And now for something completely different. We just finished tabulating our Atlanta expenses (our Vex team of 5 spent $286/person for everything except airfare – robot transport, hotel for 4 nights, food & snacks, entertainment (including an aquarium visit), and transportation in town and to the airport). As a perpetual tightwad, I am looking for tips on ways that you saved money in Atlanta, including cheap lodging, restaurants, entertainment, transport of robots and bodies, or anything else you can think of. Eventually, I’d like to collect these ideas into a White Paper for the benefit of others, especially since it looks like the World Championship will be in Atlanta for at least the next 2 years.
I’m especially looking for ideas are likely to be used year after year (“find a hotel that serves breakfast,” vs. “the XXX hotel had a one-time breakfast special this year”). Even better are ideas that apply not just to Atlanta, but to other cities as well.
I am NOT looking for any ideas that are illegal, immoral, or unscrupulous (although I don’t mind unsanitary), nor am I looking for anything that bilks the other person (like skimping on tips). Atlanta has been good to us, and we should return the favor. Besides, true tightwaddery is based on skill and self-control, not selfishness.
Also, if this ever ends up as a formal compilation, I’d like to give acknowledgement to the contributors, so I’d appreciate it if you’d PM me with your permission and the name you want to be used (real name or user handle).
It was somewhat painful and long, but we shared a bus with another team and drove overnight (Wednesday night, dropped everybody directly into the pits & left to drive back straight from watching Einstein)… cut out two nights of hotel expenses.
One thing that’ll help out all around: volunteer for one or more of the days. FIRST feeds the crew pretty well, and you get the snazzy threads too. The hours might be longer than the rest of the team has, but if you’ve got a larger squad it’s something to look into.
Our team brings food along with them on the bus. For $20/person, we purchased breakfast for 3 mornings at the regional, 3 mornings in Atlanta, 2 lunches (bread, cold cuts, cheese, pickles, snacks, fruit, dessert, juice boxes) for the bus ride down to Atlanta.
We found a hotel near a Marta station that offered a free hot breakfast, and bought the week long Marta pass for $13. For the tidy sum of $13, we got the ride to the Dome in the morning, the ride back to the hotel, the ride to some nice restaurant near a different Marta station each night, and the ride back to the hotel after dinner. Being “tunnel rats” was fun, especially when it was raining up on the surface streets.
If money is really a priority and you’re from the West Coast, take the redeye. The financial savings is quite substantial. I’d recommend against it, though, unless absolutely necessary. Being in the pits all day after being in a plane all night is not fun.
Stay at a hotel with free WiFi. For a robotics team, this is a lifesaver. For lunch, instead of buying from the stands, make your own sandwiches. Cold cuts, bread, condiments and a soda for $3 a person beats the same thing for $8 from a stand.
its fine if yo ubreak the rules. one of our mentors walked in with about 5 bags of subway and they didnt say anything.
vivek
EDIT: wow that came out wrong. what i mean is the first officers do not seem to mind if you do because they know how ridiculously overpriced the stand food is.
As I’ve been starting to write this thing, I’m realizing that to be really useful, Atlanta-specific info is needed after all. Specifically, I’m looking for the following info:
Places to get groceries that are walking distance from the downtown area, or accessible by Marta. Mini-mart-type places that sell juice, soda, & snacks are also acceptable.
Lower-priced hotels that you’ve stayed in, and your commentary on the experience, especially caveats.
Lower-cost restaurants that are walkable from downtown or accessible by Marta.
Wacky-tacky ideas that push the envelope of common cost-cutting into the realm of high-level, black-belt frugality. See below for a sample.
The Perennial Plastic Cup
A plastic cup (brought from your hotel or home) is an invaluable tightwadding tool with many and varied uses. With it, you can obtain unlimited drinks of water from the bathroom at the Georgia Dome, mooch a bit of soda from your free-spending friends, or split a large Blizzard or drink with another tightwad – large is usually twice the volume or more of small for a small incremental increase in cost. A variation on the above theme is the empty plastic water bottle (disposable) for beverages. Plastic – don’t leave home without it.
Our team stayed at an Embassy Suites… This allows for 3 beds per room. If your kids don’t mind 2 to a bed, or one on the floor and one on the bed per bed, this means 6 kids to a room, at only a fraction of the cost more. You can reduce your costs by ~30% by staying in a place that allows for more people per room (physically. I mean, you could have 6 kids in a conventional hotel room, but this is pushing it.)
Our team did a test and found that taking the marta from near our hotel (well into the downtown area) to the stadium, and walking from the hotel to the stadium took just as much time. So if you’re not carrying heavy totes or the like, don’t pay for the marta pass, and dont get suckered into paying for a 5 day pass or whatever…i did in 2005 and used it twice because i was one of the advance crew and that was before we found out that walking down the marta steps, waiting for the train, and walking up the marta steps took just as much time as walking from our hotel to the arena. but if you DO plan on using the marta, and plan to use it a lot, buy the passes cuz they do save you.
There’s a pizza place, papa murphies i think? I cant be sure anymore, down the street from the pit entrance to the GWCC (where the busses drop you off, not where you walk from the stands to the pits). We bought pizza’s for our team and two people (me and another person) always went to go get them and walk them back. You can also have them delivered, but we found it takes FOREVER, even if you call 2 hours in advance saying you want them at a certain time. we’d call as we’re walking there, wait about 5 minutes while there, then pick them up. It was about $2 a large slice per person, and drinks were often thrown in as i recall, because the pizza guy thought 5 mins of waiting in heat was too long…
one free entertainment event my team did was go to the fountains. Everyone wears swim suits and they jump in the fountains of sentenial park during the synchronized music thing. It can be fun i guess.
If you can manage to pack an extra suitcase (with the airlines starting to charge for baggage now, be careful how much extra you bring with you) with “toys” for the team, plan an outing at the park. It’s nice and a great way to blow off energy after a long day indoors at the competition. One year we packed nerf footballs, a kite or two, hackey sacks, a board game or two… and they were used often.
If possible, partner up with another team going. This can be huge savings if you are going by bus. We go to Milwaukee with two other local teams, and it is not only fun but saves big.
After travel costs (e.g., airfare), the next highest cost is usually food. So, buy groceries in Atlanta that work with travelers.
Minimize purchases of anything requiring refrigeration, but for smaller things like milk (for cereal = breakfast) a sink full of hotel ice works well. You can even do cold cuts this way, but better to buy that morning & assemble for lunch immediately. Or PBJ it, add bananas for a real treat (PBJB)
Pop-tarts are your friends, as are donuts, cookies, and all the breads. Except Cinnabons, these can be fatal.
Soup in a can (get the kind that pops open, no can opener kind) can be heated with hotel sink hot water. Sure, it takes 15 minutes, but it’s cheap. Pair that with your bread friends.
Fruit, fruit, lots of fruit. Portable, delicious, and good for you. 'nanas, apples, pears and oranges for starters.
As previously said, cups allow for free water. A case of water for $5 costs more than gasoline… er, well it used to.
It is possible to live without cooking and refrigeration for a solid week, still eat well, for around $25.