[Billfred]

This seems like something that one of the New Jersey old-timers could offer a better insight on. You might want to talk with them to see if they can help convince your administrators on the importance of keeping old robots together. Try talking to 25 in particular, as they've championed the pre-rookie concept for fall events. (And, as a mentor of 2458 for about 24 hours at Brunswick Eruption in 2007, I know North Brunswick is in reach.)

To that end, uses for a full and complete robot:

1) Eye candy. You can ask any mentor--or they'll tell you--about the importance of having a robot to show anyone you're trying to bring aboard. Students, mentors, sponsors, anybody--show a robot, and it becomes a lot easier for folks to wrap their heads around it. If they don't buy this, ask them to pitch a product (and ask for the money upfront) where you have nothing to show a client right now but have Really Awesome Stuff coming around the bend. Nine times out of ten, this approach will get you laughed out of the building. (Case in point: when 2815 started, they borrowed a robot from Metal In Motion to show at the first meeting in order to help the kids and parents wrap their head around what exactly they were signing up for.)

2) Programming practice. Heck, make it a programming contest if you've got the nerve to teach enough folks LabVIEW. This is the robot--no, you can't modify it--and this is the objective. Go.

3) A way to learn from your past mistakes. I've been on and around teams that would make bone-headed mistakes. If it weren't for the ability to go back and see how we did this or that a couple years ago, we'd repeat that bone-headed mistake. Keep running your robot, and see what breaks. If you can figure out what is most likely to break on your robot, you can start figuring out how to make it break less often or be repaired quicker--but this only happens with a robot around.

4) Rolling physics demonstration, as stated above.

5) Tackling dummy for future robots. (Sure, your robot can score when everything is lined up perfectly--but how does it handle when you've got another robot shaking you about?)

That said, the later posts make me believe you might have a deeper issue than what to do with a robot. If a school doesn't give proper support to the team, whether financial or (more frequently) logistical, it is infinitely harder to build a sustainable team. I've been fortunate to be on teams where the schools have been big fans of the robotics team, so I can't offer advice there. Your administrators don't "see the point" in the team? Do everything you can to make them see it. Invite/bring/drag/kidnap them to an event--since 2458 appears done for the regular season, try PARC or Monty Madness that happens before summer hits. Have them talk to the old-timers, the folks who've seen the effect this can have on students when a team is really running at full bore.

If you haven't done so already, start compiling your own statistics on the effectiveness of your program. How many members of the team have adjusted their post-graduation plans as a result of working with the team? How many people have you reached out to in the larger community? Have you created any partnerships with local businesses? (This isn't always money, mind you; ask WildStang about their efforts to place their graduates within Motorola, their primary sponsor.) NASA requires this sort of assessment of all teams that receive grants from them, in no small part because they have to justify the effectiveness of over a million dollars each year in federal grants. Your issue is probably not on the same scale as that of an agency of the federal government, but the importance of gauging effectiveness remains the same.

Stall for time on the robot, worry about getting the school on board.