Does your county, city or school district fund your robotics program

[wilsonmw04]

Sadly, neither our county or school provides any funding for our team. We are entirely funded by the private citizens and corporations in our community.

[Michael Corsetto]

We didn't get anything from our County, City or School District for many years. Then again, for many years, our team consisted of many students who would rather robotics be a time to see their friends than build a robot. Team culture started changing in 2011.

In 2014, we received our first coaching stipends through the School District. In 2015, we received a $19k loan from the School District to purchase an entire job shop that was going out of business. In 2016, we started a Vex Class that had 4 periods in its first year, and we had a $40k budget for that class. In 2016, District gave us $25k for our FRC program, the first time that has happened. We are hoping that same funding continues for 2017

TL;DR: Develop a program worth funding.

-Mike

[SenorZ]

We also have not received any funds directly from the school, or anyone higher up.
We're going to work on that, since we now will have FRC teams at all four HSs in the city...
We do request funds from PTSA and our school's foundation. And we just received money to buy a new trailer from the foundation. So that's something.

[Doug G]

For the past 10 years, we have receive about $8k from our district and $4k from our county. Another $3-$5k per year from Perkins funding. All of this funds our whole engineering CTE program which includes FIRST and Vex.

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

TL;DR: Develop a program worth funding.

-Mike

sadly, that's far easier said than done. In our county all extra curricular CTE funding goes to TSA. They have an odd version of VEX associated with TSA (which I loath, but that's another story for another time). When we ask for money for FIRST, they say they already support a robotics program.

When the higher ups have favorite programs and you aren't it, there isn't much you can do.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

sadly, that's far easier said than done. In our county all extra curricular CTE funding goes to TSA. They have an odd version of VEX associated with TSA (which I loath, but that's another story for another time). When we ask for money for FIRST, they say they already support a robotics program.

When the higher ups have favorite programs and you aren't it, there isn't much you can do.

Is this the odd version of VEX you are referring to? http://www.roboticseducation.org/vex...s-competition/

I agree, it does look weird.

Seems like you have an uphill battle, best of luck becoming the new favorites

Advice for all: Invite higher ups to both competitions and shop work-days. We had multiple board members sold on our program after they saw our students leading meetings and working together.

-Mike

[Lil' Lavery]

From 2006-2015, Dawgma received considerable funding from our school/school district via the athletics and activities department. We both had a spending budget (which we shared with the school's TSA chapter) and they frequently covered our registration fees (when we didn't receive outside grants from NASA or DoD). In 2016, the school district reduced the activities budget in general, which resulted in Dawgma receiving no up front financial support from the school/district. Ultimately, they did assist with our Championship registration fees.

[Sperkowsky]

Our school supports us quite a bit.

From 2009 - 2013 they gave us $10,000 in 2014 - 2015 we received $7,500

Last year we relieved our normal $7,500 and then were greeted with an extra $3,000 for marketing supplies after having a bit of success at an off season event.

[GeeTwo]

Our first three years, build space and institutional top cover.
When we went to CMP in 2015, the school board paid our entry fee.
Beginning in 2016, there is now a coaching stipend. The school board is also funding some FLL startups beginning this year.

[snoman]

Here in Cass Lake out school puts up 5k for our boys team registration and about 3k for travel and parts ect. to split between our two teams. Our girls team gets 5k from Medtronic (Thanks so much for your sponsorship). 3 of our 4 mentors are teachers in the school and two of us are tech ed. teachers and we are able to use our nice labs for our teams. We also get to use school vans and trailer for our trips. We have several small sponsors that contribute and we do some student fundraising. We currently get no funding from our state, county or city.