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Originally Posted by Cothron Theiss
Just a quick question that's more specific to your situation. There have even been threads talking about how quickly 1678 has risen to the level of the best teams in the world. You mention that you've gotten more and better space the past few years. So have you found it's been easier to ask for donations and/or build space since you've become more well known and more successful as a team? Or has the increased space and machinery helped you become more successful as a team? Or are these two happenings not directly related, and it was some other factor of your team organization that caused you to get better work spaces and more competitive success as a team?
Sorry if this is a bit of a chicken and the egg question; I'm really just wondering if your competitive success has made it easier to fund raise.
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More the former than the latter. Another notable reason we have gotten the space has been the robotics class our head coach has been teaching the last 2 years. The space and machinery are not the reason we are able to field the world class robots that we do. They certainly make it easier to produce such a robot, but it is not a requirement. The biggest thing that all that stuff gives us is the ability to engage more students.
We build world class robots by narrowing the scope of our designs to what is vital to win at Champs without requiring another specific robot type. Then we do whatever it takes to make it work. We were able to make this work just fine with a laser cutter sponsor, a few bench top machines and a Bridgeport in a shipping container. We have just changed how we utilize our resources in order to accomplish our goals now that we can rely more on our own manufacturing capabilities.
The vast majority of our sponsorship money has historically come from just 4 sponsors for many years, UC Davis, DJUSD, DMG Mori, and Schilling Robotics/FMC Technologies. We have worked very hard to develop and maintain a working relationship with these groups, invite them to competitions, keep them updated, etc. We don't just call them up once a year asking for money, we make sure they see and understand the huge impact their contributions make to our team and our students. We run summer camps for UCD, a WiSTEM conference with DMG, teaching a robotics class at the high school, and I think Schilling/FMC just likes to support what we do(I'm sure there is something we do however). Their support has grown with us over the last several years as our program has expanded and actually required that level of funding to support our ambitions. Our success has made it easier to raise funds, but if we were not as successful we wouldn't need the same level of funding. So I would say that the two are definitely tied together.