We really had no sponsors our first year, but we had a NASA grant for $5,000. For the second years, NASA would grant $6,000 as a MATCHING grant, so we had a year to line up sponsors for $6,000. We spoke we wrote, we begged, we did everything we could think of and all we had was $50 and 20 coupons for free slurpies. We were all discouraged and were brainstorming trying to think of who to ask. We had been turned down by all the tech companies and local businesses.
One kid said, "You know, there is a group in the valley that likes to fiddle with machines and they get together a lot and many are professional people who may want to back a 'hard luck' robotics club." He had our attention.
"Who?"
"Well, the Hell's Angels"
We all laughed at his joke, but the more we thought about it... It would surly make the news and pointing out that only the Hell's Angles supported extracurricular academic activities at a public high school might embarrass legislators and CEOs to support us.
After a few more weeks of no sponsors, we had a serious discussion about approaching the motorcycle group. We finally decided that it really was not the way to go, but somehow the sight of the H. A. riding into the Arizona Regional and walking through the pits... The public image that robot competitions are for the nerd kids would never survive. Would an Orange County custom robot be far behind? Big Paulie with a "842" tatoo?
Eventually we did interest a few companies to help us out and have since thrived and we now aim for the Chairman's Award. But I still fantasize what might have been
