School/Team Relationships 2

[Ashley Weed]

Originally posted by sanddrag
$40,000 a year yikes!!! And travel not included?? If that's not much to you it sure is to me. Man, how many competitions do you enter anyway? I figure our team needs about 18-19 thousand dollars for LA and Pheonix travel included. (we are based in LA and have 30 members including mentors.) How do you figure your costs?

The $40,000 a year includes travel. It also includes feeding the team if need be over long weekends. Traditionally we go to the Mid Atlantic Regional which is about 4 hours away, and necessity people stay from Wed. - Sat. while the rest of the team stays from Thur. - Sat. We then go to Nationals, which means flying(then you have to include transportation for about 4 hours to the nearest airport), except this year, we chartered a bus for the week! (Sorry, for the people who had to ride 22+ hours one way!) This year the team left Tue. and returned the following Mon. We then compete in the PA Robot Challenge. This also includes buying shirts for the team every year. One team pays almost $10,000 to enter competitions. Then you have to include construction costs, and travel. $40, 000 is a very low budget. Many teams have 1/4 million $ budgets on up. Most teams are fortunate enough to have a sponsor too! We don't, we depend on a few small businesses, and families. If you talk to someone in your business team, I am sure that you will find that you spend much more.