How Much Does it Cost to Run a Team?

[RoboMom]

There is a FIRST AmeriCorps-VISTA assigned in Philadelphia to help answer your questions. I would encourage you to contact him as well as the PA Regional Director. Besides the great suggestions here, they can direct you to resources to help you plan.

Links to help:
VISTA: http://www.usfirst.org/community/vol...t.aspx?id=3312
Regional Directors: http://www.usfirst.org/regionalcontact.aspx
Senior Mentors: http://www.usfirst.org/community/vol...t.aspx?id=3310
Starting a Team: http://www.usfirst.org/what/frc/content.aspx?id=5504
NEMO resources: http://www.firstnemo.org/resources.htm

[Monty Python]

Thanks RoboMom, I had no idea NEMO had such extensive documentation (I just finished going through the links).

Thanks to everyone else who commented and offered advice as well, this has been such a big help to my team.

We're lucky in that we do have a fair amount of tools (drills, a bandsaw, a press, a dremel, etc.) and we would only need travel costs for the championship (if we were to make it there). It seems like a budget of 15-20 thousand dollars would be ideal based on the comments, meaning that we should aim for 20 thousand. Thanks again for all of your help!

[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.

[R.C.]

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

Not to change the subject but only 2 mentors on 2826 had ever done FIRST before.

As for the budget i agree with just about everything that has been said. We, 857, are a small town team and our budget this year was about $35,000. We went to 2 Michigan district events and are going to Atlanta. We don't charge the high schoolers anything except for their shirts, so our travel costs are more expensive than the registration fees and building the robot, that is why our budget is so big.

Your budget really comes down to what you can get and what you plan to do during the year.

We work the same way and we had the exact same budget. I think a good budget for starting would be 40K. That way you don't start one season and the next season you can't do anything forcing you to drop out of FIRST. But if you just want to make it by for one season, 15-20K is the way to go. Extra money helps and goes a long way. Get a hold a hold of Veteran teams nearby, I'm sure they would love to help out.

[Tom Line]

Without going too deeply in specifics, you need to account for:

Entry fees.
Food.
Housing.
Travel.
KOP.
Extra Parts.
Team Spirit Stuff.
Awards for Other Teams.
Judging packets.
Computer system for programming.
Extra Batteries.
Tools (big bucks here).
Practice field materials.


The start-up year and the year after that are by far the most expensive because you have to lay the groundwork. It is far more than the simple cost of maintaining a team year to year.

2 regionals, champs, plus all the costs to reasonably start up a team? $25k for the first year, quickly dropping each subsequent year because you've already purchased your "sunk cost" items like band-saws, grinders, and other tools.

[Team 135]

Our team probably spends more than most, last year we had 32 students and 10 mentors. We went to a long distance regional and then the close regional, then to Atlanta. Everything below is rough estimates. We raised about $75,000.

$30,000 for Atlanta

$20,000 for bus and driver there and back, plus any time that we wanted while in Atlanta

The rest broken up with registration fee and hotel and a few other little things

The long range regional about $15,000, because we needed a bus

Close regional about $10,000, parents and mentors drive students

The rest was used for building supplies for the robot and full playing field that we build, among many other "things" that come up.

All of this excludes the aluminum that we use. We get around $10,000 worth of aluminum from Patrick Metals every year. This allows us more than we would ever use in one season. It allows us our all aluminum pit and mostly aluminum playing field.

This is with everyone buying their own food.

This does not include tools and computer equipment since our school provides a shop and computer lab for us to work in.

This year with about 15 students and 10 6 or 7 mentors we have trimmed cost to about $40,000

[Bob Steele]

I think the best way for you to estimate this is to find a team close to you.
Ask them what they do.

For instance... travel costs eat us alive for the championships...
We live in Seattle, so for a team of 30 we spend somewhere around $12,000 JUST for the air fare to Atlanta.... (not counting what mentors and parents pay)

Registration is $5000.

You combine that with hotel cost of at least $200 per night ... 4 to a room....3 nights...and you are around $5000 for hotel expenses...

so for championships.... for us... bare minimum is something around $22,000

For a local regional for anyone.... if you can stay at home....

$10,000 is a good number for a team... you can do pretty much everything minimally for that kind of money for a single local regional...

Just be careful to look at travel...
It can be very expensive... but you can cut costs...

For our team we also limit attendance at the championship to our juniors and seniors...something for our underclassmen to strive for and also to raise money for during their initial years...

FIRST is worth it though...

I totally agree with another post in regards to getting kids to do their own fundraising so they have ownership in the program and the team...

something given without cost... has little value..

good luck

[OZ_341]

We are nearby and ready to help you through the whole process.

Just send me a PM.

[Zholl]

I'm not in charge of finances, but I can tell you what I DO know for our expenses. We went to one regional and now the championship next week

$6000 for 1st regional and KOP
~$100 per person per day for hotel expenses at regionals
$???? for robot expenses (wasn't in charge of that, never really told how much we spent)
$15000 for the bus to Atlanta
~$600 per room (3 people (I think)) in Atlanta
$0 for food (donated by school departments/parents)
Total (estimated)=$44000 (based on what I know/think) assuming 25 people to regionals and 30 to ATL and no additional costs for the robot.
I'd guess about $2000 for the robot, which would make it 46k

This is just an estimate though, but I'm pretty sure it's at least close to what we spent. I'm just a simple photographer/scout though, not the CFO, so I don't have a whole lot of information to go off of.

[Chexposito]

Our team keeps spending more every year. Our total spendings are totaling $75,000. We spent like $40,000 last year and so on. It more or less depends on how big of a team you want. We are close to breaking even this year and plan to raise more as the year goes on. Managing your money is a big thing. Next year we're going to try to lower our spendings. Also travel arrangements and logistics are critical for each regional. Try to stay within the charter bus distance limit for one driver. We spent about $6,000 for a bus to the Palmetto Regional from K.C. MO.

[jholman]

All the comments seen above look pretty good. As mentioned many costs may vary depending on how much your team members can pay, distance from regionals and so forth. Here is how our teams costs broke down this year:

$11,000 for 1 regional and the championship. (For 2 regionals and a championship it would cost about $15,000)

$2000 for robot construction (though our team usually only uses about half of that)

$9000 from the team + about $300 for each team member to attend both events. (It costs a lot for an Oregon team to go to Atlanta.)

$3000 miscellaneous. For t-shirts, buttons, food, in your case maybe tools.

Total :$25,000

So I would recommend somewhere between $25,000-$30,000.

[Ed Sparks]

Depends on the number of people on the team because travel eats up most of your money (unless you happen to live near a regional).

Team 34's planning budget is $25K per event.
We generally have 30-35 students and 6-10 mentors that travel to each event and we usually limit our travel to a 12 hour radius from home. Most years we participate in 2 events (usually regionals). So our yearly funding target is somewhere around $50K.

This includes hotel, charter bus, support vehicle expenses, entry fees, food, robot parts, freebies(give-aways), shirts, pit expenses, website expenses, and countless misc things that come up.

[Engineer]

As a mentor for a rookie Team 3007 I had the students focus on just getting the robot to move. After that they could decide what else they wanted to add to the robot. After they had it moving reliably they made it made it collect game pieces and into a visual obstruction. It seemed to work when they ended up seated 4th. This was all done on a budget of $10,000 using mostly the KOP. If your regionals is close where you don't have to pay for travel expenses and hotels, you can produce a competitive robot on $10,000.

[Akash Rastogi]

Annual team budget for MORT usually comes to 50-60K which gets spread out from our parent organization MOREA (Mt Olive Robotics Education Assoc.) Our area has wealthier students than most teams so we have kids pay for travel with our own funding offsetting much of the cost, especially for those who have problems with affordability. There is a 40 dollar charge for a team uniform only in freshman year as the uniform is for all years. T-shirts are sold sometimes and then used later on to offset travel costs.

As everyone has stated it depends on your ambitions. Personally I'd rather do 2 regionals as a rookie and not really worry about the Championship.

Definitely contact 341, they are in your area.

During your rookie year make sure you raise around XK (I'd say around 8K) extra while raising for the current season and reserve it for the next season. This will REALLY help your program because each year you'll be one step ahead.

PM for more area teams to turn to for help.

[waialua359]

The bulk of your costs will be travel, robot parts, and registration fees. Those are trivial.
Our team always elects to stay at a hotel (non-conference one) that has continental breakfast and free parking, so that we can use the difference to pay for rental vans. At least it will allow you to buy basic necessities and do a little R&R.

But be careful in adding up those little costs. They aren't so little once the season is over.