My School = STUPID

[sanddrag]

We started the season with $2500 in our account. The school gave us and additional $2000. The school also rented us a $3400 bus to Phoenix and back. We attended Phoenix and will be attending LA. The rest of the money we needed we fundraised ourselves and the students seeked sponsors and supporters. We also had to ask for $250 per student (14) who went to Phoenix.

[Powers]

In response to Gadget - both of our schools on team 710 do not want a club to go and ask for money from companies or rich ppl or anything b/c they want to ask them, and do not want that person to say they have already given to a club. In response to everyone else.... Yes, i realize that money doesnt matter, look at 212, they won UCF and didnt have much money at all, i was just in a bad mood last night and i'm sorry for all my pointless, incessant ranting. There is still a slight chance we will make it to nationals, and i hope i can see you all there so i can shut up and stop complaining.

[T967]

Put on the puppy dog eyes and get fundraising! All I know is that last year we weren't goin' till a week before! We drove in school vans and fundraised up the ying-yang. YOU CAN GO IF YOU WANT TO. it just takes some elbow grease!

[Vincent Chan]

Yeah, funding is definitely a difficult part of FIRST.

But then again, you see some teams in pit stations near yours that have an entire posterboard filled with sponsor logos, a large canvas inflatable weather-sized balloon with a team number on it, a working booth complete with fan and set of roller-stools, and other such luxuries.

Paul's right about our team. We don't have much. A few parents to watch us when our mentor isn't there, his dad helped us with the crate, and no one has any experience except for him. We got money for registration c/o 832-- many thanks to them and congrats on the Judges' Award!. We used the KOP, largely brought in our own tools, and a few families paid for most of the rest of the stuff we used. $330 accounts for the stuff we put on our bot-- not the stuff we bought and didn't use, team equipment, tools, etc.

Our bot's been suffering some problems here and there, and we've been working hard. We've been helping other teams with getting their hardware to work, lending tools, and helping out where we can.

Personally, I think you take what you can get, and you think about things ranked by importance. I'm just happy I got to experience the build period and then a competition, though that isn't to say I wouldn't like $5000 to appear in my hand for us to register for nats. Just being there has taught me a lot about people, made me some new friends and some better ones, and allowed me to tinker with something I probably wouldn't otherwise ever get to play with. (How many kids can honestly say they've built a working robot out of something other than LEGOs or K'nex?)

Considering that I've only got two more years in this, I may not ever see nats-- though hopefullly we'll get enough funding by senior year to go.

Sure, it's upsetting to see that you can't get money out of your school, but there's a lot of us in the same boat. We simply can't all be teams with 15+ corporate sponsors. (And from what I've seen, teams with 15+ large corporate sponsors wouldn't be much fun to be on.) However-- and I don't mean to sound nasty-- you didn't qualify for nats at your regional, but you got to compete, and you should be happy with that. If you tried your best at region, you should just enjoy that experience.

We're currently ranked quite low due to some drive problems so far, and with just a few more matches to go in the morning, I'm kind of upset that we won't get to show off our bot in full working order. BUT, I've still thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and the disappointment in no way takes precedence over the experience and the memories I've made.

^^All that was not supposed to sound malicious in any way. Just my take on things. I hope you can manage to get enough funds to go to your other regional, and maybe nats, should you qualify.

[Powers]

Yeah, i'm happy with our effort at regionals, it was awesome, and i realize that money is hard to come by and we are better off than a lot of other teams, if my school would say flat out no, you cannot have money, that would be one thing, but when they say we will not give you the money UNLESS you go to nationals. We tried to just get to the Lonestar regional and not go to nat's even if we qualified just so we could compete one more time for sure. That and my school just threw $6 million into a parking garage. Yeah, my first post that i started this with definitely did not send the message i wanted, which was that my school would donate to nationals and not a regional, although it was the same amount.

[Vincent Chan]

I understand both your point of view as well as the school's.

The school isn't recognizing that both are equal learning opportunities. You'd get just as much out of attending a second regional as you would attending nats. But, you've got to understand that to a school, $5000 is much better spent when they can boast that they went to a national-level competition rather than a second regional-level competition.

[Powers]

As long as they don't try to boast too loudly that team 108 hears (down the road) b/c they won our regional

[Mark Hamilton]

I find it interesting you mention us. Just to clear things up, the school itself gives us almost no support. Our money comes from our sponsor Motorola (and they have far less to give then you might think), a number of smaller sponsors we have gotten, and our own pockets. UCF was our first regional and the only one we are taking our entire team too. It cost roughly $250 per person to go. If we hadn't qualified for Nat's there the chances of us getting to go to nationals would have been very slim. Only 8 members from our team will be attending nationals this year due to the expense and short amount of time available. We are going at all because of a lot of hard work. Everyone should consider themselves lucky to be part of FIRST. Our mentors and sponsors didn't have a FIRST program. Do the best you can with what you've got.

[Powers]

hehe, i just mention your team b/c our school is so uppity and like, we have the best technology EVER.... then you come along and beat us serves them right good job guys, i remember playing w/ you in the opening match and kciking some serious (you know). congrats and we hope to join you... still waiting on that notice saying we got off the waiting list

[Dan Richardson]

Originally posted by Mark Hamilton
I find it interesting you mention us. Just to clear things up, the school itself gives us almost no support. Our money comes from our sponsor Motorola (and they have far less to give then you might think), a number of smaller sponsors we have gotten, and our own pockets. UCF was our first regional and the only one we are taking our entire team too. It cost roughly $250 per person to go. If we hadn't qualified for Nat's there the chances of us getting to go to nationals would have been very slim. Only 8 members from our team will be attending nationals this year due to the expense and short amount of time available. We are going at all because of a lot of hard work. Everyone should consider themselves lucky to be part of FIRST. Our mentors and sponsors didn't have a FIRST program. Do the best you can with what you've got.

Then I personally think your team needs to talk a little funding and priority... Right now if we go to nats ( which we aren't ) it would cost us 450, but this is besides the point

Team 108 gets 10k just for scouting alone ( I was talking to your mentor who buys all the equipment, he decided to critisize our program a little, I thought it was a little pompous but I let it slide ). So they can buy new servers for live broadcast. You also did get sent to 2 regionals I understand the whole team doesn't get to go tho, But if they are rippin the team, because they want to buy higher tech video feed equipment.. I don't know if I nesc agree with that. I'm just biased, because as a 3 year member of my team, I can't afford to pay for these things, I always either have to do my own fundraising so I can go on these trips.

Money Priorities frusrate me, I wish it grew on trees but this is not the case. Ughh excuse my rants

[codeoftherobot]

I feel that everyone on the team that has contributed a large portion to the program should go. Any leftover money should go for next years payments. We had about 25+ members and only 20 could go. Of those 20 they had to have signed up and paid by a designated time and at least done something in the program. The day before we leave, 2 members drop leaving 2 open positions that are too late to be filled. What I don't support is that if they just want newer tech stuff and will sacrifice members for it, that's not right. Moneywise, we were lucky to get a really big grant which we probably won't get next year but we'll have better fundraising practices. Our school is happy with the team's preformance and they will definitely support us next year.

[DirtyBird213]

Our school gives us as much support that they can. This year they paid for our bus to and from the Manchester regional for all 3 days. We consider ourselves lucky for any of the help we get! One thing we do, at the beginning of every year, we set a budget for each student with a payment plan. We do a lot of fund-raising, and all the money a student earns gets deducted from their balance. The students can either choose to fund-raise all of their money, or pay for part in cash and the rest with fund-raising, or pay in full. (surprisingly a lot of parents prefer to pay in full so they won't have to fund-raise.) We like it this way as there are no surprises, every student knows in advance how much it is going to cost them. Every student who is in our club knows that we will only be traveling to the Nationals every other year, so all of our juniors are going this year knowing it is their last year to go. When you are a small team like us, making a last minute decision to travel to the National competition is not going to happen. It's unfortunate, but we all have a great time at the regionals we attend . We also participate in a few invitationals in the off season which are very affordable and just as much fun.
I just wanted to point out something else, my husband is the teacher adviser for our team (I donate my time as an adviser) he also coaches Football and Baseball, some of you have said how much your schools give to your sports teams. It's not the same here in Keene NH! Our sports teams have boosters clubs that are responsible for raising the money those teams need. The school pays the coaches salaries. They also pay a salary for my husband for FIRST. The unfortunate thing is we are all in public schools, and it's the public who vote on our school budgets, which struggle to pass as it is. I think we need to realize that the schools just don't have any money to give. This is why fund-raising in so important. We have all proved we can excel in the FIRST program with no money!

[Dan Richardson]

Originally posted by DirtyBird213

I just wanted to point out something else, my husband is the teacher adviser for our team (I donate my time as an adviser) he also coaches Football and Baseball, some of you have said how much your schools give to your sports teams. It's not the same here in Keene NH! Our sports teams have boosters clubs that are responsible for raising the money those teams need. The school pays the coaches salaries. They also pay a salary for my husband for FIRST. The unfortunate thing is we are all in public schools, and it's the public who vote on our school budgets, which struggle to pass as it is. I think we need to realize that the schools just don't have any money to give. This is why fund-raising in so important. We have all proved we can excel in the FIRST program with no money!

Aye.. my school just finishe buildling an 7 million dollar sports complex just so they could be the #1 ranked higschool sports complex in the nation... Now as I am a football player ( and used to play basketball and baseball ) I think its cool and all.. but I'd love to have more than like 500 dollars of support from our school

Also our baseball coaches gets paid about 2x as much as the nearest teacher to his salary

At my school funding is whacked, Infact, Even the money we did raise ( which turned out to be like 7000 total ) can be at any time witheld from us because it is in the school account. They have the " right " to freeze it.. even if we have to pay a regional registration fee... That pisses me right off, first they say " You can't ask people to sponsor you " then they reserve to right to keep our money that we earned outright

Things will be different for this next year, I refuse to get my senior year screwed by politics in money. But the good thing is because we didn't end up making the trip to nationals, we have a lot of money left over for next year. So we will be in a good situation to start.

[ashley212]

Several of you are complaining about ONLY having $2,000 or $5,000 which you should all be gratefull for. I'm from 212 and we arent allowed to fundraise, nor do we get ANY money at all. Several times weve gotten up at 7 am on a saturday to go outside in the street and have a garage sale, selling old clothes, books, furniture, and anything. Our school wont even let us say its name in our cheers so were not affiliated with them. All we have a bunch of kids with blisters from sand-papering down holes, and sleep-deprived kids who work all night programing and building becuase we have NO professional help or ANY sponsorships. Our only engineer is our teacher and mentor, and several parents who put their hearts into our team. We made it to 1st in the UCF regionals and werent gonna be able to go becuase we had NO money in our account.. AT ALL. The only reason we made it to nats is becuase THE FLASHBACKS (team #168) who won 1st with us at the UCF regional gave up going by plane, staying at a different hotel, and getting the meal plan - all to go on a 24 hour bus ride, squished, stay at a different hotel, walk almost everywhere, and pay for their own food with us. Thats what FIRST is all about - thats the meaning of togethrness to me. Its become too much of a competition based on the sponsorships and what team has how much money.

Its not the schools responsibility to give money - if they do; great, if not; oh well.

Withal, our team loves each and every moment; sleepless nights, stressed out times etc - becuase we know that wherever we get is becuase WE did all the work and WE made it that far - we dont have anyone helping us build our robot, or more like building it for us as many do - and we take much more pride in our accomplishments.

<3 ashz!

212 UCF REGIONAL CHAMPS WITH 168 and 108!!! whooo!!!

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally posted by ashley212
[b]we arent allowed to fundraise, Our school wont even let us say its name in our cheers so were not affiliated with them

I've heard that before. I don't understand the school's reasoning. You willing to say why they have those boundaries?

The only reason we made it to nats is becuase THE FLASHBACKS (team #168) who won 1st with us at the UCF regional gave up going by plane, staying at a different hotel, and getting the meal plan - all to go on a 24 hour bus ride, squished, stay at a different hotel, walk almost everywhere, and pay for their own food with us. Thats what FIRST is all about - thats the meaning of togethrness to me

Bravo to the FLASHBACKS and your team!