Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

Team 397 requires students to either, participate in a fundraiser OR have their school account charged $50 (Until this charge is paid they cannot get their grades and cannot graduate) Obviously this comes no where near even covering food for the season, all food is donated by mentors (or their parents) or paid for by the team.

When I was on RUSH Clarkston implemented a Pay to Play policy, to be involved in ANY after school activity (NHS, Football, Marching Band, Robotics etc) you had to pay $50. On top of that, RUSH members are always required to fundraise a certain amount. This is actually a benefit to the team in two ways, it gains the team money and it shows the student is willing to work for it. Of course, if a student simply CANNOT raise the money the team will work with them.

Really the simple solution is to be flexible, never tell a student they cannot be involved because they cant pay you $500 dollars. Teams are all struggling for money right now, so are a lot of families, there are ways you can work around it, if the student wants to be involved NEVER turn them away for financial reasons.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

It varies from year to year, and we have never placed a student in the situation where they were unable to be on the team, have a t-shirt, or go on a trip for financial reasons.

However, we do charge students for a T-shirt, and for part of the cost of travelling to a regional. Typically a "local" regional... Portland or Seattle, for instance, is about $150 for bus and hotel, while going to Toronto or elsewhere would involve a bit more cash.

This year students had the opportunity to offset their "robotics" expenses, by selling Hexbugs. Our top seller was able to offest $80 of her $150 travel expenses. (Although as has been pointed out elsewhere, the real money in Hexbugs comes from selling spare batteries... I was a bit slow to clue in to that one.)

But the bottom line is, no one gets left behind for financial reasons.

Jason

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

As a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, we are prohibited from charging dues or annual fees to be a team member, even though we never did charge dues in the ten years prior to incorporating as a non-profit. In our school district, 85% of the students are on free or reduced price lunch. As such, as try to keep student expenses as low as possible, as a large portion of our team is compromised of the typically underrepresented groups in engineering.

Since the loss of a major sponsor about six years ago, we've had all students and mentors pay all travel costs personally, minus a "travel stipend" that is allocated based upon how well fundraising went that year. (In our first few years, our team paid all travel costs, including week long Park Hopper passes when Nationals was at Epcot). One of the reasons we compete at up to a half dozen post-season events is that with the exception of the hotel for Battlecry@WPI, these events have no cost on our students, as we almost always use "provide your own transportation" philosophy. (Most students will carpool with each other to events).

Due to the financial situation of many of the students on our team, traditional fundraising options - selling stuff - have never panned out for us. Instead, we've had tremendous success with can and bottle drives, car washes, pasta dinners, and especially our pulled pork barbeque events. Through these fundraising efforts, we fundraise well into the five-figure amount every year, with nearly all coming from the latter.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

Our team does it pretty simple. We require, for travel, that you fundraise (or pay) 150 dollars. The fundraisers vary from year to year, but we have one every year. This fees covers a team shirt, and allows you to go to our non-home regional (chicago). Similar 1714, our home regional is blocks away from our shop, so that it is relatively free for us (as students, obviously not the robot) to attend. This also covers Atlanta. I'm not sure how sponsors go, but I'd assume that they cover alot. If anyone fundraises over 150, they get a pat on the back, and idealy, the overflow goes into a "slush-fund" that covers kids who can't quite meet the bill. Seeing as how we're an inner-city team with inner-city kids, this is very helpful.

Its not much money, but it offsets the costs a tad, and it shows that the kid is invested. Nothing bothers me more than kids that go to regionals "just to get out of school" or "just because they can" if they have no plans to do anything at said regional.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

It varies form year to year, depending upon the venue, costs, and team treasury. For example, we went to NJ, Palmetto and CMP this year. For NJ I think the cost was $150, Palmetto about $300, and Championship was $375. This is somewhat more than in the past, but times were pretty lean this year, and CMP was almost entirely student-funded, since we hadn't expected to win RCA at Palmetto.

Even if you don't come to any regionals, you get everything else free.

Every team member is expected to participate in all fundraising

Coaches and mentors are sensitive to finances, in past years we have chipped in to fund one or two students who wouldn't be able to attend otherwise.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

Skunkworks has a relative simple plan.

There is a $25 cost to be on the team.

If you want to travel and participate at competitions you need to fundraise $300 per regional/championship. We usually do 2 regionals and CMP.
Only Juniors and Seniors can go to CMP. They must pay for their own airfare.
(We are in Seattle..)

So typical year for a junior They need to fundraise $600 for 2 regionals and another $300 to go to Atlanta plus they need to pay for their own airfare which is around $500.

We have fundraisers during the year to help do this.
Through these team fundraisers, a participating student can raise around $300.

They do other fundraising to come up with the rest.
By not having freshmen and sophomores go to Atlanta, we urge them to start saving for their airfare for those 2 years and put it in a bank account.
This teaches them to save...and makes the CMP something to really look forward to. This means they save $250 per year.... for airfare...

All of the student fundraising pays for about 1/2 of the budget with the other half coming from the bigger sponsors... for us BOEING and SPEEA.

This seems to work for us...

We also have a few anonymous sponsors that provide "scholarships" for needy skunks so that those that have a difficult time with fundraising can come up with their part...

We have a motto... no skunk left behind...

we live by it..

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

We don't have an team fee, but have to pay the school $75 as a club fee at the beginning of the school year to be part of the club. You also have to participate in one of the fundraisers (hexbug sale this year) to travel with the team (I'm pretty sure on that).

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

Wildstang students are enrolled in a class so that covers some things in the school. They must fundraise as well for other things like travel. There are several opportunities like selling hot chocolate and KK donuts at football games. We have done cheescakes sales, Entertainment books, candy, etc. Profits are set and go into student accounts like those mentioned for Boy Scouts. We also run the concessions at the State Lego League and work the event. Students who work in any area during the two days, shares in the profits of the concessions.
Since we are very close to the Midwest Regional and are more or less the host team, school buses bring the students to the event. Only drive team and select pit crew go on Thursday and the whole team is able to attend on Friday and Saturday. We attend one other regional, and for that we take a skeleton crew and drive team. We also attend the Champs and students picked for that travel must have fundraised a specific amouont which changes with hotel each year. The students are also selected by participation throughout the year and their duties during the event. I am proud to point out that that our students this year played a pivotal role in gathering data and producing an effective strategy while picking two spectacular teams that complemented our robot function very well.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

Several years ago, we were able to raise a lot of funds and have been able to since then.
One of the issues was getting donations/grants that had to all be spent by year's end. If not, then why ask for what we've been getting.
It was enough to cover the entire team's travel costs, equipment, tools, and supplies.

The last couple of years however, we created a sustainability plan and have convinced many of our sponsors that the money we ask for works towards that. That means not spending everything we get.
The responsibility year in and year out is disclosing our long term efforts and being able to sustain our program at a high level with the annual gains/losses of donors.
To be able to do this, we now charge our students a portion of their airfare costs, while the team covers all transportation vehicles (gas, rental cars, insurance, etc.) and hotel costs. This is in part why we dont stay at 4-5 star hotels. We look at it as pure lodging and spend the majority of the time out anyways. We also cover certain team meals and dinners and I personally like going to a pretty mid- to high-range restaurants to celebrate our achievements/successes.
The most important part, I think, is collecting $200/student for team activities, meals, and certain expenses. We give them money for them daily. In other words, we hang on to their personal monies up-front and give it to them, little by little. I got tired of students complaining about stuff we did, since you cant please them all. Or, they used money intended for food to buy personal gifts, which left them begging us for more money. I let the team decide what they want to do during their free-time, but its a group decision. That way, I get minimal complaints, everything is up-front, and I have very little to NO issues with the spending money portion.

Re: Student 'contributions' / fees to attend regionals
 

I really appreciate all the feedback here. Keep it coming!

(I'm going to put together a spreadsheet for me to follow- I'll keep things anonymous :)