!Poll! Difficulty with funding

[Dillon Compton]

We've been generously funded since our inception, and especially this year and last year... This is actually mostly "fundraising" with a little help from our school board memebers, we successfully raised ~70,000 in fall 2004. Some of those funds were donated to the school to aid in new physics curriculum development and science equipment purchasing (we are a charter school and so much of our money needs to be raised, as we get about 1/3rd of the funding of a public school from the state), but we were left with a fairly generous budget for the 2005 & 2006 competition years. Unfortunately, due to the nature of our team and shop, we pretty much lose alot of our funds; we cannot weld or mill any parts, so we rely primarily on 80/20- we dont have a CAD person, or autodesk, so getting specific amounts early on is difficult- we tend to order enough of everythinh to cover design + contingencies, and typically due to funding access through the school, we have to overnight ship everything. We rely heavily on mcmaster, smallparts, andymark, and other such excellent(yet pricey) suppliers...

The result of this is a robot that tends to match the function of the general field, but at a relatively high cost (last year we spent close to $1500 on shipping alone, I think). Additionally, our budget covers most travel expenses- that has changed for nationals this year, since we want to buy a mill and a lathe before funding dries up, but last year we flew 8 kids + 2 mentors to atlanta, and drove a mentor and 12 other kids down, and payed for their hotel rooms- all out of our budget.

So, I think we are, monetarily, on the more "have" side of the spectrum- but we still run out of a shop in a basement, with a drill press, a handheld bandsaw, a mitersaw, and a grinder(not even joking- thats all we've got, aside from cordless drills & etc...)

I'm going to go finish homework, and send an email off reminding the mentors that we'd better get on sponsor recruitment again!
Good luck to all this season.

-Dillon Compton