Supported by school or sponsor?
 

I was just wondering how many teams got support mostly from there school or mostly from there sponsor. By support I mean money, facilities, supplies and things like that. My team got just about all of our support from NASA. We barely got any of our support from school, its like we weren't even part of the school, no one really knew the team existed. All of our meetings were a the city schools Technology Center and NASA building where our playing field was. So where does everyone get there support?:confused:

<--- bows down and kisses NASA's feet for giving us most of our budget.

~Tom~

We have a main sponsor in Pratt as well as about 20 other sponsors. Far as I know, our schools give us nada. Oh well.

We get our most of our $$cash money$$ from Rolls-Royce. Peregrine gives us some. We get all our computer equipment from NEC. The rest of our money comes from various grants and small sponsors. We don't get a lot of money but we have enough to work with. The school doesn't give us crap. Just the classroom.

Our biggest support comes from HECo (Hawaiian Electric Company), not only have they provided us with generous monetary support but also a team of very helpful engineers/mentors. As far as I know, a classroom, and an occassional acknowlegment in the school newspaper is all we are getting from the school.

From the high school we got space, machine tools, teachers, and money for students food at regionals. RIT gave us administrative support, some facilities, the use of its name (more important than you think), and a largish some of money. Fibertech Networks also gave us a largish some of money. Most of our money however came from Alstom Signaling. So we're all over the place with regards to money. :)

Matt

My team gets nothing from our school exept what we ' borrow' :)

I guess you could say the teacher that runs this is 'in' with the maintinance staff at the school because we occationally find a large piece of lexan just when we need it laying in the middle of the room.

The space and tools are only ours because we fought for them. If my school had it's way we wouldn't have anything but 3 computers and a 5 by 5 foot space for building the robot, or the tech sequence that takes place in that classroom.

All in all though it ended up being a good place for FIRST, no complaints about our workspace- but the school didn't reconize our existance untill we were front page news on the local paper (i got 3 letters in the next few days from school officials).

I don't think many schools out there do very much in the way of support, we almost couldn't go to NYC because of 'paperwork problems' (you all know the ones).

As far as money goes, the school has never given us much cash, but the other things they do are invaluable.

The school has payed for our t-shirts, but not much else.

In the past we have gotten space to build the robot, either the school donated, or someone who goes to the school has found us space.

They have advanced us money while we have waited ... and waited for our money from JPL.

Many of the parents on our team are also administrators or teachers in the school.

Without the school, we would not be here, but as far as $$$ go, they haven't given us much.

Our school I believe pays the $9,000 entry fee. NUWC can't give us any money (federal agency), but they gave us a facility, computers, and some of the best engineers in the country.

from our school we got our barebones operating budget, travel expences were covered by students. umass generously let us use their physics lab, but neglected to tell the security people that we had permission, so we had periodical run ins with them. and our sponcors gave us t-shirts.

our school pretty much just gave us a room to work in the rest of our money we got from sponsers

Our school gives us $1000 plus a $250 stipend for our advisor (a math teacher. For those of you with nothing from your school, that seems like a lot, but our hockey program gets $11000, and we've been around much longer. We also get the use of our advisor's classroom, but only after and before school, and that's really up to her, not the school.

TI used to give us our entry fees (one regional and Nationals), plus t-shirts and buttons, along with two electrical engineers for construction. They also provided a (minimal) lab for animation, and several engineers for that.

RS Machine provided us with a machine shop, and the owner really helped us out more than anyone.


HOWEVER, we have lost TI and RS, and are down to our own fundraising, and small sponsors. Hopefully, ONLY until we find a new major sponsor.

I am a sponsor, and we provide most of the funding for the team from a Golf Tournament sponsored by two sponsor companies. Most of hte remaining funds come from J&J. Only limited funds come from the school - mostly to cover transportation costs between our three partnered schools (school buses). Without the golf tournament, and the nearly $35K it raises, we would be sunk!

i'm interrested in how you guys do this golf tournamemt. could you email me at: cbteam234@home.com for some info. Thanks

Last year we were supported about 45% from the school district and about 45% from the University, and about 10% from local sponsors. Next year we are hoping to add one or more corporate sponsors to the equation.

Patrick

35k?!? you guys can actually spend that much money?

Our school's site council usually gives us a large portion of my team's budget, but the amount we've been receiving has slowly been dwindling over the past few years. Still, the vast majority of all our income is from corporate sponsors.

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

We are supported(by means of money) from Sponsors, but we use the schools Work Shop and the principle and most of the teachers like the robotics team.

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

We get most of our support from our sponsors. However, the school still offers us a place to meet when it's needed. Nevertheless, we get our main workshop from a sponsor, and sponsors provide the vast majority of our money.

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

Well, when our team started last fall, our first choice was obviously the local high school, one of the biggest in the state. When we requested a meeting, they refused. After some negotiating (SP), we (I) was able to give a presentation to our school tech. ed. teachers (Half didn't show up). So basically, the public school system was a dead end. So then we started looking for potential sponsors/facilities that of which we would be able to use for our robotics club. We turned to Mercury Marine, which supplied us some mentors and donations, and we also asked Moraine Park Technical College, which after telling them on the phone about the club, they accepted our proposal about two hours later. So there we had it, we were housed at their Integrated Manufacturing center and we've been there ever since. Money for our team came from our many local sponsors. So that's basically our history and reasoning behind being supported by our helpful sponsors.

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

we got most of our fundings from our school. The team's main contact is the department chair for the school's industrial tech department and he actually picked up the tabs for pretty much every season we've been competing.

We haven't had much luck with corporate sponsors. how do you guys get them? How do you approach them?

chris
team 995
youtube.com/team995

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

Our school gives us 100% of our money.

Several sponsors provide us with parts (machining and electronics) and services (welding and web-hosting)

Reason: our school will not allow us to raise money. :confused:

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

Same! We are 100% sponsored by our school. We're not allowed to seek out outside sponsors. Our school gives us all our funding and our space, and our main mentor is our physics teacher. All of our additional help (mentors, welding, etc) is from parents.

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

The school doesn't give us any money. The only thing they've given us is an old shop in the back, and coverage as a nonprofit (which is a good thing! We wouldn't be able to have many of our sponsors without that.) All of our money comes from sponsors. Our mentors are almost entirely parents. We no longer have a school teacher on the team due to... personality clashes.

Personally I'm fine with the arrangement we have. We have a place to work and enough resources to build a functioning robot. We may not have a practice field or special treatment by a large company, but we make do.

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

We get our big bucks from Bristol-Myers Squibb, but the school supports us too. The East Windsor Board of Education has given us a $5000 grant the past two years, and a room solely dedicated to robotics. Our student council has given us grants in the past, and this year purchased our button machine and button stock for the team. We started out with very little school support, having to do a LOT of fundraising, and leaning on our mentors for a lot of bills, but I'm proud to say we've come a long way.

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

I believe that retired Gen. Shoemaker ( the awesome dude our school was anmed after) donated a 1000 and 647 would like to thank Lone Star for the grant. Everything else has come from our fundraising this year.

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

We used to get a room from our school and little else, but our new superintendant has "seen the light" and given us a generous contribution :cool: Most of our money still comes from sponsors, though.

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

Wilson Magnet supplies us with students and teachers but Xerox pays for our workspace, supplies us with tools and takes care of all of our monetary needs for the most part (some fund raising is required for food and to go to Buckeye).

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

School gave us a shed in the school parking lot, the size of four pit spaces. With all the maintenance supplies, a golf cart, robot crate, 5-8 kids and a robot, it get pretty small, and with no heat, pretty cold too. Luckily parents brought in enough space heaters to keep us working this season. We got $6,000 from our main sponsor, the most ever, and enough to allow us to compete again. Our other money comes in from parent donations and our snack cart. We sell snacks and drinks right after school for about a half hour. Thats were the other large portion of money comes from. We have one teacher adviser, a civil engineer and science teacher. Two parent mentors, an electrical engineer and a computer engineer who spend countless hours working with us. Our electrical engineer is also a sponsor. He owns his own business and helps supplies us with the needed tools and materials for the season. This year he also had an empty space in one of his buildings he was renovating to build a rack to test with.

We don't have much but we are lucky and grate full nonetheless. This is our fifth year as a team now. Our record stands 2004: NJ Rookie of the Year; 2005: #1 Seed VCU Regional, Semi-Finalist, NJ Regional Winners; 2006: NJ Regional Winners; 2008: NJ Semi-Finalist. It doesn't matter what you have to work with, its how you use it. With the right people, determination, innovation and drive to succeed, anything is possible.

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

We are a community based team formed thru a non-profit - no schools sponsor us. We have kids from 6 different high schools from all over the county and alot of homeschooled kids.

We do our own funding/fundraisers and purchase our own equipment. We currently have a table top drill press and a table top bandsaw, the rest of our tools are handtools. The computers we have will not run any of the software that comes in the KOP, but hopefully we can do something about that in the off season as the animation team is really coming together and needs stable, available machines to work with year round.

The location we meet at is donated as well and we move about every 10 months to a new spot. Some of our kids drive 45 min each way (the rest of us it's 25 mins) to nightly meetings during build season, weekly during the off season. We also attend fundraisers for other non-profits, parades and community events about every 2nd or 3rd weekend during the off season, so we stay busy year round.

We have no teachers, our mentors are a mix of people and include some parents.

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

Both,

Team 708 receives support from our schools and our Sponsors. The schools provide transportation, and a building space. As far as money, the majority of this comes from our corporate sponsors. The school also provides us with the same non-profit coverage that other teams and clubs receive.

A big thanks goes out to our sponsors...

Motorola... Primary monetary sponsor, mechanical and program engineers.
AMI Semiconductor... Monetary Sponsor, electrical engineer.
Cenotocor... Monetary Sponsor, Strategy mentor.
Immunicon... Monetary Sponsor, Machining, Mechanical Engineers.

Our sponsors and our engineers our the life of our organization. A big thankyou goes out from TEAM 708!!!

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

Team 1523 still has school support this year in the form of classrooms, machinery, storage, and monetary support. However , the bulk of our $$ support comes from the student members in dues and community business support.

The teacher is stepping down next year to go back to school and one primary sponsor is backing out. At this time, the details are being discussed on how we will function in 2009.

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

Our school gives us space to work and, starting this year, pays our advisors out of a grant for after-school programs we just got. All of our money comes from other sources, and we don't have a consistent major sponsor. Our ability to fundraise has been restricted, but we got a grant from Honda which kept us afloat this year. We're still working out how we're going to stay afloat, since that's far from a guarantee at the moment.

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

We get an unused room in the basement and electricity from the school, and the schoolboard might give us some money this year. But most of our funds come from local businesses and our parents/mentors, who buy a lot of tools and parts.

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

The school paid the $6,000 for registration and a classroom, which we had to share with two other classes during the day. and they do just about every thing possible to prohibit us for finishing, from taking parts from out closet, to kicking us out on saturday and sunday and the last 5 days of build season, we had to go to a mentors house to finish working. As for the rest of our money, it comes from our sponsors and mentors.

But what really makes me curious, is why so many schools don't support their robotics teams?

Reading to previous posts in this thread, it seems like a majorits of teams are not supported by their schools, and it almost seems like the schools hate their teams, sticking them out in cold sheds, or not even giving them a place to work. I know right now my school is making a big deal over how important technology is, and how its the future, but they are talking out of both sides of their face, because over the past 3 years they have cut almost every technology course offered, and pretend that our robotics team even exists. Our school administrators actually laugh at us when the team makes any kind of request.

I just think that it "technology is now", then schools should do a little more to support their teams. Maybe Dean's Homework next year should be to enlighten your schools about the wonders of FIRST.

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

Unions and Laziness, They don't realize that these clubs are the future generations. That's all there is to it!!!!


btw, Robotics is much cooler than Sports, They just don't realize it.

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

I completely agree

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

Be careful with blanket statements like this. What evidence do you have that your school faculty is lazy? Why would you say that "Unions" are the reason that schools do not support robotics teams?

I would suggest that many of the faculty sponsors in FIRST are in a union - and glad of it.

I would suggest that one reason schools do not support robotics teams is that they can't find a faculty member who is able to donate the hundreds of hours above and beyond the call of their already difficult jobs. Another reason might be liability. A third obvious reason is cost. How many school activities have a cost/student ratio anywhere as high as FRC?

For those who get "nothing more than a working space" - consider the cost of that space if you had to rent it and pay the utility bills.

We are very, very fortunate to have a great deal of support from our school and administration. It took years and years of work, but it has been worth it.

-Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

The Pascack Valley Regional High School District has always been very supportive of Team 1676. They've always allowed us to use the Tech Lab and Autoshop for building purposes, and we're allowed to stay pretty late (they kick us out around 11:30/12). Last year they started to financially support the team as well. :D

Because of all that, they are our biggest sponsor/supporter. Then we have corporate sponsors such as KPMG and Dassault Falcon Jet that monetarily support us. All in all I think we have around 15 companies that sponsor us in some way...our website has a more detailed breakdown.

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

After reading this thread I feel very fortunate to have our school behind us.

They provide us meeting space, a full machine shop, and stipends for two teachers. They also give us a nice budget to spend on robot parts, transportation and great moral support.

We have always had a good relationship with the school but since forming our parents group it has gotten even stronger. You would be surprised what a group of parents can get when they ask nicely.

We also couldn't participate in this program without the generous donations of our sponsors; Proportion Air, Rolls Royce, Indiana Department of Workforce Development and numerous smaller sponsors.

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

When the choice is between supporting a robotics team or buying books and supplies, paying salaries, paying utilities ... guess what wins? Schools are not endless money supplies. Most of them struggle with every dollar of taxpayer support.

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

In my team, the sponsers really helped us not only with money and supplies but also with the planning and even gave us solutions that we never dreamt of.
We don't realy get support from our school and we treid to create awareness - this year we entered to all the classes with the robot from last year and it made more interest. Try to publish your team in school and city events and hang some posters at your school and aspecialy at the teachers lounge. Talk with the teachers and principal about how much this project gives you and rich your knowledge then evey regular lesson.


I hope it will help you,
You can ask me for more information or help.

Nofar #1943

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

I think you forgot to include sports. Look at it like this, which is more important, athletics or education, and most schools choose sports, but why (because they are like the rest of society and only care about bragging rights)? But what do sports really get you, they in know way help to better the world (of your future career).

And honestly, Im not every asking for more money out of my school, just for the fact that they would actually acknowledge our team, and not laugh at us any time we have anything to say or take our parts and tools. Actually show up to the competition and show a little support, that doesn't cost any money.

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

Have you ever played sports? Sports promote physical fitness, teach teamwork and perseverance.

Our event is modeled after sports. Most of my teams best leaders play high school and other organised sports.

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

I strongly disagree.

Just like FIRST teaches teamwork, discipline, accountability, responsibility, hard work, dealing with success and defeat, and fairness, so do sports. You can be the smartest person in the world, but your body will not last that long unless it gets used the way it was designed*, and that means consistent physical activity. Not that many people use the actual sport to make their living, but what is learned is the imnportant part. Just like "it ain't about the robot", one can say "it ain't about the [insert sport device here]".

Even frisbee is a sport. Get out and move around a bit, it's good for you.

Don


*Not to imply that we are designed.

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

I was referring to making a living through sports. Im just P.O'd at my school district, because they will do anything for athletics, yet they discriminate against technology students, eventhough they claim "technology is the most important thing", and "technology is now". And at my school, the robotics team and the sports teams are two very different social classes. The jocks don't ever acknowledge us. Since you all have good luck as far as the school liking your team, how do you accomplish this? Because we could obviously use some help in this area, (all of our previous attempts have failed). Any suggestions on how to "close the gap" between technology and sports?

Re: Supported by school or sponsor?
 

What do you mean by the "school liking you"? How much does your district spend on technology education? I bet it's more than you think.

You and I and all of us involved in FIRST are trying to change the way people look at science/technology education. It's going to take a long time but it's worth the effort. Keep showing yourselves off and working in your community and things will get better for you.