How has the recession affected your team?

[Koko Ed]

Our team leader just got laid off as well as the woman who was in charge of running the FIRST robotics program for Xerox.

[waialua359]

I'm sure hundreds of teams are affected to some degree one way or another, besides just positions and funding.
The entrepreneurship award should be a lot "bigger" than it has been in year's past, to emphasize the importance of sustainability, considering this global recession.

[amariealbrecht]

The Robettes lost a huge grant from an anonomous donor through the school. Although we were dissapointed about this loss there is nothing we can do but apply for more grants and send out more and more sponsor letters!!
good luck to all teams
Alicia Albrecht
Electrical Subteam
The Robettes 2177

[thefro526]

Surprisingly enough, we've been doing pretty well. We never had a large sponsor or group of sponsors to begin with so we don't have much to lose. We lost some of the funding from our school because they felt it would be spent better elsewhere but it wasn't a big deal. Fund Raising's been a bit difficult because people don't want to spend as much as they normally would but, the big thing is to remind them they're not buying something - They're Supporting your team and getting something in return.

[ComradeNikolai]

We lost a potential corporate sponsor; they already sponsor another team in our state (I'm not sure on anything more specific than the state, geographically). Last year we did not do a whole lot of fund-raising -- we were a bit overwhelmed with the first year experience as it was, and our team was rather small -- but we have received a few sponsors this year. The recession definitely lost us some potential aid, but we're still pushing for an engineer if they can spare one.

I wish luck to all the other teams experiencing hardships, and to all the teams that don't exist yet.

[ttldomination]

Well, with the new control system being so expensive, we are having to put a larger crunch than usual. The FTC budget has been cut, but I believe that we just received Cognex's support so we are alright there. The FRC team is having to make major cutbacks. One of which includes doing stickers this year instead of pins. But I think we will have more fun with stickers.

[hallk]

We have lost support funding wise and mentors are also feeling a crunch as they have more difficulty getting off for events and are expected to work more hours.

[gorillamonky]

our team has had some problems getting the money to run the program this year but we r holding up ok

[BJT]

The state of North Dakota has chosen to not participate in this recession, so we really haven't noticed. Every tank of fuel on my pickup is $50 cheaper now too. Since we draw people from 40 miles away thats a big deal.

[Transformix Eng]

It's tough going!
We are a rookie team from Kingston ON Canada, the nearest FRC team is 2 hours away. Very few people/ corporations in our community have ever hear of FIRST Robotics. With the "good will" money drying up fast, we are finding it hard to get potential local major-sponsors to commit to any sort of support. We are now changing tactics and focusing on finding a lot of smaller sponsors instead of a few major corporate ones.
Wish us luck and hopefully we'll see you in Atlanta.

Jeff

[Team2339]

I agree with the canadian team, more smaller donations still works. We are doing more with less. It causes proplem solving instead of buying better parts.
We gain by losing

[.:Brianna:.]

for the past 3 years all our money has come from donations from parents and friends of the girls on the team. this year we somehow managed to get sponsored by Aetna, Comcast, Lockheed Martin, Society of Women Engineers, United Phospohorus, Inc., and a local college. it seems like the recession helped us!!!

[Tom Line]

Our money isn't substantially down, though it has dropped some.

I have to admit, seeing people post pictures of 16 wheels and 8 crab drive modules makes me insanely jealous. We have enough to get to our competitions, but we count every penny we spend. We have discussions over whether buying an extra 4 wheels is worth it to outfit our 07 robot, etc.

We're lucky enough this year to have access to a machine shop. However, they're tight on budget too and we have to be careful to only ask them to do our most critical stuff.

Last year we bought some supershifters and that was our huge purchase. We still talk about how expensive they were

Originally Posted by Transformix Eng

It's tough going!
We are a rookie team from Kingston ON Canada, the nearest FRC team is 2 hours away. Very few people/ corporations in our community have ever hear of FIRST Robotics. With the "good will" money drying up fast, we are finding it hard to get potential local major-sponsors to commit to any sort of support. We are now changing tactics and focusing on finding a lot of smaller sponsors instead of a few major corporate ones.
Wish us luck and hopefully we'll see you in Atlanta.

Jeff

Don't forget you're local media, I know with the recession there are less and less if us media around but there still are some, you're local community papers, radio stations, TV station if you have one, make a presentation and visuals and hammer away at the media to do a story on you're team, if they bite it's a great way to get the word out that you exist and what you do.

It's hard in the Toronto market to do that because if "agenda stories" but in the smaller markets I think you will have good success. Any business and local trade magazines and papers as well that serve industry in you're area.

Then at least businesses will know what FIRST is and you're team as well.

m

[E.L.I.T.E. 48]

Team 48 has been extremely fortunate this year due to our main sponsor (Delphi) continuing to support us. We have had a few parents laid off; however, some of them have used this as an opportunity to give more of their time to the team.
Also, trough the combined efforts of NEOFRA ( Northeast Ohio FIRST Robotics Alliance), and the continued support of US Congressman Tim Ryan we have been able to start four new FLL teams, two new FRC teams, and one FTC team. I am being optimistic about the upcoming season, and I hope that things get better for those teams who are struggling.