Quote:
Originally Posted by SciBorg Dave
To balance the playing field for all team what do you think of a limit of say $50,000 to run a team. This would keep all teams working hard to keep within the limit ( what ever it set at). I find that there is a big difference rural teams who struggle to raise $10,000 for the season and urban teams that have better sources to raise funds ( I know some who raise $100,000) for the season.
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Raht than limit the upper end, I would much rather work on a solution where $10K is a reasonable amount for a team to have a good "season". My thoughts on what this season would look like would be a minimum of 2 events. Right now there is way too much risk of going to 1 event, and having a dead CRIO ruin your weekend, or a flaky digital sidecar ruining your season.. 2 events gives reasonable opportunity to get the robot behaving as it should (though maybe not as a team hopes). I inspected a lot of robots this year, and for about $1500, a team can have a very competitive robot. So current budget is Kit + registration for 2 events + $1500 additional material cost.
The next big line item for most teams is travel. Hotel stays even at a cheap place with 4 kids/ room is $80 or $20/Kid/night. A 2 night stay with 20 kids and a couple of mentors will run 20 kids x $20/night x 2 nights plus a couple rooms for mentors = $1000/event... This isn't cheap. Maybe if events are close enough, then only 1 event would require travel...So where were we on budget:
Kit + 2 event registration +$1500(robot) + $1000 travel (for 1 event).
T-Shirts=2x$10 per kid or another $500 (mentor shirts as well).
Kit + 2 event +$1500 +$1000(hotel) + $500 (shirts)=$3000 + Kit + 2 event registration.
Here in Michigan, for most teams (UP excluded), this is $8000 and is reasonable. I have not included food as you need to eat anyway. I have not included transportation, as I think parents can either work that out, or the team can figure out a way for $2000 to get to the competitions.
This is my $10K season budget. I know a lot of teams that operate with a very similar budget.
Some of the "big budget" teams will roll meals into the travel. At $15/kid/day, this can be an additional $1200. They may build a practice bot as well. Without the KOP, the practice bot is actually costs a lot more $5K compared to a KOP based $1500 robot. Assume $5K for the second robot. They might also stay in a hotel for 2 events:
Thus the $10K budget now is $20K. If they are good enough to go to States, add in another 3 nights stay $2000 plus food $1000 plus registration $4000 plus spares (3 events), and you are now up around $30,000 budget.
With the "robot" costs and registration at $5K(base registration)+$1500(1st robot material) +$4K (States or Championship) + $5K practice bot = $15,500-ish. This means the other $15K is for the 20 kids plus a couple of mentors, or roughly $500-800 per student/year. Many "big budget" teams might ahve 40 students. Thus the $30K budget blows up to $45K in a hurry.
If you have to fly... costs get crazy really fast.
Thus, if you want to make it more even for a $10K team to compete, instead of capping teams at $50K, I would recommend pushing to get more "local" events or shifting to the district model. I am not saying that in the District model, a $10K team is equal or even with a $100K team, but they are more reasonably close than a $10K team competing against a $50K team in a regional set-up.
What can you do to bring districts to your area? Find a parent or volunteer that can help fill a key role (referee, inspector, event coordinator, volunteer coordinator....).