Supported by school or sponsor?

[G1279]

School gave us a shed in the school parking lot, the size of four pit spaces. With all the maintenance supplies, a golf cart, robot crate, 5-8 kids and a robot, it get pretty small, and with no heat, pretty cold too. Luckily parents brought in enough space heaters to keep us working this season. We got $6,000 from our main sponsor, the most ever, and enough to allow us to compete again. Our other money comes in from parent donations and our snack cart. We sell snacks and drinks right after school for about a half hour. Thats were the other large portion of money comes from. We have one teacher adviser, a civil engineer and science teacher. Two parent mentors, an electrical engineer and a computer engineer who spend countless hours working with us. Our electrical engineer is also a sponsor. He owns his own business and helps supplies us with the needed tools and materials for the season. This year he also had an empty space in one of his buildings he was renovating to build a rack to test with.

We don't have much but we are lucky and grate full nonetheless. This is our fifth year as a team now. Our record stands 2004: NJ Rookie of the Year; 2005: #1 Seed VCU Regional, Semi-Finalist, NJ Regional Winners; 2006: NJ Regional Winners; 2008: NJ Semi-Finalist. It doesn't matter what you have to work with, its how you use it. With the right people, determination, innovation and drive to succeed, anything is possible.