Our school and school district support is generally good, though not a lot of money comes in. Farrington, however has given us part of the old auto shop which has been out of operation for two years (19ft x 54ft), and a side storage/programming room (12ftx12ft). We have 24/7 access to this area. We also have access to our schools Metal and Wood shops. The Teachers in these shops leave school anywhere between 4 and 5PM (School ends - 3PM) so we do not have much time in the shops.
Our Principal loves the robotics team and what it's doing for our schools image (She came down to the Hawaii regional for the past two years). We are known as the "Bad school" here in Hawaii because many live in a very low income area. 70% of our students are on the free or reduced lunch program. Most students look at robotics as the team for nerds or geeks so we only have about 20 stable members (Out of 2500)... Boy are they wrong
. Over this past semester team 2504 has presented at our schools club rush week and recruited nearly 40 new people (Only about 15 stayed after our first meeting). We have also presented at our school community meeting.
As for money our school has provided about $1500 for our VEX teams and none for our FIRST team as of now(We mostly use grant money). I don't remember last year's budget but I believe all of our money came from grants. Since I mentor these robotics teams year round I get paid part time, but most of that money goes back to the team in the form of Food and parts. The advisor for team 2504 also gives a lot back to the team. She spends a lot of her time (After her 2 in progress PhDs and teacher of the year travel) finding grants and sponsorship opportunities for our team to apply for.
