Do you think we have enough time?

[AcePilot]

thanks, has first let anybody do this before? we might also be able to have fed-ex hold the crate at the factory, will that help?

[KenWittlief]

Do you have a mentor involved in this effort to attend another regional?

the only reason I ask, is usually FIRST works through a single-point contact on each team, which is always a mentor (or parent).

If you are going to pull this off decisions will have to be made quickly. Do you have funding for the registration, transportation, lodging, food, shipping....?

do you have permission from the school to attend another regional (miss classes)

do you have a teacher or other school rep on-board with this who is willing to travel to another regional event?

[Donut]

FIRST said we can still register for the LA regional. They did not really answer my question about shipping, so I sent another email asking them agian. We hope for a response tommorow.

Our mentor from Honeywell (who does most of our shipping stuff) luckily heard about our attempt at this early this morning and got contact with the shipping company, they're currently holding the robot in storage for us and waiting. If you haven't your drayage to hold your robot, DO SO IMMEDIATELY. YOUR ABILITY TO COMPETE IN ANOTHER REGIONAL COULD BE AT STAKE. I don't know how leniant FIRST is with the rules pertaining to shipping and robots arriving back in team's hands.

To register for another regional, you must have the main contact you provided to FIRST when you originally registerd send them an email requesting to go to the event.

Since we managed to get the robot to be held in storage (and not in our hands), I think we should be valid to still compete in LA. We just have to make sure we have a school staff member who can take us there and get all the paper work filled out (a board will have to vote on it Friday since it will be an out of state event that must get approved). I don't anticipate many problems there though.

Hope you guys have as much luck as we've had, I'll let you know of anything new I find out!

[AcePilot]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

Do you have a mentor involved in this effort to attend another regional?

the only reason I ask, is usually FIRST works through a single-point contact on each team, which is always a mentor (or parent).

If you are going to pull this off decisions will have to be made quickly. Do you have funding for the registration, transportation, lodging, food, shipping....?

do you have permission from the school to attend another regional (miss classes)

do you have a teacher or other school rep on-board with this who is willing to travel to another regional event?

My entire team is behind me, and we are all working hard to make this a reality.

We dont have to worry about missing classes because the regionals are over our easter break.

FIRST said we can still register for the LA regional. They did not really answer my question about shipping, so I sent another email asking them agian. We hope for a response tommorow.

Our mentor from Honeywell (who does most of our shipping stuff) luckily heard about our attempt at this early this morning and got contact with the shipping company, they're currently holding the robot in storage for us and waiting. If you haven't your drayage to hold your robot, DO SO IMMEDIATELY. YOUR ABILITY TO COMPETE IN ANOTHER REGIONAL COULD BE AT STAKE. I don't know how leniant FIRST is with the rules pertaining to shipping and robots arriving back in team's hands.

To register for another regional, you must have the main contact you provided to FIRST when you originally registerd send them an email requesting to go to the event.

Since we managed to get the robot to be held in storage (and not in our hands), I think we should be valid to still compete in LA. We just have to make sure we have a school staff member who can take us there and get all the paper work filled out (a board will have to vote on it Friday since it will be an out of state event that must get approved). I don't anticipate many problems there though.

Hope you guys have as much luck as we've had, I'll let you know of anything new I find out!

Nice, i like it, you sir, are the reason why we still have hope, this is really looking like it will become a reality, and i am so happy for the team.

[AcePilot]

This is not good, we try to track down the package, and it has already left the dryage company, what can we do, dang it just left yesterday

About getting your package, I'm not familiar with the dryage company, but they should have a area on there website where you can track and possibly reverse the shipment (if it hasn't already arrived where you sent it). If you are still having trouble raising money the best thing i can say to do is go to local businesses, friends, family, etc... and ask for donations. Our team did this and we sent out this letter (see below) to give back for the donations we received, I'm not in charge of this but feel free to copy paste this (if anyone says anything tell them that subway gave it to you). It's worth a shot sounds like you guys worked to hard to get screwed-up now.


Good luck



I am a member of the Willow Run High School Robotics Team and I am in need of sponsor money so that I may go to the F.I.R.S.T. (For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology) Robotics National Competition in Atlanta, Georgia. We will accept all donations, none to small, from Businesses and Individuals.

For a donation of $5.00 to $25.00- We will proudly advertise your name in our pit area.

For $26.00 to $75.00- We will proudly advertise your name in our pit area, include your name in the welcome kit at the Great Lakes Regional Event and include your name on our website.

For $76.00 or more- We will proudly advertise your name in our pit area, include your name in the welcome kit at the Great Lakes Regional Event and include your name on our website and a link to your website.

For more information on our team visit www.Team66.com

[AcePilot]

Ok, so we secured our robot,we have it being held, and we can in fact enter the competition. But now we have an even larger problem, we don't have enough money, we have to work our butt's off to make about $14,000 in about 2 weeks. So if there are any teams out there that can help us out or give us any suggestions, feel free to call me on my personal line at 586-219-1123.

[Donut]

Glad to see everything worked out for the robot, FIRST said everything is fine for registering for ours, and even said if we couldn't stop it from being shipped to us they would trust us to just ship it right back out again without opening it. Now our problem is just getting paperwork done by Fri. (it looks like we have teachers who can go with already).

The money problem, I don't think our team is going to run into that issue (hopefully, the President is checking funds right now...). I know for Nationals last year, we contacted our current sponsors, and they were actually willing to give us more money (that might have been because it was for Nationals though). You might want to contact your current sponsors and see if they'd be willing to help out anymore. The other thing we did was just local fundraising (we actually went door to door in our neighborhood to try to get some money). You can try carawashes or just asking for donations. You won't get as much that way, but every little bit counts.

Just heard update, we can't use school vans or buses for out of state trips, so suddenly things are a little bit more complicated...

[Jverdon]

Originally Posted by AcePilot

Ok, so we secured our robot,we have it being held, and we can in fact enter the competition. But now we have an even larger problem, we don't have enough money, we have to work our butt's off to make about $14,000 in about 2 weeks. So if there are any teams out there that can help us out or give us any suggestions, feel free to call me on my personal line at 586-219-1123.

Are Team Holds A golf Tournament every year that raises are money, by selling T box signs and banners. maybe you can do something similar like a bowling tournament or another game. Here is are Information on running a good tournament, it may be a little late but you can try. If it doesnt work this year then you can try it for next year. It always raises the right amount of money that we need, and it is all student ran.

http://www.teamfusion364.org/modules...rtid=16&page=1

[Donut]

Well, we're not going to LA after all. There's too much paperwork (student permission slips, picture release forms, vehicle rental forms, hotel reservations, all the PO's for paying things, and the submission for the trip which would have to be in Friday) to get done in time. If LA were a week or 2 later we could do it, but there's just not enough time. Next year we'll be smart enough to sign up for 2 regionals BEFORE the season starts. Hope you have better luck than we did!