How Much Does it Cost to Run a Team?

[Nawaid Ladak]

If your a rookie team, your not going to have to worry about paying for championships until at least march of next year (rookie criteria)*

$ 6,000 for the 1st regional and KOP**

$ 4,000 for the second regional**

$500 decorations/t-shirts etc.

$x,xxx travel expenses (if your going to a second regional, it would be cheaper to go to a regional that's nearby. ie: Midwest/Wisconsin, Oregon/MSR, SILPI/NY). get the students to fundraise for their trip using candy fundraisers/HEX-BUG fundraisers etc. so that they can pay their own way there

$2,000 Robot expenses, (if your school has a shop class or stagecraft, you might want to check with them to see what tools they have and if they would be willing to let your team use them. If not, look around for a sponsor to help you out (Lowe's, Home Depot, ACE. etc.)... or of course, you can go at it the old fashion way and just buy all the equipment by making an argument that it would be useful for a shop class/stagecraft)

$0 Food (during build, our team would do something that would work, students would sign up on days where their parents would bring in a home cooked meal for the team... or the parents would just pay for the food that we bought to eat for that evening).

$500 Practice field construction/use/maintenance (optional, if there is a team that is willing to let you use their practice field. by all means. practice on it. return the favor though, weather by one of the parents covering for lunch for both teams etc.)

$1,500 Mis. Expenses. It's always good to know that your team has some money to fall back on if something does get pricier than what you guys were expecting.

I would recommend making a business plan on which the team has a proper budget that you can present to a teacher/school administration/sponsors. But then again, you would need to know where EXACTLY that money is coming from.... that's a whole different story.

Your total budget should come out to somewhere between $12,000 to $17,000

* You cannot open register for the Championship in your rookie year, you must win either the regional in which you attend, or win the Rookie All-Star award at the given regional. full details can be found here

**If you live in Michigan, this does not apply to your, your cost is actually $5,000 for the KOP and two district events, and an additional $500 to attend a third district event. it is $5,000 to attend the State Championship though.

[EricH]

Noting their location (Philly):

$6000--KOP+Philly Regional

$500--T-shirts/promotional

$200--practice field--may vary by year

$2000-3500--Additional robot materials

$1000--hand power tools (drill, hacksaw, etc.). May be less if you already have said tools.

$8000--Funds to keep you going for one more year assuming no fundraising (or a recession). May be accumulated over 2-3 years.

Total:$17,700-$19,200 for one event; add $4000 registration and extra for travel for each additional event (except for CMP, when it's $5000).

Someone's probably going to come in here and say that half of this stuff is unnecessary, and they're right: the only required part of this is the $6000. However, the rest is "expected" of a team.

For my old team, who did 2regionals + Championship for as long as anyone can remember (until this year), we figured $15,000 registration, probably around $4000 for robot parts and materials, $500 for shirts and stuff like that, and travel was paid mainly by the students and parents. (All numbers are approximate or guesses or both, except registration.) And I know I'm missing some things...

[sanddrag]

Over the course of a season, especially a rookie season, it is not difficult to spend $6000 in addition to regional registration costs. And that's not including travel There are more costs that come up than you will ever realize at this point. Can it be done on the cheap with little more than the KOP? Yes. Can it be done better with more money? Absolutely. I would not start an FRC team without a minimum of $11,000, and at least one person who has done it for at least two years previously.

[Justin Montois]

If your serious about starting a team, start looking for potential sponsors and see what's out there. Start with one regional and Champs. Especially for the first year. My $.02

[GaryVoshol]

A good budget plan would be 2 regionals, plus funds in reserve for the Championship if you should qualify - $15000. Plus robot and other expenses of $2000-$5000. Then decide on travel costs, whether it would be covered by the team or the students. If you don't end up spending that $5000 plus travel for the Championship the first year, you have it in reserve to get you started the next year.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with starting out slower, planning on only one regional. You could do that for about $10000, maybe slightly less. Hopefully you could go to a local regional and not have travel costs.

I firmly believe that every student should have some financial stake in the program. This gives the students more of a feel of ownership for the team. The amount may vary by team based on your demographics. Do all students in your area typically have several hundred dollars of discretionary funds, or would $50 be a stretch for them? In addition, each team member should be responsible for some fundraising. They would get a credit share for doing things like carwashes, serving in a restaurant, or soliciting local businesses. They would get individual credit for things like candy sales. These funds could be used to offset travel costs. There are several CD threads on fundraising.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by EricH

Noting their location (Philly):

$6000--KOP+Philly Regional

$500--T-shirts/promotional

$200--practice field--may vary by year

$2000-3500--Additional robot materials

$1000--hand power tools (drill, hacksaw, etc.). May be less if you already have said tools.

$8000--Funds to keep you going for one more year assuming no fundraising (or a recession). May be accumulated over 2-3 years.

Total:$17,700-$19,200 for one event; add $4000 registration and extra for travel for each additional event (except for CMP, when it's $5000).

Someone's probably going to come in here and say that half of this stuff is unnecessary, and they're right: the only required part of this is the $6000. However, the rest is "expected" of a team.

For my old team, who did 2regionals + Championship for as long as anyone can remember (until this year), we figured $15,000 registration, probably around $4000 for robot parts and materials, $500 for shirts and stuff like that, and travel was paid mainly by the students and parents. (All numbers are approximate or guesses or both, except registration.) And I know I'm missing some things...

As several people have noted, 2 regionals and Championship for a rookie team may be too optimistic. However, I feel that planning for Championship will benefit you because it will cost a LOT of money. If you do not qualify you can keep this money in the bank as insurance for next year. I would budget for it each year and keep the money in a bank account as a rainy day fund. Estimates based on how 397 ran in 2008 (two regionals, home and away, and Atlanta)

$6000 KOP + Home Regional
$800 Shirts/Promo material (always budget MORE than you expect)
$200 Practice Field
$4000 Away Regional
$1000 Lodging at away regional (book early to get good rates, also, if you and another area team both go book together if you guys can't get group rates, we are also an incredibly small team though, your mileage may vary)
$1000 Robot Materials (397 builds with hand tools and raw materials and makes extensive use of KOP as such 2008's robot cost $800 to build)
$5000 CMP Registration
$1000 Lodging in ATL (Again, small team your mileage may vary)


$19,000 TOTAL

Note, this assumes that you already have tools, otherwise I would budget $1500 for tools, only spend $1000 if you can but this way you have extra in case something breaks. I also assumed that students pay for their OWN travel and food. Depending on where you are this may be a bad assumption, I know 397 has the students pay for nothing and as such our costs are much greater.

My personal suggestion, CMP is nice, it is a lot of fun for all involved but frankly it is expensive, prohibitively expensive. I would suggest instead of dropping $6000 + Travel to go to CMP that instead you put that money in the bank for a rainy day. After all, I think that a team should be able to run for a full year should a sponsor suddenly back out on them.

There is a rough budget for running a team, as I said, there are more expenses associated with starting a team, mostly tools.