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Originally Posted by Darkswordsmith
I'm currently a junior in high school, the NASA internships were all for college students or students living near Goddard. My team doesnt have any sponsor at all, we raised the money the same way as last year--by asking local businesses one by one, our school district is really unsupportive. Our team name doesnt bear the name of our high school but the Yolo County who gave us some money.
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When it comes to schools and school districts, most are reluctant to shell out thousands of dollars for a group of twenty students
at first. (No pun intended). When our team first started in 1999, we was told that if we would last at least successive seven years, then we would be considered a permanent part of our school district. This will be our eighth year in FIRST, and now, our town's Board of Education is now one of our two biggest sponsors.
Just last week, someone "from the top in downtown" had a contractor come in and wire 480 volt electricity for our lathe and milling machine in our new private machine room. We we told this was going to be a $8000 job, and it was donated to us for free. So good things come to those who wait.
Try to get your team as much attention as possible. Just keep at it. Keep trying to get media attention in every way possible. Try to get lots of articles in school newspapers/websites/announcements/etc. Go out into the community often - bring your robot - and promote FIRST. The more exposure your team gets, the better. Get your students psyched about FIRST. Aspire to win awards at competitions. Have fun. Make cool DVDs of your team during the build season and competitions. Send these out to schools and companies to show them how much fun you really have.
Eventually all these little things will come back to help you. As your team continues to mature and grow and expand, your school district will recognize how much of an impact you are having. They will soon recognize that FIRST is really amazing, and is something that
they can be really proud of. It is at this point that you will finally get generous support from your school.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled program...
