My School = STUPID

[Dan Richardson]

Originally posted by urthe1neo


i was in the pits for most of the nationals and people kept coming up to me saying stuff like "our robot has 3 optical sensors and a gyroscope and 50 self-correcting autonomous programs". and i would say "our robot hits the wall really fast and it's strong" and some of them would kinda look at me as if to say "no expensive gismos?"

but we still got to the finals without all that stuff, and a relatively inexpensive robot

well those things come in the kit, and the autonomous programs have nothing to do with how expensive your robot is.

Those things even tho supervised by a mentor on my team, were completely added by students ( after playing around with the edu bot however.. we discoverd it was 2x faster to get up in auto mode with out line tracking )

I also agree that you can have an amazing robot w/ out a big budget, I felt we competed well and thats what was upsetting about going to nationals

Only thing powers complained about was not being able to pay a registration fee.

Nothing to do with actual robot performance due to lack of funds

[Powers]

Actually dan, it was not really that we couldnt pay the registration fee.... It was that we COULD pay for Nats, due to my school contributing, but we COULDNT because they wouldnt contribute for a regional, knowing that it woudl be the same amount on them either way

but yes, you can build a good robot w/o much money, that i agree too.

Schools are really hypocritical sometimes... we don't really have much issue with ours spending money on other stuff becuase all we have is a dance team and robotics...we're not allowed to have sports teams...

It's be so nice if everyone just had the money they needed...

[ashley212]

Like powers said, you dont need a lot of money to make an awesome robot - we got 1st in UCF with a robot that came out to be about $1200 total (TOTALLY not a lot in comparison to some of the other teams whose robots prices are in the 5 digits!). What isnt right is the fact that FIRST robotics competitions are no longer about the kids learning team work, engineering, etc.. it became a competition of the companies which isnt just to those schools that arent supported. Also, many teams that complain about not having money have sponsors.. my team (212) doesnt have ANY sponsors OR money.. our robot is built and paid for by the students!

*ashz*

[Jeff Waegelin]

Originally posted by ashley212
Like powers said, you dont need a lot of money to make an awesome robot - we got 1st in UCF with a robot that came out to be about $1200 total (TOTALLY not a lot in comparison to some of the other teams whose robots prices are in the 5 digits!).

Well, that would be pretty hard, considering there's a $3500 limit on additional parts. I know we spent about $2000, and most of the work was done by students. Don't be so quick to judge other teams, just because they have engineering help. You can do a lot on your own, too. My team is living proof. But don't look down upon other teams because they have engineers and you don't. Maybe it should be an incentive to you to get out into your community and try to recruit some help?

[Specialagentjim]

Hey, just found this thread sitting out on the portal, my team told me about it but I hadn't seen it yet...

I noticed one of the PAW members posted a post about us getting 10k for scouting...WHAT?!?

Our scouting/video system is no where near that. All of our network equipment for nats was donated by cisco for the purpose of competition. They provided WAPs, routers, etc. The rest of our networking equipment is old motorola equipment, that's good enough (sorta) for us, but not to be used in a commercial motorola environement. That was seen in the case of our main router, which is quite a few years old, but it ran what we needed it to run.

Server-wise, our 4 main video streaming servers are some Dell Optiplex workstations that we borrow from the Motorola plant we build the robot at. Those machines are borrowed for a few weeks, ghosted back to factory afterwards, and put right back. Our video encoder machines are Dell laptops checked out in the name of various students from our school, which has found numerous government grants to purchase them with.

Sooo, if we got 10k somewhere, I'd love to know where, lol. On the note of money, like Mark Hamilton said, we get almost no money from school. In fact, at this moment, our budgets are frozen as they do about halfway through the year every year. At this point in the year, we are not allowed to spend any money (this freezeing process happened either before or during build season). The only way we get money to go is from asking some of our local businesses for money, and kindly placing them as a list of our sponsors on our school's website (www.dillardhigh.com, a totally student designed and run website).

I just wanted to clear that point up , if anyone from 108 knows differently, please feel free to correct me, but this is as I know the facts to be.

We're always striving to do the best we can. Sometimes we do well, sometimes we don't. It's not the winning of competition or the ability to compete at more competitions that REALLY makes FIRST worthwhile, its the knowledge you gain. Team 108 this year had numerous transimssion problems, we pulled our transmission and reworked it 11 times between matches at UCF, totally taking the tranny apart, fixing anything broken, and shoving it back together for a last minute install into the robot before a match. We were really down about it for a while at competition, but then we realized, its not about how well you compete, its what you learned. Our whole team learned soo much about force, torque, shaft length issues, gear ratios, and machining processes than we've ever learned, all because of a tranny with a few design flaws. We took these problems and turned them around to redesign a few aspects and ended up with a GREAT transmission by nats. FIRST is about learning, and there's almost no dedicated 108 team member that dosent know more about a transsmission this year than they ever really thought they would know.

[Jeff Waegelin]

Well... you probably got 10k in equipment, albeit secondhand. Your donations are still a lot more than most teams have, and I'd guess that's what makes people jealous. I don't mind... you guys do good work, so it's worth it. I don't complain...

[Specialagentjim]

Oh, sorry, I forget to point out that we have to give it all back

lol, we get to use all this stuff for comp then it all goes right back where it came from most of the time.

[WLitchfield]

Our school doesent back us at either so we do a lot of fundraising and even then end up in debt at the end of the season. Its also hard for us to get sponsors b/c were a suburban middle class town. Most of the trips our payed totally from our pockets and the sponsors we do get go to paying for the kit and regionals. Our robot is often well built but not to complex or expensive so it amuses me when we beat highly sponsored teams such as Nasa, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, GM, etc. No offense to these teams but when a $1000 robot beats a $5000+ CNC'd or Water Cut bot it puts a smile on my face. But hell, I'd still love to have those kind of sponsors backed by 30 engineers w/ state o the art equipment. 348

[Rombus]

Wow, thread from the dead!

Well, at least you guys got the chance to do the competition. In 1999, i tried in vain to get my high school involved in FIRST. School's line: "You can do it if you can find the funding" Couldn't find it, First was noting more than a dream for me for the next 6 years.

Flash forward to Saturday, Buckeye Regionals, I sat there, after packing up our pit, After 6 long weeks of mentoring team 1278...my team, the team that took me in as one of there own. i sat there, fighting back the tears. Not because we placed so low, not because i was exhausted from the week of solid work, but because i was so happy that i got a chance to finally live out my FIRST dream.

So remember, we may be envious of teams who can do water jet cutting and has every possible monetary and engineering advantage, but there are many more people who are envious of Evey team who has a chance to compete.