This year, a group of FRC mentors (myself included) decided to start the third FRC team in Chile. We’ve seen the tremendous impact the past two FRC teams have had in their communities and we feel that our country needs more of these projects to complement the current high school curriculum.
Team 6955 is a college based team, start in the Universidad Católica de Chile. We’ve managed to find a motivated team of mentors composed of students and alumni from the same university, as well as professors dedicated to robotics to support our project.
However, we haven’t had much luck in the ways of finding sponsorship. We’ve contacted many companies and institutions and a few of our proposals are being considered, but with little more than a month to go for the first payment deadline, we’re worried about the state of the team and the possibility of not being able to secure a spot in our regional (we signed up for the San Francisco Regional).
Not only must we search for sponsorship to secure our registration fee, but we also have to cover travel costs for about 25 people (20 students and 5 mentors) from Santiago, Chile to San Francisco. That is why I’m reaching out to Chief Delphi to ask everybody for information concerning grants or companies looking to sponsor international rookie teams.
With this idea, you most likely will not be able to fund your entire team’s travel, but make a dent in your registration cost. You could ask local restaurants to sponsor your team by giving a percentage of the profits of the day to your team. What you would do is advertise their establishment, and by bringing increased customers to eat, they in return donate money to your team. It has worked for many of our school’s athletic teams, and could work for you too!
I WOULD try to write this all in Spanish, but I dropped out of the language after I finished my required 3 years:p
!VIVA FIRST!
por favor, envie un PM si necesita ayuda!
As rookies funding is always one of the biggest issues. Fundraising is always a daunting task but there are many different ways of doing this. We have seen international teams raise money in many different ways from corporate sponsorships to raising funds from small businesses. Since airfare seems to be a big issue, you probably want to contact an international airline like LATAM airlines who fly from Chile. Then I would find different businesses and try them. As former rookies, we know what it is like to start a team if you want to PM (Private Message) us on Chief Delphi or email us at [email protected] we would be happy to talk to you and walk you through the whole process! We have a list of some different international sponsorships that might apply to Chile teams, and sponsors that could potentially help your team. We also have documents, curriculum and how to guides that can help you get through the season and we can also send you some tutorials if you are interested. As former rookies, we know what struggles you are going through, so we would love to help! We had an exceptional first year competing and it ended off on the Einstein Field at the Houston Championships!!! We would love to help you out!