1102 is a county-wide team. Our county is 40,000 people and 5 high schools, plus the Career Center. We started as a 1-school team, and added schools each year by going to to registration in the fall and inviting science and math teachers to come look at the team workshop.

There are advantages to multi-school teams.
1. You don't compete with other schools in your area for sponsors.
2. The school board and district offices can see it as a community effort and send some $$ your way. They don’t have to worry about "hey you funded school x, but not us".
3. If you get too big, then you can "spin off" a second school team, mentor them, and they hit the ground as a rookie with some experience.

M'Aiken Magic won a regional Engineering Inspiration Award and they cited the fact we have 5 schools and county-wide exposure as a big positive.

As for sponsors, build the robot, and they will come. Like others have said. it is your best fundraising tool. Put it in the 4th of July parade, take it to the church picnics, school registrations, and the county fair.

We got on the "rubber chicken" circuit and went to ladies clubs, Rotary Club, garden clubs, ASME, National Management Association, Computer Clubs, LAN parties, Toastmasters, anybody who holds a monthly meeting and has guest speakers.

Look in your newspaper and see those obscure articles entitled "Local Lawyer Tells Rotarians about Mission trip to Bahamas". Those are the folks who will listen, and pay. Rotary came though in year 1 with $1500, and this year with $5000. (and their logo is a gear, it looks cool). Also look at your graduates this year and see what companies gave scholarships. That is a good indicator of who is interested in education.

Finally, rent the local movie theater or playhouse and have an open house. Demonstrate the robot and lets the kids tell what they have learned. We invested $300 in an evening rental and got $2000 in sponsors and t-shirt sales.

good luck