Limit team $
 

To balance the playing field for all team what do you think of a limit of say $50,000 to run a team. This would keep all teams working hard to keep within the limit ( what ever it set at). I find that there is a big difference rural teams who struggle to raise $10,000 for the season and urban teams that have better sources to raise funds ( I know some who raise $100,000) for the season.

Re: Limit team $
 

Why limit teams who work hard for the $ they raise? Also this would be pretty impossible to track and enforce.

If you feel that your team is at a disadvantage because Team XXXX has more $, go and ask them how they worked for that $ and then work as hard as you can to get to their level fundraising wise.

Teams with more $ aren't (typically) better because they have more $ they are better because they go out and work hard all year round to get that $ and they work even harder during the build season to use that money in effective ways to build good robots.

Re: Limit team $
 

Limit = smaller programs = less inspiration = no

Re: Limit team $
 

What costs are associated with running a team, exactly?

Parts?
Labor?
Insurance?
Food?
Travel?
Registration?
Tools?
Rent?
What else?

Re: Limit team $
 

No, I don't think setting limits on budget is a good idea. There is a limit on robot cost and the major components a team can use along with the robot weight.

Our's is a sophomore team struggling to get funds, we know it is not easy to get mentors and sponsors, we have been trying and probably continue trying even when we have a sponsor with $50K. Some of the established teams have big name sponsors, they may have gone through what we are going through, I will not make any assumptions. The new team members may not know the struggle the team has gone through in 2002 or earlier.

What you see during the events may not be the full picture, its just a snapshot of that day or the season. Fancy robots with fancy lights may look too much, but the team may be using it as a marketing tool to keep those precious sponsors and get new ones. If our team had some money we would be doing the same... it will be part of our business plan. We believe marketing is as important as the robot design or fabrication.

Re: Limit team $
 

Oh to have a $50,000.00 budget :rolleyes:

Re: Limit team $
 

No two teams are alike. Some have full support of their school, other's have to create their own 501c3 and purchase/rent their own building. The costs associated with both of those scenarios differ greatly. This is why their cannot be a limit on funds coming into the team.

Another example would be the differences in how far teams have to travel to get to a regional. Even if they went to the closest one to them it can still be a drive. Take for instance the fact that there are 4 team in North and South Dakota combined. They will have to travel out of state to go to a regional which means their costs would be different than my team who can get on a school bus and travel 30 minutes to get to the regional.

The playing field is balanced cost-wise for every team in reference to the robot. Look at 4.1.3 in the game manual. There has always been budget constraints for the robot in my 8 years in FIRST.

Re: Limit team $
 

My reasons to not have any sort of budget cap (aside from the robot costing):

1. Impossible to enforce.
2. Could force some teams to pick between competitions, outreach, or other positive ways of spending the money.
3. Ultimate budget does not strictly correspond to robot performance.
4. Encourages students/teams to "quit when it's good enough" instead of striving to be better all the time.
5. Artificially cripples teams who may have to travel more, pay more for parts shipping, bring more students to events, or generally have higher overhead costs for whatever reason(s).

I have yet to see any pro-budget cap arguments that hold up to scrutiny.

Re: Limit team $
 

What percentage of teams even have >= $50,000 budget in the first place? Whoever they are, put me in touch for some advice! :rolleyes:

Why bother capping the overall budget at $50,000? The robot is already capped at $4000, why cap the rest of the program? It's been mentioned before, not all teams have the same cost of running. What field is trying to be leveled with a $50,000 budget?

Re: Limit team $
 

What does capping a team's funding accomplish? Is the idea to balance it for the teams that have less money? Why is this needed? If the point of the competition is to truly inspire students, why does your performance compared to other teams actually matter?

My team has the philosophy that our success is not based on on-field success. If the students can look on the robot and say that they learned something, that they are happy with the robot, they are happy with the season, then that's all that we need to be sucessful. This can be done with any level of sophistication, any level of mentor knowledge, and any level of student engagement, but a team must look itself in the mirror and say that they truly care more about inspiration and not so much where they rank.

On top of this, teams that raise large sums of money do so not because some money fairy has blessed them with cash. They have to work for it; engaging sponsors, running fundraisers, raising their presence in the community etc. I was a member of a team that was in a fairly rural area in NH, and we worked hard to acquire our $25k budget so we could go to two events and make a trip to the Championship whenever we qualified. Was a jealous of the teams that could put in the same amount of work and collect $50k, or $70k? Yes I was. Would I ever degrade the work they did to acquire what they needed to accomplish their team goals? Never.

Re: Limit team $
 

Robots are capped at $4,000. Capping a team budget would predominantly cut outreach and inspiration. Bad plan.

Re: Limit team $
 

Such a limit would incentivize a smaller team size. It costs us more to go to tournaments than most teams because we do not have any regionals closer than 2 and a half hours away and we have an 83 student team to accommodate for travelling and lodging. $50k wouldn't even get our team registration, travelling, and lodging for all of our tournaments in a single year.

This may also discourage partnerships with companies through sponsorship, which is something FIRST wants to encourage. Therefore, such a limit will directly conflict with FIRST's mission and goals. FRC has a price limit on the robots for this reason, but there are too many factors that make it problematic to impose an overall budget limit on teams. Besides, what if we decide we pay for only the skeleton crew on the FIRST limited budget, then send the rest of the team as "independent spectators" who are really team members through a different funding organization? This would be incredibly difficult to enforce.

If an organization has clear and concise goals, like FIRST has, it is detrimental to make choices and impose limitations on oneself which directly conflict with achieving those goals.

Re: Limit team $
 

No.

This is just like attempting to cap the amount of regional a team can participate in each year, because other people are jealous of them.

I think we would all agree that FIRST is trying to make FRC similar to how a business is run. There are large rich billion dollar companies, and then there are small companies who can barely break even some years. FRC is the same way. We have the elite teams that have become successful, earned a lot of money and who people look up to for inspiration. This would be like those teams that make a $100 000 a year. then we have the small teams who can barely get to one regional, make their robot out of scrap material and aren't as elite or inspirational, but these are the teams that look up to the elite teams.

If FIRST was to limit your budget, then why don't governments tell Apple or Samsung that they can't spend/make any more money then $50 000 a year. Because then you aren't striving to be the best, because there is no "best".

Re: Limit team $
 

Do you think by capping larger "urban" teams that you will somehow create more money for smaller rural teams?

You certainly are acquainted with our team... Our budget is right around $50,000 as are many other teams...Quite a bit of the reason we have a large budget is because we have a very large team (over 60 members) and it costs a great deal to travel. We raise a very large portion of it by doing smaller things like yard clean ups and rummage sales, spaghetti dinners and letter campaigns..

These are all things a rural team could do...please let me know how we can help you raise money... We are actively trying to train teams in how they can do this... it does require a commitment from students and parents and mentors to do it... it is a 12 month a year effort.

Re: Limit team $
 

I have to disagree... it is precisely those small teams that are the most inspirational to me....

Re: Limit team $
 

I think the thing that separates the really great teams is organization. Getting organized is tough.

Re: Limit team $
 

Your robot can cost $4000. That "levels" the playing field. Yes, "better off" teams can afford to do multiple regionals but that's about the only competitive advantage you can buy. Practice bots cost a lot less than you'd think once you have a back log of parts. So, where exactly, do you think this 50k budget goes? In a lot of cases it goes to subsidizing student/mentor travel and paying for outreach. Let's walk through why this is a terrible idea.

(for the record 79 doesn't have a budget anywhere near this, our students/mentors are not subsidized by the team. It's a thought exercise based on our team size and approximated costs. )

We have ~70 students on the team. Our per student cost to Orlando was $400. That's 28k right there. Our KoP was 6k (34k) and we could spend ~4k on the bot (38k). Now for our second regional (@5k I'm at 43k): To DC was $800 a student. I could send less than 10 students. Which leaves 0 money left over for Champs. How did any of this help inspire my kids? And don't say I should send less kids, that limits inspiration.

So, this is a terrible idea.

Re: Limit team $
 

I'm going to politely say no this is a bad idea. Here is why.

When I first started I was on one of these "insane budget teams" but the budget that was raised each year, we produced very competitive robots, but I was always jealous of other "bigger budget teams" in our area. Now the budget on my team was mostly student raised, and I say mostly because we did get help from mentors on how to properly set up presentations for formal sponsor meetings and so on so fourth. The students made all the money that went into that team, some sponsors even came from personal friends of mine.

Nonetheless what I am trying to say, instead of hating your giant budget team do what I did instead. Use them as an inspiration, and try to surpass them. Yeah, might be a long hard road but this is FIRST it wouldn't be fun without that challenge. I've been trying to surpass a couple teams through their inspirations I find it a friendly competition. Even more so to the point of through their inspirations I got Second Place in the world 2 weeks ago at the VEXU competition.

My point is, don't be so down about how teams set their own standards to operate. There are lots of kids who work really hard to get to where they are today.

Just my .02 cents

- Andrew

Re: Limit team $
 

The intent here certainly seems good on the surface - to level the playing field so all teams have an equal chance at winning. Setting a budget cap for a team isn't the right way to go about it, though.

What makes good teams good isn't a question of money or resources. It's one of time, commitment, and hard work. Good teams are good because they spend the time in the offseason training and learning. They work hard during the season to finish a robot early, get it programmed, and drive it around, while working on a second robot so they have something to practice with after the bag day. Yes, money can help (you have to pay for the parts on the second robot, after all), but throwing more money at most teams won't magically result in a practice robot - they just don't have the extra time to build one.

In addition, every team is going to have different costs. How do you account for teams that have a regional close by, versus those that have to travel? What about teams that have to rent a build space, versus those that get one provided by the school for free? How do you equalize between teams that have a huge shop to work in, versus those that put everything away in a closet each night?

It's almost a cliche at this point, but this is a robotics competition that isn't really about the robot. It's about inspiring kids to go into science and technology fields. Inspiration can happen many, many different ways, and very little of it has to do with money. A student can be inspired by winning a competition, sure. They can also be inspired by seeing what other students built. Or by working side by side with a professional engineer and earning their respect. They could be inspired by using a small budget to build something wonderful.

But maybe we could slightly alter the topic... Can we use GP to encourage all teams to share funds and equipment a little more liberally, to help pull up those teams that are struggling? How often has a team gone out to fundraise... for another team? How often have you approached your corporate sponsors and asked them to sponsor another team because they need it more than you do?

Towards that end, I have two items to share from the past year. First, one of our students arranged for Best Buy to sponsor ourselves... and 3 other teams. Second, we moved out of our old build space a few weeks ago (which was owned and offered cheaply by one of our sponsors), and we're looking for another team to move in there and receive that sponsorship instead.

Re: Limit team $
 

Oh to have a $10,000 budget!

Re: Limit team $
 

A little bit ago, I made a similar statement where it was quickly explained to me why this was a bad idea. While i do feel it some teams are at a disadvantage due to lack of money, and i did find that many people feel the same way about this, a budget restriction is not the way to accomplish this.

Re: Limit team $
 

My kids work insanely hard to raise money. We have NO large sponsors, and they mainly just grind to make money (bake sale, raffle, whatever it takes).

For only 10 students this year, the amount they raised is insane. I'm sure it outdoes most teams (except those amazing 359ers...).

This is necessary as the team pays for all student expenses (travel is very expensive for us) though, so even after that, we don't have a crazy amount of money for the shop, robot etc.

Re: Limit team $
 

I visited a team in a rural and extremely small town this year. The team and the community came together to raise over $16,000 in a time frame of less than two weeks before championships.

This is in an area without large industry presence nearby and whose student population is over 80% on free and reduced lunch.

If a second year team and it's community can pull off $16,000 in less than two weeks. I can assure you even if you are in a rural setting and work hard ALL year, you can operate at a desirable budget for your team...


I am so proud of these guys. <3

Re: Limit team $
 

They should split all of FRC into two divisions, professionally built robots (e.g. robots built by NASA and GM and Boeing) and a division for student build robots. Teams that just assemble their robot from a kit that a profesional company built for them should not be allowed to compete with the student built bots. Having an alliance of GM, NASA and Boeing beat an alliance of student built robots benefits non of the students.

Re: Limit team $
 

I would wager only a team or two (tops) would be in that "kit assembled" division...

Re: Limit team $
 

I would argue that only the robot expenses give teams an advantage and that is capped at $4000.

Does the team who flies to an event have a strategic advantage over a team who takes a school bus or carpools? How about the team that has to get hotel rooms and uniforms for 50+ students vs. the team with 10-15 students? What about off-season community service events? There are numerous other examples of where a team may spend more money without gaining any strategic advantage.

Re: Limit team $
 

Looking at our yearly robotics budget (not just FRC) the largest dollar value items were hotel stays, bus service, and airline tickets.

I want to be able to take as many students as possible to an event so I accept that this is not going to change.

Re: Limit team $
 

So theoretical team XXXX has who raise $50,000 every year has an unfair advantage even through we don'tknow how they spend that money?

I know of teams that spend most of their budget subsidising students to travel to events. Does that really contribute to their competitiveness?

What about teams that run multiple FTC and VEX programs from their single 501?

How about teams that use the money they raise for community programs?

Most of the highly competitive teams spend way less than you insinuate in your post. Yes there are outlier exceptions but most of the top tier teams aren't even close to the $50K number.

There is a way to get further with your money by spending it wisely to get the right tools and make the right connections so that you can increase your capability.

You really need to talk to more people on the teams that you want to emulate. You will find that your conceptions of them are wrong.

Re: Limit team $
 

Raht than limit the upper end, I would much rather work on a solution where $10K is a reasonable amount for a team to have a good "season". My thoughts on what this season would look like would be a minimum of 2 events. Right now there is way too much risk of going to 1 event, and having a dead CRIO ruin your weekend, or a flaky digital sidecar ruining your season.. 2 events gives reasonable opportunity to get the robot behaving as it should (though maybe not as a team hopes). I inspected a lot of robots this year, and for about $1500, a team can have a very competitive robot. So current budget is Kit + registration for 2 events + $1500 additional material cost.
The next big line item for most teams is travel. Hotel stays even at a cheap place with 4 kids/ room is $80 or $20/Kid/night. A 2 night stay with 20 kids and a couple of mentors will run 20 kids x $20/night x 2 nights plus a couple rooms for mentors = $1000/event... This isn't cheap. Maybe if events are close enough, then only 1 event would require travel...So where were we on budget:
Kit + 2 event registration +$1500(robot) + $1000 travel (for 1 event).
T-Shirts=2x$10 per kid or another $500 (mentor shirts as well).

Kit + 2 event +$1500 +$1000(hotel) + $500 (shirts)=$3000 + Kit + 2 event registration.

Here in Michigan, for most teams (UP excluded), this is $8000 and is reasonable. I have not included food as you need to eat anyway. I have not included transportation, as I think parents can either work that out, or the team can figure out a way for $2000 to get to the competitions.
This is my $10K season budget. I know a lot of teams that operate with a very similar budget.

Some of the "big budget" teams will roll meals into the travel. At $15/kid/day, this can be an additional $1200. They may build a practice bot as well. Without the KOP, the practice bot is actually costs a lot more $5K compared to a KOP based $1500 robot. Assume $5K for the second robot. They might also stay in a hotel for 2 events:
Thus the $10K budget now is $20K. If they are good enough to go to States, add in another 3 nights stay $2000 plus food $1000 plus registration $4000 plus spares (3 events), and you are now up around $30,000 budget.

With the "robot" costs and registration at $5K(base registration)+$1500(1st robot material) +$4K (States or Championship) + $5K practice bot = $15,500-ish. This means the other $15K is for the 20 kids plus a couple of mentors, or roughly $500-800 per student/year. Many "big budget" teams might ahve 40 students. Thus the $30K budget blows up to $45K in a hurry.

If you have to fly... costs get crazy really fast.

Thus, if you want to make it more even for a $10K team to compete, instead of capping teams at $50K, I would recommend pushing to get more "local" events or shifting to the district model. I am not saying that in the District model, a $10K team is equal or even with a $100K team, but they are more reasonably close than a $10K team competing against a $50K team in a regional set-up.

What can you do to bring districts to your area? Find a parent or volunteer that can help fill a key role (referee, inspector, event coordinator, volunteer coordinator....).

Re: Limit team $
 

That sounds exactly what I told our students that traveled to St. Louis this year, go talk to teams, make connections and we will create our off-season game plan. I specially challenged them to talk to teams they considered "elite" and ask questions.

They collected e-mails and business cards and are ready to attack their off-season projects.

Re: Limit team $
 

No.

We have over 100 students and 20 active mentors on our team. It cost us about $60,000 just to attend Nationals (less than half the team attended)and anotehr $15,000 to attend our second regional - only 2hrs away from us - and these costs do not include entry fees.

The $4000 robot cost is a great constraint and equalizer already.... Besides travel, here are other things that just plain cost more due to the size of our team:

* Training materials.
* Tools.
* Workspace (we built a shop this year)
* Additional training/practice robots - so that *all* kids can work on something.

Re: Limit team $
 

I wish I knew where to find the quote to support this but FIRST doesn't really care who builds the robot. They care about inspiring students. Not all students are inspired the same way. For some it happens with hands on work others they have to take a step back and take a hands-off approach.

I pulled this mission statement directly off their website but the emphasis is mine:

Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.

The student built robot/professional or mentor build robot topic has been beaten to death. This does not happen as often as we think it does. Students can have some awesome mentors that help them and coach them while building a phenomenal robot. Not all students know how to operate some machines/tools or cannot operate manufacturing machines/tools due to restrictions. This makes mentors necessary when it comes to building specific parts or components.

Re: Limit team $
 

Yes...we know that our robots would be in that division... Everything is so carefully planned out and nothing looks like it was added on after the initial design...ever.

We are sorry.

Re: Limit team $
 

I agree. my team is 60 students and close to 20 active mentors. from that we brought 40 students and 9 mentors to St. Louis. We drained our bank account so much that we cant pay for a bus to get to our favorite off season event, Battlecry 14 at WPI. Money is a huge problem for my team (but I am working to fix that.) I do think that a 4000$ limit for the robot might make things interesting.

Re: Limit team $
 

Where did this notion of trying to even the playing field come from, and why are people trying to enforce it?

Re: Limit team $
 

I know exactly where it's coming from. As children we were babied, we got everything handed too us. Everything was made easier as to not hurt our feelings or make everyone feel like a winner. Unfortunately it has gotten so mad that in some kids sports they dont keep score because "everyone's a winner."

Now we expect this same kind of treatment as young adults, but sorry kids, you need to wake up to live in the real world.

Life is not fair, get used to it!

Re: Limit team $
 

When I look at the rankings and see a team ranked highly that I don't know much about, and I head down to the pits to check out their robot and see a kitbot with a decidedly inexpensive looking manipulator, that's FIRST for me. Because those kids and their mentor(s) didn't have a lot of resources, but they survived build season and managed to create a winning machine. When I see this robot on the field and it scores or plays defense or whatever it does and does it well, I realize how much more that means when you consider how much it took just to get it on the field. And if it beats one of these shiny machines from a team like 118 or 254 or 67, that inspires me just as much as the shiny robots do.

Re: Limit team $
 

This already exists, its in the manual.

Re: Limit team $
 

Isn't coopertiton about working to reach higher than our peers rather than dragging them down?

In that light, we should be efforting to bring each team's budget *up* to $50k, not limit our brightest stars to that level.

Re: Limit team $
 

Being from Hawaii, I find this thread quite amusing.
Pretend you're us but you live where you do, and all FRC events are held in Hawaii, minus your home event. How much would that cost you?

FRC is an international world event, not a US mainland one only.

Re: Limit team $
 

This amuses me somewhat too. Being (originally) from Australia, consider teams outside the US - in Australia, Israel, Turkey... Limit the team $$$ and you limit this to a (mainland) North America competition.

I have some similar issues with the district model because of similar distance/cost issues, but that is for another thread somewhere.

Apart from that, I don't think you can reasonably limit the amount of money a team puts in to inspiration, for their own team or for the community beyond the team, if they are willing to work for it.

Re: Limit team $
 

As a Boeing team (3929): lulz

I don't think this is how the rest of 1218 views FIRST, at least, from my experiences with them.

I find it funny someone from Chestnut Hill would post in this thread, especially Peter's son. :)

Re: Limit team $
 

For Macktack

This is not the NFL. There is no salary cap. There is no revenue sharing. The only limits in the end, are what you try to accomplish with what you have and how much you're willing to do to get more.

Re: Limit team $
 

Wow teams actually raise that much? Since 2004 our team has run off of < $1000 a year in fundraising/donations (believe me we've tried our best), there's just no interest in the community, and we only have 1 smallish corporate sponsor. Everything we've had or used has been private donations by 2 or 3 mentors...

So I can see where this question is coming from, but I agree, it doesnt make sense to limit how much a team can raise.

Re: Limit team $
 

I'm not sure how this came into a thread about money. This belongs in one of the dozens of mentor versus student built threads that have been beat to death over the last several years.

Moving back on topic though, I think even trying to limit team cash is a horrid idea. Do you understand how much it costs for teams from California to attend worlds, when they have to fly their entire group? Or even worse, attendeding from Hawaii? Israel? Australia? England?

Before you suggest that we allow different budgets for different teams, I'll head it off with a quick "No way". This event is about inspiring, not leveling the playing field for all involved.

That all said, our team builds fairly competitive robots and we're no where near a $50,000 budget. In fact, I'd say we're just a tad over 1/2 of that $50,000 number.

I think Ike nailed it. The object here should be to make the competitive costs lower, not tear down the teams that are more fortunate. The District system has done a spectacular job of that.

Switching over to a country wide district system would be much better. Teams who geographically are limited to only 1 event should be able to submit a hardship letter to FIRST and have the points in their first competition count double. This would serve to correct the issue with too many teams in Worlds as well.

Re: Limit team $
 

Let's hear it for the Brave Little Toasters!

Re: Limit team $
 

Phrase of the day:

The Tall Poppy Syndrome...

look it up...

Re: Limit team $
 

Isn't there a quote out there that says that you don't progress by dragging the rich down, but by raising the poor up?

Re: Limit team $
 

I agree whole heartily with Glenn.

Coming from outside the mainland creates the situation where most of our budget goes to travel, lodging and shipping. The rest we use to help subsidize the student’s ability to participate. Most of our students’ families are working multiple jobs just to survive here. We will normally charge half of the per student cost of the trip to each team member. We also have scholarships provided by local supporters to help bring down costs for deserving students in need. We come from a school that has over 80% on free / reduced lunch services. Add in the fact that everything we might need to order has to come from out of the state and across 2500 miles of ocean. Minimum delivery is 3-5 days with paying for expedited air freight shipping.

Basically everything we do costs two to three times as much. Coupled with coming from an island that has little to no industry to draw upon for support. We are known for only a few things on this island, cattle, fishing, and coffee. We fundraise and do outreach all year long, at least one fundraiser and two community outreach events per month.

Even our local regional event is a flight away. The airfare alone can easily be from $150-250 per person depending on how far in advance you can book them. And of course if you book them as a group or use the DOE travel service its more..

Imagine that to take less than half your team, 20 students, and the 3 mentors to the world championship costs over $50,000. Let alone having to raise that in the 2-4 weeks after qualifying for the event.

Our program started with 4 students and 3 mentors. We have grown to over 75 students in our three years as a program. We plan on continuous growth. We have 100% of our graduating students going on to great colleges.

First has helped these students with gaining scholarships to schools such as Rice, Columbia, NYU, Cornell, Sarah Lawrence, Rochester, University of New Mexico, UH Manoa and many others.

This is at a school where less then 35% actually graduate and of that less than 20% go on to college. This program is making a huge difference in our community and cannot be held back by limiting funding.

Creating a cap on our budget would kill the programs potential to grow and enhance the community by creating future leaders.

If anyone has questions please feel free to message or email me. I would be more than glad to share.

Re: Limit team $
 

Just to remind everyone,
1. Different parts of this country vary wildly in local costs and travel costs. Other countries are extremely different.
2. Some schools cover things like bus travel while other teams must pay for everything.
3. Some teams have very generous sponsors while others struggle to find materials and labor.
4. Small teams have significantly lower costs compared to larger teams for things like food, travel, tshirts, and other operating expenses.
For these reasons it is nearly impossible to impose a fixed amount that is equal without making most teams suffer.

Re: Limit team $
 

The costs involved with long-distance travel to events are not insignificant, our team would struggle to stay within the budget to attend just one regional, and it would be impossible to attend more than one event (regional + championships).

Travel being the obvious one, there are still numerous complications that need to be addressed:

How about exchange rates? Is this in USD? If so which exchange rate do you use? Time of transaction? Time of exchange? Kick-of? Bag'n'Tag?

Operating costs for us are also much larger. Postage and generally higher prices in Australia can't be discounted, and mean that for us to build an equivalent robot to a mainland team we need a significantly larger budget.

What about other expenses? Our team attends and runs a number of out-reach events, including an off-season that teams who can not afford to travel to a regional attend. Limiting our budget would force us to chose between running this event, and running our team. In this case limiting our budget would not only hamper our robot and team, but also our efforts to spread STEM and FIRST in Australia.

It's clear that in many ways, a team budget would not help even the playing field. FIRST teams are about so much more than the robot, to limit the TEAM because of robots is unfair, and would do far more harm than good.

Finally, in a discussion about budgets it's important not to forget the sponsors, sponsors put resources into this program because they see the value of it, and for that my tea and myself are extremely grateful. But how do you explain to a sponsor that sees something they want to support and grow, that they can't?

Re: Limit team $
 

This would hardly level the playing field.

Nearly all the big budget teams have a well established engineering program going. If FIRST decides to cap the funds that they could raise, those teams would just divert their funds to their "engineering programs" or to other created entities. When they need more money for travel or such expense, the entity would just "donate" what they need, easily bypassing any such rule. All this would do is make the teams who could not create such entity reduce their standards.

Also, not all the money in many team's robotics programs goes to FIRST. My team does a lot of cool off-season projects and needs that money to continue. Other teams do this too, notably Shockwave by 254.

Re: Limit team $
 

Not quite sure if this is such a good idea. I think the process of finding sponsorships is a big part of running a robotics team. Learning to communicate and work in a partnership with major corporations is a very good skill that will definitely be useful later in life, especially after college. The financial aspect that comes with running a team is another responsibility that prepares us for what real life has to offer.

Re: Limit team $
 

Our team's largest budget we've ever had (this year) was around $17,000 and we thought we seemed to think we had money coming out of our ears.

Re: Limit team $
 

I think it has all been said, but this is not a good way to accomplish your goal.

As for the Hawaii teams, can't they just drive over? :rolleyes:

Re: Limit team $
 

Not sure about driving, but I'm sure they can sail across

Re: Limit team $
 

Love it,

Though I suggest going straight to Long Beach Harbor and save yourself the 1000+ miles of driving...;)

Can you imagine the 11+ days of ocean travel... :eek:

Makes my stomach roll thinking about that voyage

Re: Limit team $
 

Interesting phrase. It seems our large corporations of Amazon, Best Buy, Home Depot, and the like seem to exasperate this method in terms of taxation in order to stamp down the upstart economies. An Internet tax will only benefit those companies with the resources to fund large accounting departments. The mom and pop shops that depend on Internet sales will go quietly into the dark if our legislatures are not well educated.

Soap Box, sorry.

Re: Limit team $
 

A tale of two cities...

This is a tale of two competing FRC teams separated by a river and an ocean of ideologies.

'Team B' invited 'Team M' to take part in a dual-school effort where they could find support from the teams combined local industries, thus creating a combined effort of achievement.

'Team M' decided that they would be best served by being supported by their local school and therefore arrested by the constraints of the school district. They received start-up monies and a coaching salary based upon their district's schedule C.

'Team B' continued on the path of resourcing the local industries and companies.

'Team M' found early success by being supported by their district, and thus looked no further.

'Team B' was not supported by their district, yet continued to find support from local industries and beyond.

Re: Limit team $
 

Actually, we need to have more threads where this sort of thing is discussed in a way that is relevant to FIRST and society. But you're not being clear about the relevance of taxation (and in particular, Internet taxation¹) to the conversation.

¹ At the risk of diverting the main topic of the thread, there's another interpretation of the scenario you outlined: assuming the government's intent is to tax businesses at an equal proportion of their revenues, the lack of effective tax collection from the smaller businesses amounts to a subsidy directed toward them that was not envisioned by the legislators. If there is value in that subsidy, then shouldn't efforts be directed at recognizing that fact, and pushing for it to be made an explicit part of policy? Or is it justifiable to allow the distortion of the legislative intent to continue, because there is a net benefit to doing so (including possibly less risk that the subsidy will be eliminated)?

Re: Limit team $
 

As a somewhat rural FIRST participant who works with many rural teams across WV, there are ways in which to raise the money. Statistically, WV is the most rural state in the US, as defined by the % of population residing outside town or city limits. So, naturally, FIRST growth has been very slow in WV. But it takes innovative and creative solutions to overcome those barriers, and there are many successful programs in WV who have done just that, and helped each other out in reaching that goal.

In short, it IS possible for a rural teams with limited budgets to compete effectively, and it is also possible for rural teams to have large budgets.

I refer you to this thread about Miss Daisy. Limited budget, but extremely successful program. http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...hreadid=116527

Re: Limit team $
 

I'm assuming google optimized the path based on the curvature of the earth and ocean currents.

Re: Limit team $
 

Teams with 10 people need a different budget from teams with 75-100 people. Putting a budget cap would be detrimental to teams that need to spend a lot more on travel due to their numbers, especially when large teams do a lot of good work because of their numbers (not discrediting small teams, who do fantastic things as well). Because there are so many different sizes of team, a budget cap would almost limit the number of students in some ways, which would be the opposite of the goal of FIRST. Also, teams all have different fabrication technques. Some teams like to use 80/20 aluminum, while others prefer to have welding, waterjet, CNC, and sheet metal parts. Each method requires its own set of tools, which cost different amounts of money. Also, teams can only spend so much money on the robot, so capping the overal budget doesn't allow teams to do outreach, or build practice fields (many of which are open to neighboring teams either by invitation, free admission, or request). Teams that have large budgets don't save that money, they use it to further the mission of FIRST. I am not on a team with a massive budget, and I'm proud to say that we do good work for what we have, but I have nothing against teams that have lots of money, since the students on those teams work very hard to get those resources, and they put it to good use.