Quote:
Originally Posted by Ozuru
Two robots is substantially better but almost impossible for teams with a budget. How do you handle the costs of the season with the costs of doubling your parts?
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Fundraising. In addition to some collections at local grocery stores, we sold tool kits, have done two piggybackr campaigns (similar to kickstarter but with an infrastructure to allow tracking which student brings in funds while obeying child safety laws), several local businesses, and a few big-ticket sponsors. The piggybackr type campaigns should be for a specific purpose - our first was to raise money for a duplicate 2015 control system, the second to raise money for our trip to St. Louis. We also have a number of steady contributors (for example, I buy parts online and from local stores occasionally, and usually only turn in the receipts for BoM purposes). We have found that it usually does not make sense to make two parts originally, but to go through a bit of prototype-and-tweak phase before making the second copy; both faster to develop, and less expensive. It also helps that we intentionally go for relatively simple designs - I believe our BoM came in about $2500, so we didn't spend much more than if we'd made one $4000 robot. The key is to make fundraising nearly as important as building or programming skills as far as making the team and lettering, then get the kids' competitive spirit aroused with fundraising. You won't get it from everyone, but hopefully enough to have enough money to fund two robots.
It also helps that we only do one regional per year, and that's about an hour drive from the school. But, when we earned a trip to St. Louis, we realized we'd need about $20,000 to get 25 students and 8 mentors and our trailer (purchased with a grant from Ingersoll Rand Foundation) there. Our $5k entry fee came from the schoool board. In the last 10 days, we've raised $10k of the other $15k, nearly half through individual contributions at piggybackr. We've also made a bunch of contacts with businesses that can't help us in the next few weeks, but are almost certain to sponsor us next year.