New Team

[ttldomination]

Originally Posted by Formerly Famous

Fundraising:
What is the best way to approach a possible sponsor?
What do they want to hear, what will help them make the choice to sponsor us?
Would dressing up in a suit, or a team shirt be better for giving a presentation?
Does having a robot there with you help?
How many people would be good to have with you?
(I am pretty sure there are white papers on some of this stuff. I will be doing a search right after this)

I would suggest approaching a sponsor through mail, or a PR representative. Our main sponsor is Motorola, and we created a presentation, and one of the team parents just passed it onto a PR rep.

They want to hear that they're making a difference. They want to hear that their money is going towards good use for the team and that the company will get good exposure. Last year, I talked to a Motorola Rep. and he was just so ecstatic to hear how we did things, and how we about robotics. Don't give them BS, if they're truly interested, you'll pull them in right away.

Team T-shirts are helpful, but look nice. Don't come in with torn up jeans and a dirty shirt. If you have a capturing presentation, then a robot might not be necessary, but it always helps your case if you can show your sponsors that you've done something.

And we generally bring roughly 5-6 students to presentations. Any larger than that, and you get people who are disruptive and bored.

Originally Posted by Formerly Famous

Location:
What is the best way to find a location?
Does it need to be central to everyone on the team, or should we get the location and then recruit around it?

I would say base yourself out of a nice school. Generally the students live around it, and people often show up. I've found that major sponsors are often content with donating some shop space for teams to work out of. It really depends on your goals and what you want.

Plus, you can get funding from the school/county.

Originally Posted by Formerly Famous

Team Communication(outside of meetings):
What is the best way to communicate with team members and mentors outside of the meetings?

Email List/Forums. You want to be conservative with the emails on the email list, because if you send out too many, people tend to gauge all of their importance the same and then some truly important emails get overlooked. That's why a forum is used for general discussion.

Originally Posted by Formerly Famous

Recruiting:
What are some good places to go?
Does having a robot there help with this as well?
Again I ask; suit, or team shirt?
Again the question of, how many people?

I answered this question in that base yourself out of a nice school. Recruiting is as easy as hanging banners and whatnot. If you choose not to base yourself out of a school, then recruiting can involve posters in various places like schools, libraries, etc. My team is based in a school, so we've never done recruiting like this.

You want to show fun. You want your recruitment showcase to *spew* with fun. So wear team t-shirts, once again, take 5-6 students, and have a fun robot. I find that having a shooting robot, like this year's robot or even last year's robot, really helps attract attention.

I don't have to tell you how hard it is, so many people have already done it. Just don't get overwhelmed. I found out that running/managing something can be a lot more involved than simply "doing" something.