Limit team $

[Nemo]

I think the thing that separates the really great teams is organization. Getting organized is tough.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Your robot can cost $4000. That "levels" the playing field. Yes, "better off" teams can afford to do multiple regionals but that's about the only competitive advantage you can buy. Practice bots cost a lot less than you'd think once you have a back log of parts. So, where exactly, do you think this 50k budget goes? In a lot of cases it goes to subsidizing student/mentor travel and paying for outreach. Let's walk through why this is a terrible idea.

(for the record 79 doesn't have a budget anywhere near this, our students/mentors are not subsidized by the team. It's a thought exercise based on our team size and approximated costs. )

We have ~70 students on the team. Our per student cost to Orlando was $400. That's 28k right there. Our KoP was 6k (34k) and we could spend ~4k on the bot (38k). Now for our second regional (@5k I'm at 43k): To DC was $800 a student. I could send less than 10 students. Which leaves 0 money left over for Champs. How did any of this help inspire my kids? And don't say I should send less kids, that limits inspiration.

So, this is a terrible idea.

[Andrew Remmers]

I'm going to politely say no this is a bad idea. Here is why.

When I first started I was on one of these "insane budget teams" but the budget that was raised each year, we produced very competitive robots, but I was always jealous of other "bigger budget teams" in our area. Now the budget on my team was mostly student raised, and I say mostly because we did get help from mentors on how to properly set up presentations for formal sponsor meetings and so on so fourth. The students made all the money that went into that team, some sponsors even came from personal friends of mine.

Nonetheless what I am trying to say, instead of hating your giant budget team do what I did instead. Use them as an inspiration, and try to surpass them. Yeah, might be a long hard road but this is FIRST it wouldn't be fun without that challenge. I've been trying to surpass a couple teams through their inspirations I find it a friendly competition. Even more so to the point of through their inspirations I got Second Place in the world 2 weeks ago at the VEXU competition.

My point is, don't be so down about how teams set their own standards to operate. There are lots of kids who work really hard to get to where they are today.

Just my .02 cents

- Andrew

[Jon Stratis]

The intent here certainly seems good on the surface - to level the playing field so all teams have an equal chance at winning. Setting a budget cap for a team isn't the right way to go about it, though.

What makes good teams good isn't a question of money or resources. It's one of time, commitment, and hard work. Good teams are good because they spend the time in the offseason training and learning. They work hard during the season to finish a robot early, get it programmed, and drive it around, while working on a second robot so they have something to practice with after the bag day. Yes, money can help (you have to pay for the parts on the second robot, after all), but throwing more money at most teams won't magically result in a practice robot - they just don't have the extra time to build one.

In addition, every team is going to have different costs. How do you account for teams that have a regional close by, versus those that have to travel? What about teams that have to rent a build space, versus those that get one provided by the school for free? How do you equalize between teams that have a huge shop to work in, versus those that put everything away in a closet each night?

It's almost a cliche at this point, but this is a robotics competition that isn't really about the robot. It's about inspiring kids to go into science and technology fields. Inspiration can happen many, many different ways, and very little of it has to do with money. A student can be inspired by winning a competition, sure. They can also be inspired by seeing what other students built. Or by working side by side with a professional engineer and earning their respect. They could be inspired by using a small budget to build something wonderful.

But maybe we could slightly alter the topic... Can we use GP to encourage all teams to share funds and equipment a little more liberally, to help pull up those teams that are struggling? How often has a team gone out to fundraise... for another team? How often have you approached your corporate sponsors and asked them to sponsor another team because they need it more than you do?

Towards that end, I have two items to share from the past year. First, one of our students arranged for Best Buy to sponsor ourselves... and 3 other teams. Second, we moved out of our old build space a few weeks ago (which was owned and offered cheaply by one of our sponsors), and we're looking for another team to move in there and receive that sponsorship instead.

[tsaksa]

Originally Posted by Wayne Doenges

Oh to have a $50,000.00 budget

Oh to have a $10,000 budget!

[TEAM1100soft506]

Originally Posted by SciBorg Dave

To balance the playing field for all team what do you think of a limit of say $50,000 to run a team. This would keep all teams working hard to keep within the limit ( what ever it set at). I find that there is a big difference rural teams who struggle to raise $10,000 for the season and urban teams that have better sources to raise funds ( I know some who raise $100,000) for the season.

A little bit ago, I made a similar statement where it was quickly explained to me why this was a bad idea. While i do feel it some teams are at a disadvantage due to lack of money, and i did find that many people feel the same way about this, a budget restriction is not the way to accomplish this.

[AdamHeard]

My kids work insanely hard to raise money. We have NO large sponsors, and they mainly just grind to make money (bake sale, raffle, whatever it takes).

For only 10 students this year, the amount they raised is insane. I'm sure it outdoes most teams (except those amazing 359ers...).

This is necessary as the team pays for all student expenses (travel is very expensive for us) though, so even after that, we don't have a crazy amount of money for the shop, robot etc.

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by Bob Steele

I have to disagree... it is precisely those small teams that are the most inspirational to me....

I visited a team in a rural and extremely small town this year. The team and the community came together to raise over $16,000 in a time frame of less than two weeks before championships.

This is in an area without large industry presence nearby and whose student population is over 80% on free and reduced lunch.

If a second year team and it's community can pull off $16,000 in less than two weeks. I can assure you even if you are in a rural setting and work hard ALL year, you can operate at a desirable budget for your team...


I am so proud of these guys. <3

[Macktack]

They should split all of FRC into two divisions, professionally built robots (e.g. robots built by NASA and GM and Boeing) and a division for student build robots. Teams that just assemble their robot from a kit that a profesional company built for them should not be allowed to compete with the student built bots. Having an alliance of GM, NASA and Boeing beat an alliance of student built robots benefits non of the students.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Macktack

They should split all of FRC into two divisions, professionally built robots (e.g. robots built by NASA and GM and Boeing) and a division for student build robots. Teams that just assemble their robot from a kit that a profesional company built for them should not be allowed to compete with the student built bots. Having an alliance of GM, NASA and Boeing beat an alliance of student built robots benefits non of the students.

I would wager only a team or two (tops) would be in that "kit assembled" division...

[Craig Roys]

I would argue that only the robot expenses give teams an advantage and that is capped at $4000.

Does the team who flies to an event have a strategic advantage over a team who takes a school bus or carpools? How about the team that has to get hotel rooms and uniforms for 50+ students vs. the team with 10-15 students? What about off-season community service events? There are numerous other examples of where a team may spend more money without gaining any strategic advantage.

[Phyrxes]

Looking at our yearly robotics budget (not just FRC) the largest dollar value items were hotel stays, bus service, and airline tickets.

I want to be able to take as many students as possible to an event so I accept that this is not going to change.

[Peter Matteson]

Originally Posted by SciBorg Dave

To balance the playing field for all team what do you think of a limit of say $50,000 to run a team. This would keep all teams working hard to keep within the limit ( what ever it set at). I find that there is a big difference rural teams who struggle to raise $10,000 for the season and urban teams that have better sources to raise funds ( I know some who raise $100,000) for the season.

So theoretical team XXXX has who raise $50,000 every year has an unfair advantage even through we don'tknow how they spend that money?

I know of teams that spend most of their budget subsidising students to travel to events. Does that really contribute to their competitiveness?

What about teams that run multiple FTC and VEX programs from their single 501?

How about teams that use the money they raise for community programs?

Most of the highly competitive teams spend way less than you insinuate in your post. Yes there are outlier exceptions but most of the top tier teams aren't even close to the $50K number.

There is a way to get further with your money by spending it wisely to get the right tools and make the right connections so that you can increase your capability.

You really need to talk to more people on the teams that you want to emulate. You will find that your conceptions of them are wrong.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by SciBorg Dave

To balance the playing field for all team what do you think of a limit of say $50,000 to run a team. This would keep all teams working hard to keep within the limit ( what ever it set at). I find that there is a big difference rural teams who struggle to raise $10,000 for the season and urban teams that have better sources to raise funds ( I know some who raise $100,000) for the season.

Raht than limit the upper end, I would much rather work on a solution where $10K is a reasonable amount for a team to have a good "season". My thoughts on what this season would look like would be a minimum of 2 events. Right now there is way too much risk of going to 1 event, and having a dead CRIO ruin your weekend, or a flaky digital sidecar ruining your season.. 2 events gives reasonable opportunity to get the robot behaving as it should (though maybe not as a team hopes). I inspected a lot of robots this year, and for about $1500, a team can have a very competitive robot. So current budget is Kit + registration for 2 events + $1500 additional material cost.
The next big line item for most teams is travel. Hotel stays even at a cheap place with 4 kids/ room is $80 or $20/Kid/night. A 2 night stay with 20 kids and a couple of mentors will run 20 kids x $20/night x 2 nights plus a couple rooms for mentors = $1000/event... This isn't cheap. Maybe if events are close enough, then only 1 event would require travel...So where were we on budget:
Kit + 2 event registration +$1500(robot) + $1000 travel (for 1 event).
T-Shirts=2x$10 per kid or another $500 (mentor shirts as well).

Kit + 2 event +$1500 +$1000(hotel) + $500 (shirts)=$3000 + Kit + 2 event registration.

Here in Michigan, for most teams (UP excluded), this is $8000 and is reasonable. I have not included food as you need to eat anyway. I have not included transportation, as I think parents can either work that out, or the team can figure out a way for $2000 to get to the competitions.
This is my $10K season budget. I know a lot of teams that operate with a very similar budget.

Some of the "big budget" teams will roll meals into the travel. At $15/kid/day, this can be an additional $1200. They may build a practice bot as well. Without the KOP, the practice bot is actually costs a lot more $5K compared to a KOP based $1500 robot. Assume $5K for the second robot. They might also stay in a hotel for 2 events:
Thus the $10K budget now is $20K. If they are good enough to go to States, add in another 3 nights stay $2000 plus food $1000 plus registration $4000 plus spares (3 events), and you are now up around $30,000 budget.

With the "robot" costs and registration at $5K(base registration)+$1500(1st robot material) +$4K (States or Championship) + $5K practice bot = $15,500-ish. This means the other $15K is for the 20 kids plus a couple of mentors, or roughly $500-800 per student/year. Many "big budget" teams might ahve 40 students. Thus the $30K budget blows up to $45K in a hurry.

If you have to fly... costs get crazy really fast.

Thus, if you want to make it more even for a $10K team to compete, instead of capping teams at $50K, I would recommend pushing to get more "local" events or shifting to the district model. I am not saying that in the District model, a $10K team is equal or even with a $100K team, but they are more reasonably close than a $10K team competing against a $50K team in a regional set-up.

What can you do to bring districts to your area? Find a parent or volunteer that can help fill a key role (referee, inspector, event coordinator, volunteer coordinator....).

[Phyrxes]

Originally Posted by Peter Matteson

...You really need to talk to more people on the teams that you want to emulate. You will find that your conceptions of them are wrong.

That sounds exactly what I told our students that traveled to St. Louis this year, go talk to teams, make connections and we will create our off-season game plan. I specially challenged them to talk to teams they considered "elite" and ask questions.

They collected e-mails and business cards and are ready to attack their off-season projects.