Do you think we have enough time?
 

Do you think we have enough time to get enough money to go to the West Michigan Regional? I mean, i have very good people skills and we have a few people we can ask. If you don't think its too late, than i will try.

See, i am a senior, and we have had some money problems this year, and we lost all of our engineers from last year. So our robot is build from 1 big sponsor and is completely student built. So this year we can only afford to go to one competition, but i feel that the team deserves better, i have never loved being with a group of individuals so much, and they do deserve so much better. So i want to personally make sure that they enjoy themselves, especially the other seniors on the team.

I need some opinions.

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

I think the registration for regionals closed months ago. Sorry! :(

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

First things first


1) do you live anywhere near the venue - this helps eliminate travel and hotel expenses.
2) i thought registration closed for the events or did they move your team to a wait list, if neither then you should be able to register for the event with no problem.

almost half the month gone. if you wanna go for it then i support you all the way.

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

It will still let us regester, and there are open positions.

See our only issue is, we have already had our robot shipped back to our school, so i don't know if they will lets us.

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

I know exactly how that feels. We were short on money this year as well and as a result we could only afford to go to one regional, but after we won FLR, we got more funding can are now sign up for another regional.

Acepilot, I would have everyone on your team get together and formulate a plan on asking EVERY local business fo funding. A Plan is something like, send letter to company, follow up with phone call and meet with company, or something to that affect. Make your situation sound as dire as possible. Tell them of all the wonderful things that FIRST stands for and what your team will do for the community by competing in another regional. Businesses want to hear these things, because they want to know that their money is well place when they give it to you.

Best of luck and I hope you guys get the funds to go!

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

your robot must be shipped from one event to the next

if it has been send back to your school, you would need to get some kind of exemption from FIRST to allow you to compete.

Have you considered taking all or part of your team to another event just for the day, to observe, or maybe even to assist with the operation of the event itself?

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

Is there some way i can get in touch with the first officials so i can let them know of our special financial situation?

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

Well you could email them. (theres an adress somewheres on the first website)

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

Thank you guys so much, i don't even know if half my team knows that i am doing this, but they deserve it so much.

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

You'd have to check the FIRST website, but there should be an e-mail link or phone number out there somewhere.

Another option would be going to an offseason competition. You're not that far away from Indiana, so IRI is an option. The drive wasn't too bad from Warren, so I'd assume that it'd be about the same from Centerline, what with your city being inside of ours and all. ;)

Most importantly, you'd get around the issues of having to get the money in a short time period and of having had the robot shipped back to your school by going to an offseason event.

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

I have written a letter and haven't sent it yet, i want to know what you guys think, what should be added or subtracted, or if i should just go in a completely new direction with it.

Here it is;

To whom it may concern,

My name is Joshua Lingerfelt and I am part of Team 1447-Mopar and Center Line High School. Last year we decided to take part in First Robotics, and registered our team. This is now our second year, and we got off to an undesired start. We built what was, in my opinion, a First Class Robot, with nothing more than a single sponsor, three engineers, and dedicated students and mentors. With our limited funds we were only able to take part in a single competition. I believe that this group of individuals deserve to take part in more that a single competition, simply because of their hard work and dedication, always keeping in mind the Fundamentals of First. We recently came into more funds, thanks to some more than generous companies. So even though our robot has been shipped back to our school, would it be possible in any way to take part in just one more competition?

I appreciate your organization in taking time to read my letter, and our team is greatly anticipating a response.

Sincerely,

Joshua Lingerfelt
Team 1447-Mopar and Center Line High School

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

Your letter looks good. I'd call, too. You probably want to talk to Bob Hammond, Director FIRST Robotics Competition, (603) 666-3906 x404.

Good luck!

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

I know how you feel, my team just finished the Arizona Regional with possibly our best robot ever, and we don't want it to go to waste, so we're trying to get into the San Jose or Los Angeles Regional. If you want to try e-mail, you can use this: frcteams@usfirst.org. We already sent an e-mail and will be trying phone if we can't get a response soon.

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

so you are trying the same thing that we are?

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

Yes, and I'll let you know the response from FIRST as soon as I get it (though I'd still contact them yourself anyway). We want to have another shot without our robot this year so bad, especially since this is most of our club's best members last year in it.

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

thanks, has first let anybody do this before? we might also be able to have fed-ex hold the crate at the factory, will that help?

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

Do you have a mentor involved in this effort to attend another regional?

the only reason I ask, is usually FIRST works through a single-point contact on each team, which is always a mentor (or parent).

If you are going to pull this off decisions will have to be made quickly. Do you have funding for the registration, transportation, lodging, food, shipping....?

do you have permission from the school to attend another regional (miss classes)

do you have a teacher or other school rep on-board with this who is willing to travel to another regional event?

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

FIRST said we can still register for the LA regional. They did not really answer my question about shipping, so I sent another email asking them agian. We hope for a response tommorow.

Our mentor from Honeywell (who does most of our shipping stuff) luckily heard about our attempt at this early this morning and got contact with the shipping company, they're currently holding the robot in storage for us and waiting. If you haven't your drayage to hold your robot, DO SO IMMEDIATELY. YOUR ABILITY TO COMPETE IN ANOTHER REGIONAL COULD BE AT STAKE. I don't know how leniant FIRST is with the rules pertaining to shipping and robots arriving back in team's hands.

To register for another regional, you must have the main contact you provided to FIRST when you originally registerd send them an email requesting to go to the event.

Since we managed to get the robot to be held in storage (and not in our hands), I think we should be valid to still compete in LA. We just have to make sure we have a school staff member who can take us there and get all the paper work filled out (a board will have to vote on it Friday since it will be an out of state event that must get approved). I don't anticipate many problems there though.

Hope you guys have as much luck as we've had, I'll let you know of anything new I find out!

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

My entire team is behind me, and we are all working hard to make this a reality.

We dont have to worry about missing classes because the regionals are over our easter break.

Nice, i like it, you sir, are the reason why we still have hope, this is really looking like it will become a reality, and i am so happy for the team.

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

This is not good, we try to track down the package, and it has already left the dryage company, what can we do, dang it just left yesterday

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

About getting your package, I'm not familiar with the dryage company, but they should have a area on there website where you can track and possibly reverse the shipment (if it hasn't already arrived where you sent it). If you are still having trouble raising money the best thing i can say to do is go to local businesses, friends, family, etc... and ask for donations. Our team did this and we sent out this letter (see below) to give back for the donations we received, I'm not in charge of this but feel free to copy paste this (if anyone says anything tell them that subway gave it to you). It's worth a shot sounds like you guys worked to hard to get screwed-up now.


Good luck :D :D :D



I am a member of the Willow Run High School Robotics Team and I am in need of sponsor money so that I may go to the F.I.R.S.T. (For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology) Robotics National Competition in Atlanta, Georgia. We will accept all donations, none to small, from Businesses and Individuals.

For a donation of $5.00 to $25.00- We will proudly advertise your name in our pit area.

For $26.00 to $75.00- We will proudly advertise your name in our pit area, include your name in the welcome kit at the Great Lakes Regional Event and include your name on our website.

For $76.00 or more- We will proudly advertise your name in our pit area, include your name in the welcome kit at the Great Lakes Regional Event and include your name on our website and a link to your website.

For more information on our team visit www.Team66.com

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

Ok, so we secured our robot,we have it being held, and we can in fact enter the competition. But now we have an even larger problem, we don't have enough money, we have to work our butt's off to make about $14,000 in about 2 weeks. So if there are any teams out there that can help us out or give us any suggestions, feel free to call me on my personal line at 586-219-1123.

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

Glad to see everything worked out for the robot, FIRST said everything is fine for registering for ours, and even said if we couldn't stop it from being shipped to us they would trust us to just ship it right back out again without opening it. Now our problem is just getting paperwork done by Fri. (it looks like we have teachers who can go with already).

The money problem, I don't think our team is going to run into that issue (hopefully, the President is checking funds right now...). I know for Nationals last year, we contacted our current sponsors, and they were actually willing to give us more money (that might have been because it was for Nationals though). You might want to contact your current sponsors and see if they'd be willing to help out anymore. The other thing we did was just local fundraising (we actually went door to door in our neighborhood to try to get some money). You can try carawashes or just asking for donations. You won't get as much that way, but every little bit counts.

Just heard update, we can't use school vans or buses for out of state trips, so suddenly things are a little bit more complicated...

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

Are Team Holds A golf Tournament every year that raises are money, by selling T box signs and banners. maybe you can do something similar like a bowling tournament or another game. Here is are Information on running a good tournament, it may be a little late but you can try. If it doesnt work this year then you can try it for next year. It always raises the right amount of money that we need, and it is all student ran.

http://www.teamfusion364.org/modules...rtid=16&page=1

Re: Do you think we have enough time?
 

Well, we're not going to LA after all. There's too much paperwork (student permission slips, picture release forms, vehicle rental forms, hotel reservations, all the PO's for paying things, and the submission for the trip which would have to be in Friday) to get done in time. If LA were a week or 2 later we could do it, but there's just not enough time. :( Next year we'll be smart enough to sign up for 2 regionals BEFORE the season starts. Hope you have better luck than we did!