Im really surprised Siemens would say no to you guys. That’s a little ridiculous. 
That was my exact reaction dude. But I guess its all economics…But still, it sucks to hear a rejection from a sponsor. =/
Who was the person you talked to? I really would like to be sponsored by Siemens. Maybe they could give us like 100,000 dollars for the next season. Then we’d be as good as 1114:p
Money does not make the team (eventhough you may be kidding)
If you want to actually speak with any company, find out if anyone you know works there or knows someone who does. It is best to have direct contact with someone who can help rather than going on the website and going to “contact us”
hahaha yeah who wouldn’t want 100,000 dollars…
lol are you being serious? I can PM you the person I contacted if u want…?
Hello All,
I hope this can help :
It is not about the money, it is about the mentor.
Most mentors work at companies, if a company is willing to give some money to the team it will be more likely to do so because one of it’s employees is involved with FIRST.
Let the mentor take the initiative in talking to the company about funding, this is specially true to big corporation, just because a company has a “community relations” person does not mean that it will be easy to get funded, it needs to be part of the company corporate strategy. If a company has 10 sites, and one site a team got money, the other site will probably want to be able to give money. So that means the enterprise itself needs to budget that money, and it will not be “small change”, it make take a while, but if nothing else you have a mentor that is involved with the team.
Develop a strategy to attract and keep mentors, look at parents, neighboors, engineers that goes to your place of worship and etc…etc…
Also keep your “sponsors” diverse, it is much better to get a bunch of small donations than a big one. I seem so many teams folding because of this single issue. The keyword : Involvement - Participation.
Have an open house and invite the folks in the community to tour your facilities, send invitation to Chamber of Commerce members…etc…etc…
Cheers,
Marcos.
yeah i know lilstogi but 1114 does have a good sponsor and a lot of money so they can make a good robot but i see what you are saying
I don’t know, but I imagine there are a lot of teams with just as much money that aren’t as accomplished, on the flip side there are teams that are just as accomplished and don’t have as many resources (maybe not as accomplished as 1114, but I think you can see what I am trying to say).