What Does "Our Team Really Needs Funding" Mean To You?

[Chris is me]

After my experiences on a team that through years of hard work was indeed a "have" team, maybe my perspective is a bit whack, but I consider a "have" team to be the following criteria:

• Can afford to go to two regionals plus Championship without winning an event (winning helps motivate the team to come up with $5000)
• Has engineering mentors
• Is not constrained further on the robot than the $3500 limit on parts
• Can machine a robot enough to make their optimal design

Essentially, the above is the "just out of reach" range for my current team. I think you'll find a lot of people that consider themselves "have nots" set the "haves" as what their optimistic goals are.

I'm was astounded that 2791 was a two-event team with only a $12,000 budget. Now I'll be thankful if we hit that again! (though with NASA we probably will now)