and believing that nothing like 2012 will ever happen again.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

MMSD (school district) paid it for us.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

My understanding is that 548 was on the list to go to the Championship this year. Then some time during the season was removed from that list. I do not know why they were removed.

-Clinton-

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

Okay, yeah that sounds familiar. I swear I remember something about it being announced at the regional though. I'll ask around at the next meeting.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

That is too bad, maybe there was some issue with students missing school. I guess you have to consider that it means one more spot was opened up for another team, so in the end FIRST still wins.

Judging by some of the other responses here it seems like qualifying for the championship is a small part of the challenge compared to getting funding to go.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

It cost us about $24,000 last year ... $5,000 registration, $10,000 coach and $9,000 hotel. This year we are saving a lot on hotel costs by staying further away, so it will be about $21,000.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

We have 20 students and 10 mentors going. Mentors are paying their own way, and students are paying $400 each. Our total air fare (mentors tickets included) is about $9500. Our hotel cost is $3500 (we're kind of packing ourselves into each room--not so much to save money, but because there were no more rooms!). Everyone is also responsible for their own food costs.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

207 withdrew from the champs with much hesitation and entered Inland Empire all due to costs. We spent approx 25K+ last year. Worth every penny, this year we had the hard choice of looking to the future.
We are looking to step up next year and play two CA regionals and win a berth back to the champs as we gave up our berth this year.
Travel and lodging is the limiting factor. But the small costs add up such as shipping as we pack too much in our crate and have extra shipping costs replenishing pit supplies, upgrades/repairs, or just maintenance.

Champs = Big$$$ but well worth the effort.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

Our costs last year were:

Charter bus = $5125
Hotel = $12724 - 9 Quads, 3 Triples, 5 Doubles, 1 Single at the Millenium for 4 nights.
Registration = $5000

Total = $22,849

This year, if qualified was going to cost:

Charter bus = $4500
Hotel = $9339 10 Quads, 2 Triples, 5 Doubles, 1 Single at Holiday Inn Express near the airport
Registration = $5000

Total = $18839

The students and mentors pay a travel fee to cover the bus and hotel as well as their own food expenses.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

Yep. 50-ish kids, 15-ish adults. Registration, robot spares/upgrades, flights, hotels, toting a trailer with the pit setup ... it all adds up. At least in St. Louis everything's in walking distance. In Atlanta we wound up staying in Marietta and getting rental vans since it was ~$1600 less overall -- yet in '11-'13 by the time we find out we're going to Champs we can't find a reasonable deal on the rental vans.

Meh.

Most of the travel comes out of each individual traveler's pocket. We're lucky in that respect. Grants & sponsors pay for registration, robot upgrades. Trailer hauling/parking (we also bring some other teams' stuff usually) is roughly $1k since we tune up whoever's vehicle so the pull through the mountains isn't as bad, and that's from team funds as well. It may seem like a lot just for a pit, but we're asking the driver to pull two 15-hour overnight driving trips through mountains (and praries :p) -- and not having the right tools at the right time would undermine the entire $20k trip.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

I don't know the exact cost of this years trip. I think it's around 20k, though. What my team does is stay in houses in the area so we can make our own food and pack lunches, plus the price of one night to sleep 18 is about the price of renting 3 hotel rooms near the Dome for one night. We save a lot of money doing this.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

Approximate cost to take 30 students, 2 coaches and 4 Mentors from South Texas

US FIRST Registration Fee – $5000.00
Travel by Plane- $14000.00
Hotel for 14 rooms for 4 nights – $20000.00
Food for students/Coaches $5769.00
Trailer and Towing (pit structure, tools and spare part) $2500.00

Total cost for sending the Team $47,269

there are many other items that were not included (Parking, baseball tickets :-), etc.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

I just got the breakdown of our expenses for this year last night:

We were fortunate to receive over $12,000 from various sponsors, which was enough to make our cost to the students/parents only $450 each as well as provide financial assistance to those who needed it.

$450/student was less than the Championship cost last year, even though our entry fee was covered by NASA last year and up to us to pay this year. That fact is something we are all very proud of.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

Team 359 has each student paying 600/each, while all mentors pay $0 as usual. In the past, I used to pay for everything for students, including all activities. Our drive team and students who put in the most time, pay much less.

On another note, if you win the RCA in New York City, they pay you $6000 for your initial reg fee the following year.
We never knew that until we registered for Hawaii the following year.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

Your team travels a lot. Do your students pay that much for every trip?

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

As of this post, we are in California because of VEX worlds. Due to state testing, we have to go home for 1 1/2 days then fly back to St. Louis. The students paid 4-600/each for this as well.
When we did 2 regionals earlier this season in the mainland, we charged 800/each but total cost per person was 2200 for a 15 day trip.

For kids that show 110% effort, I also offer jobs to them to "work" in robotics. Some of them earned close to 1k each before taxes for the season.
For adult mentors, I give them as much as 2k stipends also for the priceless efforts they put forth for our team. It helps them pay for meals and miscellaneous efforts.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

Well that stinks :(

How much school have your students missed this year?

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

3 days because it went into our spring break. :)

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

Because we finally qualified by winning Chesapeake, we got what was left of flights and hotels. Luckily, we were approached immediately after winning by a mentor of a team who thought they were going to go. He gave us his 9 quad rooms in a hotel near the Arch. We added about 8 more rooms in another hotel. We're paying $660 pp airfare and $200 pp rooms. The BOE really stepped up and decided (for the first time ever) to pay the total costs for all students. The club has to cover the mentor's expenses. We also have about 12 parents/kids driving (for various reasons). In all we should have about 50 people going--can't wait!

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

that sounds like the same thing we have, we decided to go to championship last year and it was quite the experience but since we went we could only afford to go to one event this year. being the one that is payed for by our school. hopefully we can make the trip again next year as 1/3 of the team members will be seniors.

Re: Cost of going to Championship
 

Reaching back to the OP, ...

[quote=AlbatrossAgain;1263697What additional costs/challenges are there to going to world's, other than the entry fee? Does anyone have any ballpark figures on how much travel and other expenses are for an average team (as if there were an average FIRST team:) )?[/QUOTE]

The rule of thumb that we were given (and which seems to hold true over time for various teams) is that World's costs about $1,000 per student. It can go as high as $1,500, but $1,000 is a good starting point.

We would really like to find out, though ... :(