yeah, since we didnt qualify for Nat’s this year b/c we came in 3rd in QP/ T-3rd in Elim. Our team decided to try and go to the Lonestar competition for at least another competition and a last ditch effort at Nat’s… Well, needless to say, we needed more moola, and when our team mentor from our school asked them for their share of the bucks, they said they would only pay if we were going to Nationals, not for another Regional, I, as a senior, and the 4 other seniors on the team, are feeling shafted right now, and i am thinking of threatening them w/ the fact that two public schools from our county/city won the regional b/c they had money to compete and go to 2 regionals, no offense 108, but my school, Pine Crest, feels they are all high and mighty and that other stuff and may hopefully reconsider in the future, some good that does me, Well, i hope we get one of the spots for Nat’s, i just felt like ranting about how annoying my school is after i’ve been there from PK - 12, (yeah, 14 years).
hey…dont feel too bad…our school doesnt give us any money…we scrape together what we can through fundraising…our team has no money left to pay for nationals if we qualify, and as a senior, i too would really like to go to nats for the last time as a student.
Sorry to hear that, good luck scraping up the money
While I understand how you think it sucks, I have trouble sypathizing with you. Most teams don’t recieve a large amount of school board support and can only go to one regional. Going to Lone Star is great but nationals is something different. I would ask them to put money towards your guaranteed trip to the nationals next year even though you won’t have the privledge of going. Enjoy your experience, don’t feel bitter and ruin the good memories I’m sure you have of your regional.
*Originally posted by Powers *
**yeah, since we didnt qualify for Nat’s this year b/c we came in 3rd in QP/ T-3rd in Elim. Our team decided to try and go to the Lonestar competition for at least another competition and a last ditch effort at Nat’s… Well, needless to say, we needed more moola, and when our team mentor from our school asked them for their share of the bucks, they said they would only pay if we were going to Nationals, not for another Regional, I, as a senior, and the 4 other seniors on the team, are feeling shafted right now, and i am thinking of threatening them w/ the fact that two public schools from our county/city won the regional b/c they had money to compete and go to 2 regionals, no offense 108, but my school, Pine Crest, feels they are all high and mighty and that other stuff and may hopefully reconsider in the future, some good that does me, Well, i hope we get one of the spots for Nat’s, i just felt like ranting about how gay my school is after i’ve been there from PK - 12, (yeah, 14 years). **
Suggestion:
Get some team members together and go raise some money. Maybe then the school will decide to reward your responsibility and determinism. Of course they may not, but, who knows, you may just figure out how to get the money without them.
Right now, we are planning on going to the Nationals, but don’t have the money. We are going to have to raise it by getting sponsors, etc. Currently we are raffling off robotic vacuum cleaners, called Roomba, made by iRobot Corporation. We sell 500 tickets for $5.00 each and then raffle off the vacuum which costs a few hundred. Then we do it again. We will probably be raising money for quite a while after we come back.
Of course, we would love to have some more ideas ourselves, but we are going, come hell or high water (as the saying goes).
We would, only our school also has these stupid rules about fundraising, like… your not allowed to ask companies for money, and basically everything else that you could do to gain money for the team, they also have a track record of stealing all money that has its name anywhere on it to build random parking garages and gold domes.
First off, I suggest changing the language used in your post. Innappropriate and offensive.
Second, many schools can’t afford to go to a second regional. Some can’t afford Nat’s even IF they qualify.
At GLR my team qualified for nationals based on Leadership in Control award. We have $8,000 in our account and need about $20,000 for the group to go. We asked our main sponsor and they flatly told us no. (Now we are asking them nicer… trying again). We’ve hit up every one of our sponsors and don’t have a dime to show for it. We will be doing massive amounts of fundraising/begging over the next two weeks so that: a) We can go. b) We have money to survive off of next year.
FIRST is a very expensive thing, just because you have the opportunity time-wise to attend another regional doesn’t mean your school can afford it. That they would say “Ok for nationals, No for another regional” is kind of crude but understandable. Saying “Blah blah blah our robotics team went to nationals last year” sounds a lot better (from a political standpoint) than “blah blah blah our robotics team went to another regional last year”
Notice the difference? Yeah you do. 
I know what it’s like to be shafted when working for something you believe in. I was the only 4-year member of the team at my high school (which I have been attending the district of PK - 12), I am on another team that is 35 miles away now because I couldn’t afford how much my school’s team has to pay out of pocket.
There are a lot of “rich” teams out there, there are a lot of “poor” teams out there too. The teams who are “rich” often seem to flaunt their money around but I think overall the “poor” teams take more pride in their accomplishments.
Be glad you were able to have the experience at all. A few of my friends lost that chance this year. Many more don’t ever get it at all. In the whole scheme of things, one regional isn’t that bad. My team, had we not won Leadership in Control, would have only been going to one regional because that is all we could afford. (If we were to go to a second regional then we for sure couldn’t go to Nat’s. So we sacrificed that and took our chances).
All in all, you have had a good year. Your robot performed well at a regional. A lot of teams can’t even say that (including teams only attending one regional). Be happy with what you are leaving with. You are getting more hands-on experience than some kids could dream of.
point very well taken, i guess ive just been tainted by the money that gets thrown around at my school, and none of it in the direction i want it to… Thanks for re-knocking my head straight. i mean, we managed to get third in our region, that should be enough for me… thanks for the yelling.
That will happen at almost every school that doesn’t fully back robotics.
My team last year now has to pay upwards of $800 each to stay on the team while the school is spending $5Million in bond money to build a new astro-turf field with a brick enclosure for the football team who didn’t win a single game last year.
Yeah, one teacher at my school once said “If you ask them for a hockey team and $500 they will say NO, but if you ask them to build an ice arena for several million they will say yes, then you tell them that to build the arena they will need a hockey team and they will let you have ur team” and our football team doesnt really win either
Hrmm I have to say Powers your post did sound very selfish but let me correct a few things, please don’t make it out to sound like we are an unfortunate team… tho we are probably in the poor category we make the best of it and have an amazing mentor sponsorship
there are a lot of teams that do not have access to the mentorship and machine shop and tools we do. You can’t take this for granted especially when our robot performs so well. I understand you feel shafted and we are doing everything we can to get that last trip for you seniors but it might not work out how we hoped.
2nd let me clarify a few things so that we kinda don’t sound stuck up to the rest of chief delphi.
Our school gave us some initial support but only because we aren’t allowed to fund raise. We are only allowed to ask imediate relations ( at both schools in our group for money ) for help, and aren’t allowed to do most traditional fund raising ( thus we have many creative ways… but most were developed to late for this year ) But the fact of the matter is, we weren’t allowed to fund raise they basically hung us out to dry.
Our team scraped together every bit of its 8000 total ( which came from the family’s pitching together and pulling some strings ) budget for this year ( that counts all parts, registration and travel ) All money for travel mainly comes out of pocket, now being 3 hours from orlando this was norm. not a big deal. We all just hitched a ride and paid cheap hotel rates and we just brought everything with us to regionals and nationals, we’ve never been in the situation we are in now.
Right now if we go to nationals every member on the team must pay about $500 ( because our team is to small to justify a bus… and the mentors … bah always the mentors… want to fly and not bus ) This is an EXTREME amount for any family to pay. I know for one being the main bot operator on the team ( Powers is main arm operator ) I don’t know where I’ll get the money. So contrary to popular belief ( at most regionals ) tho 710 is 2 private schools, we get the shaft constantly and must pay for almost everything. My school does everything they can, we just aren’t very affluent and whatever we can get donated to us… imediately goes to athletics or our new campus. So we know what its like to live with little.
Now I’m not going to scold Powers comopletely because even tho his comments were out of place, and should have been phrased differently, I believe there are many out there including myself ( on his team and all ) that know the feeling. It might even be a bit more frustrating for us, because we weren’t allowed to do much fundraising, and we know that Powers school could drop 20k in the blink of an eye and wouldn’t phase them a bit. But thats the nature of the politicaly inclined money Beast, and tho Its selfish to want some of that money for your own so you don’t have to pay 500 out of pocket to go to nationals, I’m not gonna sit and complain because thats not what these forums are for.
I’m just trying to straighten some things up and John please realize, tho we don’t have much, we have a heck of a lot more than some people in this competition. We can have envy for some of these 3/4 million dollar budgets or we can say " Heck, my bot is competing with yours and we have 1/100 your budget."
IMO you can never be grateful enough for what we actually get to compete in here, and tho sometimes we feel shafted, and there are those that are better finacially equipped, we come away with the same experience and never let that be tainted.
Just remember what Dean said, this is never really going to be fair.
Dan
why doesn’t your school allow you to fundraise or get a corporate sponsor? That doesn’t seem like an intellegent practice to ban… “Donated time and money for better education of our students? Ewww no!” - School District
I was so lucky to be in an Orlando area team. Kennedy Space Center was driving distance and obviously Disney is in Orlando. Also, my teacher helped us out a lot. He gave a lot of his own money and he didn’t need to do that at all. I am very greatful for it though I guess I could see your anger because every senior in high school wants to have that unforgettable senior year. FIRST is an unforgettable experience and I have wished that I was still in high school getting to have those good times again.
It’s unfortunate that you are not allowed to do traditional fund raising. Still, there has to be some type of loop hole that should let you do some type of fund raising. I mean, is a car wash an EVIL deed that must never be done that will shame your school? My old team used to do beggathons where we take the robot out and display what we’re doing and people get really impressed and are willing to fork out like $10 bucks each. One day we made $500 infront of Publix.
I sympythise with your ordeal and add the note that I think FIRST shouldn’t have instated this qualifying for nationals. Granted that FIRST has grown HUGE over such a short time period and that nationals would probably have to take up 5 bowls or twice the parking space of Disney but to tell somebody you can’t go is heart breaking. I’m UNBELIEVABLY glad that my last year we were an even # team. If I didn’t get to go to nationals, I probably would have broken down 
To be a winner in FIRST, you don’t need to be rich, you just need access to a machine shop (How many championship winning robots only use two motors). To be succesful, you need $5000 USD +$1-2k extra, team spirit, and a good team. Succes in FIRST really isn’t money dependant, winning a regional can be.
I agree with all of those comments about a team not winning based on money, but on the team members. Last year I was on team 832 (rookie all-stars at nats) and we had a rather expensive bot. It was made almost entirely out of Rexroth ™ extrusion and was built to do about 15 things, but it didn"t do any of them. This year I started my own team and the only way we managed to get enough money to register was that 832 gave us the money they were going to use for nationals this year so that we could compete. We did all of our work with hand tools that team members brought in (with the exception of three pieces of metal we had machined at our mentor"s brother"s machine shop) in a portable classroom. We have one mentor who is an electrical engineer, a parent with an art degree, a sophomore in high school with one year of experience (me), several helpful chaperoning parents, and a bunch of rookie students. We now have one of the best bots at the Peachtree Regional (IMO, we"re the only launcher anyways, HOO-AH!) and we"ve actually been able to help other teams make their bots work.
btw, our accounting totaled $330 this year, we mainly built ours out of the KOP and imagination
We started the season with $2500 in our account. The school gave us and additional $2000. The school also rented us a $3400 bus to Phoenix and back. We attended Phoenix and will be attending LA. The rest of the money we needed we fundraised ourselves and the students seeked sponsors and supporters. We also had to ask for $250 per student (14) who went to Phoenix.
In response to Gadget - both of our schools on team 710 do not want a club to go and ask for money from companies or rich ppl or anything b/c they want to ask them, and do not want that person to say they have already given to a club. In response to everyone else… Yes, i realize that money doesnt matter, look at 212, they won UCF and didnt have much money at all, i was just in a bad mood last night and i’m sorry for all my pointless, incessant ranting. There is still a slight chance we will make it to nationals, and i hope i can see you all there so i can shut up and stop complaining.
Put on the puppy dog eyes and get fundraising! All I know is that last year we weren’t goin’ till a week before! We drove in school vans and fundraised up the ying-yang. YOU CAN GO IF YOU WANT TO. it just takes some elbow grease!
Yeah, funding is definitely a difficult part of FIRST.
But then again, you see some teams in pit stations near yours that have an entire posterboard filled with sponsor logos, a large canvas inflatable weather-sized balloon with a team number on it, a working booth complete with fan and set of roller-stools, and other such luxuries.
Paul’s right about our team. We don’t have much. A few parents to watch us when our mentor isn’t there, his dad helped us with the crate, and no one has any experience except for him. We got money for registration c/o 832-- many thanks to them and congrats on the Judges’ Award!. We used the KOP, largely brought in our own tools, and a few families paid for most of the rest of the stuff we used. $330 accounts for the stuff we put on our bot-- not the stuff we bought and didn’t use, team equipment, tools, etc.
Our bot’s been suffering some problems here and there, and we’ve been working hard. We’ve been helping other teams with getting their hardware to work, lending tools, and helping out where we can.
Personally, I think you take what you can get, and you think about things ranked by importance. I’m just happy I got to experience the build period and then a competition, though that isn’t to say I wouldn’t like $5000 to appear in my hand for us to register for nats. Just being there has taught me a lot about people, made me some new friends and some better ones, and allowed me to tinker with something I probably wouldn’t otherwise ever get to play with. (How many kids can honestly say they’ve built a working robot out of something other than LEGOs or K’nex?)
Considering that I’ve only got two more years in this, I may not ever see nats-- though hopefullly we’ll get enough funding by senior year to go.
Sure, it’s upsetting to see that you can’t get money out of your school, but there’s a lot of us in the same boat. We simply can’t all be teams with 15+ corporate sponsors. (And from what I’ve seen, teams with 15+ large corporate sponsors wouldn’t be much fun to be on.) However-- and I don’t mean to sound nasty-- you didn’t qualify for nats at your regional, but you got to compete, and you should be happy with that. If you tried your best at region, you should just enjoy that experience.
We’re currently ranked quite low due to some drive problems so far, and with just a few more matches to go in the morning, I’m kind of upset that we won’t get to show off our bot in full working order. BUT, I’ve still thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and the disappointment in no way takes precedence over the experience and the memories I’ve made.
^^All that was not supposed to sound malicious in any way. Just my take on things. I hope you can manage to get enough funds to go to your other regional, and maybe nats, should you qualify.
Yeah, i’m happy with our effort at regionals, it was awesome, and i realize that money is hard to come by and we are better off than a lot of other teams, if my school would say flat out no, you cannot have money, that would be one thing, but when they say we will not give you the money UNLESS you go to nationals. We tried to just get to the Lonestar regional and not go to nat’s even if we qualified just so we could compete one more time for sure. That and my school just threw $6 million into a parking garage. Yeah, my first post that i started this with definitely did not send the message i wanted, which was that my school would donate to nationals and not a regional, although it was the same amount.