Re: COOL SPONSER
 

Technically, you could claim every day of build is a lan party. 50 crates of Bawls anyone?

Re: COOL SPONSER
 

now thats a sweet sponsor(even though i dont like the Yankees)! Any sports team or such would be cool. It kinda goes along with Dean's hope that FIRST would be seen as a sporting event.

Re: COOL SPONSER
 

We really had no sponsors our first year, but we had a NASA grant for $5,000. For the second years, NASA would grant $6,000 as a MATCHING grant, so we had a year to line up sponsors for $6,000. We spoke we wrote, we begged, we did everything we could think of and all we had was $50 and 20 coupons for free slurpies. We were all discouraged and were brainstorming trying to think of who to ask. We had been turned down by all the tech companies and local businesses.

One kid said, "You know, there is a group in the valley that likes to fiddle with machines and they get together a lot and many are professional people who may want to back a 'hard luck' robotics club." He had our attention.

"Who?"

"Well, the Hell's Angels"

We all laughed at his joke, but the more we thought about it... It would surly make the news and pointing out that only the Hell's Angles supported extracurricular academic activities at a public high school might embarrass legislators and CEOs to support us.

After a few more weeks of no sponsors, we had a serious discussion about approaching the motorcycle group. We finally decided that it really was not the way to go, but somehow the sight of the H. A. riding into the Arizona Regional and walking through the pits... The public image that robot competitions are for the nerd kids would never survive. Would an Orange County custom robot be far behind? Big Paulie with a "842" tatoo?

Eventually we did interest a few companies to help us out and have since thrived and we now aim for the Chairman's Award. But I still fantasize what might have been :cool:

Re: COOL SPONSER
 

I think bikers would be great sponsors - especially the ones that like to tinker with their bikes. I'll bet they are all big and bad on the outside, but inside they are all just looking to be loved... Just like FIRST robots everywhere!

Seriously, if they were really into customizing their bikes, then they probably have access to and knowledge about machining equipment that would come in handy during the build. Additionally, they would have some good ideas on how to "chop out" the look of your robot. Though you might have to do some sort of background check for the more sketchy characters...

Re: COOL SPONSER
 

I know that Harley Davidson sponsors some teams, and I've heard that Harley engineers make the best mentors (as long as you don't mind flames & skulls on your bot)

Re: COOL SPONSER
 

A couple of years ago the Jacksonville Jaguars sponsored some Florida teams. I also remember a Campbell's Soup team that used to have great looking robots using their logo. There was also a team sponsored by Lego. The Kodak team used to hand out cases of disposable cameras and was used in their commercial.

Re: COOL SPONSER
 

i think some Car custom shop would support first .. like a PIMP MY BOT kinda thing... yalll know what im talking about

Re: COOL SPONSER
 

I would LOVE to have Ganassi as a sponsor. Although I would love to have Hendrick Motorsports as a sponsor just a bit more ;) Haha. NASCAR mixed with Robotics... nothing better right there!!

Re: COOL SPONSER
 

We almost had a local custom car shop sponsor us. Unfortunatly they had just made a huge donation to a local football team so they had no money to donate.

Re: COOL SPONSER
 

Oh... the money went to a SPORTS team... that's a shocker right there *rolls eyes* None the less a football team. Why do the sports get recognition over us?? It just isn't fair. Yall should have had that garage sponsor you instead of a football team.

Re: COOL SPONSER
 

I think having a professional sports team sponsor a FIRST team would be AWESOME. Just like businesses try to ride the hype of the team they sponsor, this professional sports team would be bowing down to the more prestigious FIRST team! At least that's how it works in my head.

Re: COOL SPONSER
 

I have absolutely NOTHING wrong with a professional sports team sponsoring someone in Robotics. I am a jock so it would be awesome to see the two on the same page for once lol. I just don't like how it seems that football (and other sports) get more recognition than the Robotics teams. I love your idea of getting sports teams involved... other than Ganassi Racing... I think it would be beyond awesome if we had other professional sports teams helping us out.

Re: COOL SPONSER
 

I personally love our Sponsors. Though we only hav to they're are the greatest. we hav CSun and Dreamworks Animations SKG.. so if u've seen 1070's shirts.. RJ from Over the Hedge is on there it's great. They provide us w/ everything.. and.. we were at the premiere of OVer the Hedge and we got to see some previews of upcoming movies.. it was great :)

Re: COOL SPONSER
 

I think it would be awesome to get more robotics companies involved as sponsors... I'm trying to whittle down some folks here at Foster-Miller to sponsor a team up in the Waltham, MA area. As it turns out, money is relatively easy to come by - the hard part is getting a time commitment from the engineers. Hopefully after I take them to see a competition they'll come around. Maybe I can get a team out of here next year.

Re: COOL SPONSER
 

I'm sorry... Ganassi Supports the IRL... Champ Car forever... If any IRL team sponsered our team... I would quit...

Though Our sponsers are cool too...