PLEASE HELP 1266
 

Hello everyone. My name is Chrissy i am a member of 1266. At the las vegas regional our team was given the engineering inspiration award.As most of you know this give you an invite to nationals. Our team is doing the best we can, but we are have trouble raiseing enough money to go. We have less then 10 days to raise $35,000. We are located in San Diego ca, and traveling to Atlanta does cost a pretty penny.If in any way you or your team can help out, we would greatly appreciate it. Even $1 would help. Please send any donations to:

MHS Robotics C/O Joe Acker
4833 Doliva DR.
San Diego, CA
92117

We have a little less then 10 dyas to get all of our money in order. Please if you can help, please do. if you ahve anyother questions please contact myself at: CHRISSY3001@aol.com. Thank you so much for your time.

Chrissy
1266

THANKS AGAIN FOR TAKING THE TIME TO READ THIS!

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

You may consider waiting until next year to go (if you still qualify). Don't feel bad if you can't go this year. Even after being in FIRST for 5 years, 696 has never been to the championship.

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

we were considering that, but our school is looked at so badly we want to try to change the community, and give everyone hope, and show them our school isn't as bad as they think it is. That and our principal won't take no for an answer.

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

I know a team that raised something like 15,000 in 48 hrs.

Talk to local radio and tv stations and have kids go on and tell their story and ask for donations....

You live in a pretty large area...hopefully money (and a possible future sponsor) will come in

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

Oh, man, I feel for you guys. My team is in downtown Atlanta and if we were not a 10 minute drive from the Dome we would be in exatly your situation.

Here are some fundraising ideas....
-Talk to neighborhood associations. Make a very formal, short presentation that focuses on how you are helping the community, and volunteer to show your robot and give presentations at neighborhood functions and ativities.
-Run a change drive at you school
-Garage Sale!!
-Car wash!!
-Ask random parents at your school for money, after telling them how great ou are...

I know that some of these are hard to do on short notice, but it is never to late to start. Recently my team did pretty good on fundraising, and I'm going to try to convince them to send you guys some money. Also, since we are in downtown Atlanta, we probably have some connections tht could hep you guys. Could you e-mail me about any hotel reservations (in-town stuff) that you already have or are planning to make? My address is gmchambliss@yahoo.com. I don't have any time to talk now, but I hope to talk to you soon! Good Luck!

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

Sorry you guys are goin through such a situation... My team went through that same situation last year but we pulled it off by getting on the news as well as the radio... which hooked us up with Lucas Films... and many other people who gave us money out of their pockets... it was awsome! But you guys probably dont have such hookups or the time to do so... i think we had 3 weeks to raise the entire 20,ooo... thats why were not going this year because we just rather fundraise for next year... Atleast thats my imput as a 1st yr mentor/ 3rd yr member...

Note to Chrissy: When one of the judges came by to ask us what team we thought showed the most gracious proffessionalism... Rich said: "The Devil Duckies!... I said: "It's only cuz he likes the girls! hahaha"... The judge: "hahaha well isnt that obvious"... Rich: *blushes* *smilez cheezily*
Eventhough i don't know which girl you were I just know that your name was mentioned from both Rich and Tommy's mouths... I and the other mentors thought it was funny because it made the boys "bond" better!!! And hopefuly you guys have inspired them to find "spirit" for next year! Thanks! :)

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

Setup a Paypal account.
You get the money instantly and it's easier for folks to contribute.
I'll send $10 if you setup the paypal.

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

I sympathize with your situation. After winning the Canadian Regional last year, we qualified for championships but couldn't get the funds to go, so we didn't. This year, however, after winning FLR, we started getting funding for everywhere!

Our principal, school district, and two more companies all gave us money after winning FLR. After FLR we had the funds to go GTR and championships, all thanks to good publicity.

I guess my point is that if you want to raise money quickly, make a case for yourself and publicize it as much as possible, so the whole community knows. I hate to say it, though it's true, but publicizing yourselves will put pressure on your potential donors. As more people sponsor you, other companies will start to jump on the bandwagon and before you know it, you've raised a hell of a lot of money.

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

Excellent idea. You got 50 from me if you set this up. I haven't seen a stamp in years. Does the USPostal service still operate? :confused:

Good luck. ;)

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

AWW Tell them they rock!!!!!!!!!! And thank you so mcuh for the advice. lol kinda funny story, we found our our rookie team was having diffculty raising money to get to a regional, and we had a fundraiser for them, and now WE need the money, funny how things work out right? Tell bioth rich and tommy that Tina, Tab and Chrissy say hi!
Oh btw I was the female(duh) human player :)


How do I go about setting up a paypal account?? I haven't the slightest clue on how to!? :(

Actually , forget the above i know i can edit it out but W.E. The president of our team ( Tina, username: Maura) is going to post the paypal info in a few, shes creating one as we speak cause she is way awesome.
Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to try and help+any donations that come in, words cannot express how much our team appreciate all of your support!!! Thanks SO MUCH! * big devil duckie hugs*

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

Haha I'll relay the message to tommy and so on...
Good Luck W/ the account! I wonder if you posted flyers or walked around w/ signs and pins trying to just ask people on the street or in business areas... hhmm im trying to squeeze out more ideas that you can do ASAP... door to door donations?! i dont know if thats possible (we dont do such things here) but I know that if girl scouts can... so can the devil duckies!!!
you can maybe "call" the local paper, its faster, and I know in SF we do that for HS sports i dont see why you can't... (sorry thats all i can think of for now, i'm just a broke college freshmen haha)

You gotta go to the Nats if possible to represent the female human players! I was the human player for the last to years! Last year I hardly missed a shot! and the guys still never passed the ball when they missed all 3! (im still annoyed about that LOL) Anyways... GOOD LUCK!!!

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

Chrissy,

As an Atlanta area based team I have several questions. Obviously you will have to fly here so that will be a very large expense that can't be avoided. Hopefully tickets can be bought very soon to save $.

Have you considered asking the teams based in this area about lodging perhaps 1 or 2 people in private team homes to save expenses? There may be some possibilities here, myself being one of them. Hotels except in the perimeter of Atlanta may be hard to come by and may be high priced.

Also, I went to your team web site which is very impressive looking, but it does not appear to have a current team list or competition list. I wanted to see names and number of members. How many team members are planning/like to come to the Championship's?

Give us an idea of just how big the need is for your team. To try to be delicate about this, is the school in a low income area or is it just the fact that a lot of money is needed in a short time? Perhaps some of us here see a San Diego school and we may think that these students are in a high income area when that may not be true.

Scott Chambliss as others do, have some good ideas about fund raising but as I am sure you know you have to get on it quick!

Perhaps give us a team instructor / leader contact?

Dave

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

OK! Thanks for the suggestion. :) Great Idea!!
You can now use Paypal to send a contribution to the
Madison High School Devil Duckies - Team 1266
using this e-mail address: devil.duckies.1266@gmail.com

Thank you for your contribution! :)

Sincerely,

Todd McMahon
Devil Duckies - Team 1266
(Mentor / Sponsor / Parent)

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

Thanks!
You can now use Paypal to send a contribution to the
Madison High School Devil Duckies - Team 1266
using this e-mail address: devil.duckies.1266@gmail.com

Thank you for your contribution!

Sincerely,

Todd McMahon
Devil Duckies - Team 1266
(Mentor / Sponsor / Parent)

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

good luck you guys! you deserve to go! remembering how you did in phoenix, i want to see you there too. were having fiscal issues ourselves, and personally, im broke. really broke.

best wishes! good luck!

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

Chrissy:

I spoke to Tina, and went ahead and created the Paypal account for the team. People can now contribute to the Devil Duckies via Paypal to the following account: devil.duckies.1266@gmail.com
Awesome idea Chrissy... You rock! :D

Hugs!

Todd

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

This is exactly what Team 188 did when we went down to the SoCal regional. Team 22 came down here for GTR last year, and we went down there this year. There were two or three of us in each of our hosts homes, and all the mentors stayed together (I would like to say a VERY BIG THANK YOU to all the members of Team 22 for having us down there, we all had an AWESOME time :D, thanks guys). We're hoping to continue this for as long as we can.

If you can find some teams willing to host you guys in Atlanta, that would take care of a lot of expenses, and you would only have to worry about travel. Maybe next year you could host them down in San Diego, and who knows what could happen? It could develop into a great relationship for years to come.

Good luck guys, hope you get to go down to the Championships :) .

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

thanks for the satying with other team members suggestion. We would but frankly our memebers may give you a "scare" :-P We are a tad.....hyper?? We actually have some hotel plans locked in, its jsut a matter of giveing our mentor the money hes used out of his own pocket to get us there. :)

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

Get a video game tournament. Our team dosen't know how we're paying to get our robot shipped back or how to pay for our tee shirts, we hope having a DDR and Madden PS2 tournament could raise $600-700 bucks.

Have members bring in or rent the video games and PS2 systems (or whatever you use).. and ask the school for TV's and stuff.. it costs nothing to the team (except a prize if you decide to buy something), we're getting soda and pizza donated by local stores and selling it..

no cost to the team so even if only 10 kids do it, you'll still make money

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

Everyone on Team 812 is rooting for 1266. Come on Team San Diego. Your team came last year, and you have an even BETTER team this year. I want to congratulate the team for no matter what happens. The Devil Duckey robot is great, which is why most teams try to play defensive against your robot and everything you do outside of robotics might be even better; Engineering Inspiration for a 2nd year team is quite significant. We hope to see Team San Diego, even if there are only three teams going, hold it strong in Atlanta.

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

We were in the same spot last year. We won the Florida regional and had 3 days to come up with the funds. what we did was only send 5 kids and one adult. this cost us $10,000 to do this. We where coming from MA.

We had one team pay for our 2 rooms and a team gave us money. Plus we had some companies give us some cash. so in two days we did raise $10,000 half of the money was to pay FIRST for the national. I think it might be hard to raise $35,000. But with the right help you never know. Don't give up, you never know who will help you out. The nationals are worth it if you have never been.

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

I sent my $10. Team 1102 will offer a challenge.
I can't match all the contributions. I will send another $10 if 10 people give at least $10 each by midnight on April 10.

Our team raised $700 with a car wash on a Saturday monrning at Wendy's.
We also raised $500 by selling old Gameboys, software, and other small items on eBay.

We walked door-to-door and sold team buttons for $1 and got over $500.

We rented the local playhouse for $300 and did a robot demonstration and 2 companies were so impressed we got over $1500 on the spot. (You could do the same in the gym at school.) Do you think you coudl have a school Pep Rally and show some team video and charge $1 each for kids to come? Maybe take up a second collection at your churches.

A team at Palmetto recycled 80,000 aluminum cans. Others had pancake breakfasts, sold each other on ebay.

Use family connections. Beg. Don't limit yourself to your immediate area. We had an uncle of a team member send us $1500 and they live in Michigan (we are in SC).

I see the 1002 Curcuit Runners have offered to help. They are awesome. Stay with them if they have room. Also look up the IHOT team 1414 (International House of Technology) in Atlanta. They are very involved. http://www.ihotrobotics.org/

good luck!

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

Hello all,

I've given $30 this morning. I really hope you all will be able to attend Championships. The lead teacher, Joe Acker, was the lead teacher on my high school team in South Florida a "few" years ago. He did a great job with our team, I'm sure he's doing the same with yours.

As mentioned in previous messages, you should probably consider taking a smaller group of people in order to decrease the costs. I have contact information to most of the teams in the Atlanta area if you want to get in touch with someone local for help. I've got a few more ideas, feel free to contact me for help. I'll do what I can!

Good luck!!!

[edit] Also it might help to give a breakdown of the funds that you need. I'm not sure how you came up with $35,000?

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

Hold a carwash! It's getting nice out and people are starting to want to get their cars washed and you could make a TON of money! Our team held one in the middle of January and still got over 500 dollars so maybe that same idea could help you ^.^

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

It sounds like your hotels and flights may be lined up. There are some great local Atlanta team mentors and other teams that are helping you out. If rooms or money get tight let me know and perhaps we can make arrangements for some beds and transportation to the GA Dome.

Thanks team1102a for your kind words about team #1002, The CircuitRunners. I can't speak for the other team members but I know that we will do what we can to help out. Dave

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

Barry:

Thanks so much for your help!

The Devil Duckies

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

Anne:

Thank you VERY MUCH for your contribution!

Sincerely,

The Devil Duckies

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

Gosh, I love you guys and I still have my duck (which went to the Lone Star Regional). Unfortuantly, 624 is also going around doing last minute fundraising to get to Atlanta. I will see how well I do over the weekend and ask what is going around with our team and see what I can find. If we can't help I wish you guys the best of luck...

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

Yea its rough being in the last set of regionals then finding out you can go to atlanta.

Thank you so much to everyone for your help. If I could I'd send each of you a baby duckie to love and care for :) But as you know the money problems come first. So maybe if we get an amazing sponosor we'll send out the troops lol. But again thank you all. Every little bit has totally helped!
Chrissy

P.S. You are all honary duckies in the TEAMS BOOK!!!! :)


Edit: I really hope to see your team there as well, you are all really nice!!! And very spirited! What division are you in?? If we're in the same division, we should get the teams to sit together and ahve one huge green and red clump lol. It'll look like x-mas tee-hee

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

I wanted to let you know that Team #1002 made a deal with one of our mentors to see how we could help. We have a connection to the team as the teacher for 1266 was the teacher for some of our mentors team in FL.
With that said Team #1002 is going to contribute $1000 to help the team and our mentor will match that amount for a total of $2000. I am just waiting for the signatures on the paperwork. We look forward to seeing you in Atlanta next week.

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

holy shiznets!! :ahh: :ahh: :yikes: you guys SOOOOOOOOOOOO rock my entire sock drawer!
i think that we're getting there slowly but surely! my team definately thatks all of you!
i really hope that i am able *as a person* to go, because my family is really steeled against having to pay so much to go...they dont understand that i can pay 100 now and the rest fundraise the rest later, haha

but really,
ALL OF YOU WHO DONATED ROCK MY SOCK DRAWER, CHRISSY'S AND MAURA'S PERSONAL SOCK DRAWER, AS WELL AS THE TEAMS "UNCLAIMED" DRAWER! :D :D

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

Our team was in a similar situation after we won the Rookie All-Star award in 2002. That award didn't qualify us to go the Championship Event, but it motivated us to go as we realized that we had a really good robot and it would be a shame not to compete when we had the opportunity. (We were an even-numbered team in a even-numbered year, a rule that has been changed.)

In any case, one way that we made money was to raffle off robotic vacuum cleaners. They cost $250 and we sold 1000 tickets for $500 each. (We actually raffled off one vacuum for every 500 tickets.) The students sold a bunch of them in front of grocery stores, to relatives, neighbors, parents, etc.

Anyway, if you need raffle tickets, I have a pdf of tickets that you could use with very little change needed by me. Email me at info@team980.com if you are interested. (I would send you a pdf file to print with all the tickets numbered with stubs, etc. with your team # on the tickets.)

Let me know.

Looking forward to seeing you in Atlanta!

Doug Hogg

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

Just a quick note to once again thank all those who have donated funds to the Devil Duckies. For those of you who are interested, the PayPal account has taken a total of $150 in donations so far!!! I understand that a couple of donations are being sent in via the US Postal Service , and those are not included in the figures above (the check is in the mail).

Thanks again for your generosity! :)

If anyone else would like to make a contribution via PayPal,
go to: http://www.paypal.com and donate funds to our account:
devil.duckies.1266@gmail.com

Sincerely,

Madison High School Robotics
Team 1266
"Devil Duckies"
San Diego, California

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

I look forward to seeing you guys on Thursday. I am glad to hear that you were able to afford to attend the Championships.

Re: PLEASE HELP 1266
 

haha.. omg crissy..
seems like you "bonded" with a bunch of people!!! ( Did u tell them about the scrimmage?!)

lol.. anyways.. just dropping by and really stressing that we need the money..

if anyone has anymore ideas on how we may get the money, please contact us! we would really appreciate it and never forget what you have done for us just making a difference..!

well thanks a bunch to all the people,

The Devil Duckie Mascot :D

P.S: what's our team's new website? i can't find it anywhere!?! :confused: