Affording Worlds as a Rookie Team

[skee]

I’m from Team 8590 in the Chesapeake area, and we just won the Rookie All-Star Award, meaning we now qualify for Worlds! Unfortunately, we are struggling to afford it, and reaching out everywhere for help. We are currently trying to find another team to maybe share transportation (of students and of the robot itself) down to Houston. I am working on (and have been working on) contacting new and existing sponsor connections and have already received suggestions like creating a GoFundMe. Does anyone else have anything that might help us? Thank you so much!

[DonRotolo]

You are on the right track. Call the regional FRC director who might have additional contacts who can help.

Edit: And congratulations !!!

[quarky]

Reach out to other teams you know have qualified in your area to see what robot/pit transportation they’ve got going. Just taking a glance at the list of CHS teams qualified, some nearby using Google Maps estimates (my radius of nearby is 1-2hrs admittedly so take it as you will):

• Team 836: The RoboBees (Hollywood, MD 1.25hr)
• Team 623: Oakton Cougar Robotics (Vienna, VA 0.25hr, literally down the street)
• Team 4099: The Falcons (Poolesville, MD (0.75hr)
• Team 1111: Power Hawks Robotics (Edgewater, MD, little under 1 hr)
• Team 5804: TORCH (Henrico, VA 1.75hr)
• Team 620: Warbots (Vienna, VA 0.25hr, literally down the street)
• Team 1885: ILITE Robotics (Haymarket, VA 0.5hr)
• Team 4472: SuperNOVA (Woodbridge, VA 0.5hr)
• Team 5587: Titan Robotics (Alexandria, VA 0.5hr)
• Team 2199: Robo-Lions (Finksburg, MD 1.5 hr)
• Team 5338: RoboLoCo (Leesburg, VA 0.5hr)

Take this list, reach out to teams thru an email listed on their website or even social media if their active (I Instagram DM’d teams to help coordinate the POD for San Diego teams in 2018). It can be a basic plug and chug script like:

Hi my name is (first name) and I’m reaching out from FRC 8590 CAVBOTICS!
Congrats on qualifying for Houston Champs. I’m reaching out on behalf of our team to see if y’all had any plans for robot/pit transportation and would mind our team tagging along. Feel free to coordinate here or at (insert email address) and I look forward to hearing back from y’all.

Ideally, if all of you within an hour of each other don’t mind maybe a short drive to out your stuff together, you can all logistically work out how to transport your robot/pits together and save some time and money on each of your parts. If some of the teams from farther away don’t find driving down or up to wherever y’all end up packing a trailer/truck for Houston, that also works.
Let me know if I need to clarify anything since I speedily typed this on my phone but congrats again on worlds!

[Akash_Rastogi]

@JesseK is the mentor for 1885 and @tim-tim is a good contact for 836.

Jesse, if you can facilitate for these guys that’d be great.

[mtomlins]

Congrats on Rookie Allstars! RoboLoCo 5338 is also trying to figure out how to get there. We shipped our robot but need to get our pit there and students. Looking at all options.

[mtomlins]

Not sure if you saw but FIRST is partnering with PODS for transport. I’m getting quote today.

https://www.chiefdelphi.com/uploads/short-url/8j1ORN7CCJ2W8PLJ0cb8VVxx8Zx.PDF

[tpc]

Congrats on winning Rookie All-Star!

623 is flying, as is everyone else local who we’ve talked to so far. I believe one of 8590’s mentors has been involved in conversations with 620 and 623 about getting things to Houston. If not, please let me know and I’ll follow up with our logistics folks to make sure someone from your team is looped in.

@mtomlins - Thanks for the pointer on the PODS. (I see you and Amy have already traded comments about this option in the CHS Mentors group.) Did they give you any indication of when the POD has to be packed to make it to Houston in time?

[skee]

EDIT: We are making arrangements to share transportation and storage space with Team 5587! We also have a GoFundMe up at https://gofund.me/98656304. If you can, please share this link!

Thank you everyone for the support and great advice

[nhos]

@mtomlins got a quote for an 8x8’ POD. In order for it to get there in time we have to get things in the POD by 8am Tomorrow(Tuesday, 4/12). The POD center is in Manassas. According to this post it looks like they dropping the pods off about a block away from the Convention center.

We are looking for a few teams to split the POD with, round trip cost for the whole POD is $2191. If any teams are interested, please send me a DM.

[nhos]

FYI:

CHS teams: Sharing a POD to ship items to Houston

RoboLoCo, Team 5338, is getting an 8’x8’ POD to ship down to to Houston. If any CHS teams are interested in sharing the space/cost please let us know. The total cost for the round trip is $2191. If cost is an issue, please let us know. We’d like to fill this as much as possible with CHS teams! If we get enough interest today, we maybe able to upgrade to a bigger box as well. Please DM me if your team might be interested. Logistics: All items would need to be dropped off at the POD facility in…

@skee let us know if you will need any extra space to ship items.

[skee]

Thank you! We are currently working with Team 5587 to share space in their trailer, but I will definitely let you know if we need extra space (we are really cramming things in). Thanks again!