I am a student attempting to start an FRC team at my school. I need to submit a proposal to the advancement office ASAP so that this has a chance of happening for next year, and I need some help creating the budget. As a rookie team, I am not trying to have our team make a very competitive robot at all, I just really want to start the program at my school so that we can learn what it takes to build a basic FRC robot with the hope of maybe one day growing the program. I was wondering, is it possible (very doable) to build a functional competition robot (not competitive or pretty or cool or anything like that) using just the parts from the Andy Mark FRC Intermediate Starter Bundle (https://www.andymark.com/products/frc-intermediate-starter-bundles)? If not, what other materials are needed? We have an FTC team already so we have a band saw a laser cutter and a 3D printer, but what other things are needed if we were going to use mostly prefabricated parts (no CNC)? Are there any budgets that have been created by rookie teams that are starting from zero parts, tools, equipment, etc that I could base mine off of? Are there any other students who have started an FRC team “from scratch” at their school that I could contact with more questions?
For the proposal I am not sure how in-depth your Advancement Office needs you to go but these should help you on the right track! Also where are you located? Maybe a local or close team can stop by and showcase their program to yourself, teachers, administrators, and advancement office, thus helping your case for next year.
Where is your school located? Location can have a huge impact on your budget, often much more than the cost of the robot. If you are in a large urban area with several in town competitions, your travel costs will be minimal (cost of renting the school busses). If you are in a rural area, several hundred miles from your nearest competitions, your travel costs could be much more substantial (busses, hotels, school staff). If you live on an island in the middle of the Pacific like Kauai, it would cost even more to fly the roughly 100 miles to the nearest competition plus the shipping costs for your robot, parts and tools.
For robot costs, see Team 118’s Everybot design. It is a well thought out, simple design that many rookie and low resource teams have been able to copy or emulate with good success. The team designing it has won the World Championship and regularly win many competitions each year. Studying the design as you build it will give your team valuable insights, shortening your learning curve. There is a Bill of Materials that give you a good idea of the cost. There are also detailed build instructions backed up by support from the designers in a thread on this forum. A bonus is that it is actually quite a competitive design with some good drivers.
Other people with more experience with fundraising will probably jump in to offer advice. Without adequate fundraising, sustainability of your new team becomes very difficult.
Thank you for your response! We are located in Chatham, Virginia which is pretty small and rural town (population of 3,000), the closest larger “city” is Danville, VA which is about 30 minutes away. We are near the NC boarder so about 1.5 hours from Raleigh and 1 hour from Greensboro NC. I’m not sure if there are any events near us. I was wondering how do events work? I am on an FTC team and we have 2 regional qualifiers and from there teams move on to states and then on to worlds, but FRC does it differently right?
There was one in Haymarket this past weekend, one in Richmond this coming weekend, one in Portsmouth the weekend of March 13, one in Blacksburg the weekend of March 20 and the Chesapeake District Championship in Hampton on the weekend of April 2. I am not sure what area the Chesapeake District covers. You can have a look through this listing to see if there are other events near you.
It may be beneficial to you and your potential teammates to attend some of these events to build relationships with nearby teams. They may be able to help mentor your new team and provide help more specific to your District or state.
Edited to add: This is the website for the Chesapeake District that covers Virgina, Maryland and DC.
In Virginia, you would be a part of the Chesapeake district, which is made up of MD, DC and VA. You would compete in 2 district events, and then based on performance advance to the District Championship and then worlds. Travel looks like it would be a big obstacle for you, since the nearest events would be in Blacksburg, Portsmouth, and Richmond. By being close to NC, you would have a few good options for additional out of district events, but in the current structure you wouldn’t earn points to advance at those events. Do keep in mind that the District Championship location has moved around over the past couple of years, and while it is in Hampton this year, it has been at UMD College Park and GMU in the past.
I know you said you already have some tools but I would recommend Spectrum’s under $1000 tool list, and depending on your funding there is an expanded $10000 tool list as well. I wouldn’t recommend buying a kit because like others have said many of those parts overlap with what comes in the kit of parts. Instead, I would recommend looking at 118’s everybot like @philso mentioned and robot in 3 days robots. For robot parts I would recommend taking a look at the Vex pro website, they make great gearboxes, structural parts, and pneumatics components. If you have any questions feel freem to PM me.
You may want to speak to some of the other teams in your area about travel costs so your budget is more accurate.
Since you are in a small rural town, your team is likely to have to put in a lot more effort to find sponsorship. The type of sponsors accessible in your local area may be very different from the type of sponsors found in other larger urban areas. There are some teams that have found significant sponsorships even though they are located in rural areas, often from large corporations not located in their area. The Hawaiian Kids is one that comes to mind.
There’s been a Chatham team previously. Recommend doing a little digging to see if anyone has memory of this, and if so, if there is still some latent support for a team.
Something else that would definitely help would be attending First in Michigan’s Rookie Camp (if located in Michigan) very informative and could help you a lot. @EAL160
Congrats on trying to start a team! This is a great opportunity to enrich future students!
I’m not sure about how to deal with the budget, since I’m just a simple programmer. I can see if our team CFO is able to post on here with any tips. Our team relies primarily on a bunch of corporate sponsorships (Northrop Grumman, SAIC, and I bunch of others I’m sure many here have heard of) and $200 dues paid by each student (we’re around 7 times bigger than normal teams so it’s all good). I don’t even think the school contributes anything other than a staff sponsor and his room, so don’t panic. We’re not necessarily associated with our school, it’s just a normal club in their eyes.
Our team is also in the CHS District, which stretches up to some point in Maryland. Not sure where the southern boundary is. We’re in NoVa, so it’s really close to Haymarket and only a teensie bit far from Owings Mills. However, since I don’t even know where Chatham is and I know that Danville is all the way in the SW, I figure you’re gonna need to drive a lot. I have a list of CHS District events here, in boldface the events you should consider and the rest you shouldn’t even try.
Haymarket is slightly to the west of Gainesville, right off of I-66 and is about an hour or so west of DC.
Richmond is in Richmond.
Bethesda-don’t even try. It’s right off of the Capital Beltway in the NW region.
Owings Mills-again, absolute no. It’s to the NW of the Baltimore beltway, I-695.
Portsmouth-don’t even know where that is, all I know is that it’s somewhere in southern VA.
Edgewater-eastern Maryland, right on the Cheseapeake, somewhere near Annapolis. Big no.
Blacksburg is in Blacksburg.
District Champs location-it depends. Last year it was at George Mason University, much closer than Haymarket, so our team could just drive from their homes. This year it’s in Newport News or somewhere. I think it’s at the Hampton Coliseum.
Here’s…a guide, of some sorts, for getting a general idea of which teams are notable in the CHS District (6 what? 612!!).
Best of luck next year. Hope to see you all at District Champs next year (low chance for both of us but you never know)
PS find an older FRC team near you with resources to spare. Lots of teams are willing to mentor other teams.
