Who builds robots/where?
The students and mentors (with emphasis on the former) on our team design and build the robot. We work in the vo tech wing of our school district's educational center.
Do you have dedicated space/machine shop?
We've got a couple hundred square feet of dedicated space and can use the wood shop and sewing room (clean room for programming/CAD/electronics) during builds. We also have our own lathe, metal band saws, drill presses, welder, and hand/power tools.
Do you rely on corp. sponsors to build?
No, though they do occasionally do a little machining (couple pounds per season max) that we simply don't have the resources to do in-house.
Who manages the team/students?
We have a Steering Committee that's made up of mentor and student leaders. The chairman of the committee is the team head mentor (the 'the buck stops here' guy). We also have a second project management mentor to allows both of them to sleep occasionally. The head mentors in each sub-team take considerable responsibility for the students (though this is rather unsurprising considering they're also the aforementioned head mentor and project manager), and we have several mentors who concentrate mostly on logistics. The student team captains and leaders assume various levels of leadership depending on the people (ranging from a few who I'm not sure knew they were captain to me, who's student-to-mentor transition was dictated mostly by the effects of a 3.5 hour commute from college).
How involved is your school?
[I'll use "school" to mean school district, as our students come from two different high school campuses.] Currently, we don't have any active teachers from our school district on our team. That wasn't always the case--our founder is in fact a physics teacher, but he's been on and off medical sabbatical for several years. Currently, they provide us primarily with space. This, again, was not always the case and can take considerable effort to obtain and keep: we spent the '08 build season in a stable and didn't entirely move out of my garage until last summer. The district also provides some funding.
How involved are your students parents?
Currently, 4 of our 14 active mentors are parents of students, including our head mentor (this ratio hasn't fluctuated a whole lot over the years). They've probably logged well over a thousand hours combined this season. Several non-mentor parents help by providing lunches, dinners, transportation (and of course their children), and some cheer us on at competitions on Saturdays.
What is your teams operating budget?
We like to have $25,000 in the bank come the beginning of the school year (and we haven't run a deficit for a couple years).
How do you get compensated, besides the obvious joy of watching your students grow?
We try to pay mentors back when they buy parts, etc, though not everyone requests reimbursement. The team does offer to pay for mentor rooms for travel regionals in large part to help retirees, etc attend.
What is your typical build season schedule?
1st/2nd Saturday in January-45 days later: work. 46th night: sleep.
For the first 2 weeks we meet 6-9PM Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday plus 10AM-8PM (sometimes 7) Saturday and 12-8PM Sunday (though some arrive earlier). For the next 4 weeks we meet every weeknight 6-9PM (sometimes 9:30) and push weekends to at least 9PM. If the students have school off and we can get into the building, we'll work that entire (week-) day as well.
Anything else we can help with?