I have noticed what seems to me to be a significant rise in teams requesting help with registration costs or materials this year, and wanted to see if my perceptions match reality. My own team is net negative so far this year financially but are not in crisis. I would be interested as well in seeing what folks think about the current situation; what’s your take on it?
We are in significantly better financial shape than one year ago, and are in a position to help other teams in ways we could not in the past
We are in better financial shape than one year ago
We are in the same financial shape as one year ago
Although our funding is stable, we are not keeping pace with inflationary costs
We are in worse financial shape than one year ago
We are in financial crisis but can compete this year
We will not be able to compete this year unless we receive more assistance
FIRST should be shown this poll. As they constantly raise costs, teams in lower income areas and rural areas are affected further and further. It is becoming increasingly harder to find funding and apply for grants. I know from personal experience, our team has to write more and more grants to keep up with the monetary needs of competition; from travel to registration fees to even hotels and food. While fundraising helps, it isn’t isn’t like it used to be where you could get by during the build season.
I absolutely hate to see teams struggle to compete and/or even fold due to inflation. This program helps so many students.
Team budget is almost the same as last year, student headcount ballooned from 27 to 50. We cover all fees (hotels, food, travel), so our team size growing means more financial strain.
The problem with this survey is the bias that comes from asking CD users. CD skews heavily into the better-informed, better-funded side of FRC teams. The teams I am aware of locally who have needed significant assistance are universally not using this platform.
I have a spreadsheet full of grants I can share with teams, and am currently working with a few other people to create one giant “fundraising resource” that contains everything from grants to finding local sponsorships, setting up their own 501(c)3, etc. Every team is different in terms of what they can apply for, what control they have over their money, etc.
If anyone wants the spreadsheet, let me know, but most of the grants need a 501(c)3 or parent non-profit to apply. This has helped my team significantly increase our fundraising between last year and this year and has put us in a decent position for the coming season.
(Altho if we go to worlds… thats very very expensive )
Edit: @mrnoble does “being able to help other teams in ways we could not in the past” mean financial support or other support such as mentors, supplies, tools, etc.
We’re in rough shape so far this year. A lot of our historical sponsors have either changed their criteria for sponsorship such that we no longer qualify, or are giving on average 50% (or less) of what they used to. We’ve been applying to every grant/sponsorship opportunity we can, but have gotten more rejections than donations. It’s at the point now that it’s likely we will have to forfeit our second event registration.
I’d class us as a historically low-mid resource team, usually we can manage to pull in registration for two events plus about 4k for robot costs and a little extra for other things like the team’s insurance (annual budget has ranged from 12k-20k over the 13 years I’ve been with the team). I’m genuinely concerned that if we can’t secure some new sponsors that sustainability will be a problem.
I’ve gotten a lot of requests for this, so once I get home I will edit this post and tag those who want it.
Only thing I will say is that local sponsorships + personal connections >>> grants any day, since you can get a more personal connection with the company. However, grants are good for supplemental funds. The big one I remember about right now is the Gene Haas Foundation, which by the data I pulled from TBA a while back, sponsored over 225 teams last year.
some of the grants are closed now but many should still be open. Also try looking up the local banks on google followed by “corporate giving”, typically banks have some sort of community giving program. I wish everyone good luck in fundraising.
I’m hoping to have a more complete set of resources and tips out at some point but for now I hope this helps.
As others have said we have taken a financial hit this year for similar reasons. Some sponsors are just giving less, and some are not giving at all.
We are lucky in that we had been squirreling away money for a long time so it didn’t affect us too badly. We also had a very easy financial cut option for this year (3rd regional).
Replying so I can check out your fundraising sheet (info) and if needed provide any info you don’t already have on there. Thanks for providing this for everyone!
Ah right, I forgot to say something. Thanks for reminding me!
If anyone knows of any grants that aren’t on the sheet, please let me know so I can add it. Additionally, feel free to make a copy so you can track your team’s grant statuses within your own sheet!
I’d like to push back on this a little. Costs to compete (considering all the expenses a team faces in a typical season) are certainly increasing. There’s no doubt about that.
However, registration fees only occasionally increase. FRC registration increased in 22-23 after many years (a historian can check me, but 10+ years?) and Championship registration increased in 24.
Those increases are steep, for sure, but it does not feel, to me, like FIRST is “constantly” raising costs. And again, parts, rent, shipping, transportation, and more do increase constantly, but this part is out of HQ’s control.
Personally, as it relates to registration fees, I’d like to see FIRST lay out five years of cost increases at a time and do it gradually. I’d rather see a 2% annual increase (that we know about) than a 20% increase every 10 years.
Even so, almost half, 43% (as of my writing), of these “better funded” FRC teams (us included) are reporting financial strain this year. Hopefully FIRST HQ realizes how challenging this year has been fundraising-wise.
I had to answer significantly better just because last year was so dicey! Finished the season with $82. I misread the part about helping other teams, as it was a later clarification. We don’t have money to give away but are in a position to help in other ways. As in fact are darn near all FRC teams when there are parts, advice, etc needed.
While FIRST is for the most part not directly increasing costs, they do indirectly increase costs via choices about what technology and products to allow (or not allow) in FRC. For example, by allowing the brushless arms race to continue for years, the overall cost to teams to use the “best” motors has increased significantly (I say this not disparaging the hard work of folks at REV/WCP/CTRE, it’s simply a fact).
Without making a value judgement on whether FIRST should make changes to FRC, it is impossible to separate their choices in running the program from the costs to teams even for things they are not directly in control of.
I agree, what I mean to clarify is the materials and components we are allowed to use on the robots have increased tremendously, not so much the registration costs.
@cadandcookies has put it more along the lines of what I wanted to say, just couldn’t put as eloquently
This is a huge factor in cost, but I think it’s also partially limited by Vendors that go through the RFP process. Right now there is the RFP for the 2027 FRCFIRST Robotics Competition robot controller and the 2028 FTCFIRST Tech Challenge robot controller. Whatever company wins that contract will be the sole source Robot Controller that is legal. Whatever price they set and FIRST agrees to we are stuck with (National Instruments for example used the RoboRio but at a discount specifically for FIRST). You can’t use anything else and that is one of the more expensive components.
Prior to REV entering the game with their newer hardware CTRE had a good lock (from 2015-whenever REV released theirs) on the VRMVoltage Regulator Module, PDPCTRE's Power Distribution Panel and PCM and could again set the price without competition. I don’t think it was massively overpriced but competitive markets generate better prices for the end customer. The more vendors that get parts approved and into the marketplace the better off we’llLimelight, an integrated vision coprocessor be.
I don’t think FIRST is turning away vendors for other items like motor controllers, MXPs and motors, could be just very few vendors submit items for approval. Big items for the control system go through that process versus stuff like sensors that are not part of the approval.
This was a blog about the 2021/2022 parts for example:
Also in last years manual sections 9.5 and 9.7 discuss legal motors and actuators, pneumatic control devices, MXPs, motor controllers and relays. That list continues to grow with few removals over time because FIRST doesn’t like to tell a team they can’t use something they already own that was previously legal. The Jaguar CAN might be the best example of something going away, and that was because few people used it and it was difficult to maintain in the code base over time is what I heard.
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