Our rookie team fund-raised several thousand extra dollars. We cannot spend it all on our robot this year and the grants for the money expires before the next season. We don’t want the money to go to waste so if we could get some suggestions on what to spend it on in anticipation for next season that would be very helpful.
No one on the team has much experience so we don’t know what supplies or materials tend to get used every year.
That is a very good problem to have.
First thing I’d suggest is investigating a second regional. This will run 4,000 dollars just for registration, if you can do that contact [email protected].
Second thing, which will help you in the long run, experiment. Save up the money for the off season and try something new. Maybe a nearby team has a drivetrain you want to try. Use the money to build, break and improve it. Maybe next year you can be the ones with the cool new technology.
well check what tools you don’t have that might be useful or tools that need to be replaced, extra building materials (wood, aluminum, steel)
I wish I had that problem.
“Mom! Mom! Mom! I have a HUGE problem here!”
“What’s wrong?”
“I have several thousand dollars just sitting here and I don’t know what to do with it.”
Tools, T Shirts, EXTRA BATTERIES, Victors / Jaguars, spare motors, supplies, etc. are all good starting points.
Save some for a potential Rookie All Star win too.
thanks for the quick responses
We dont have the cash to register for another regional.
I assumed metals and such would be good, but they dont really cost enough to warrant spending thousands on them.
Batteries, motors and the like sound good, but doesn’t FRC supply teams with new ones each year?
Maybe that was just our rookie kit…
I would purchase power tools if you do not already have them (IE Drill press, Chop saw and Band saw w/ appropriate blades, Bench Grinder, Disk/Belt sander) If you already have these, invest in Metal and items off the Andymark Website. I would also look at the Victor Speed controllers from vexrobotics.com.
You will get new CIM, FP, and BaneBots motors every year. I would recommend getting a second cRio with the extra cash. They run around $900, but it will be completely worth it if something were to happen. My team upgraded our kicker for the 2010 game for an off season event. During the testing of the new kicker, we would lose connection. Turned out, we essentially broke our cRio.
Obviously, if something more important comes up, buy that, but my suggestion is to go with a cRio.
After your rookie year you only get one new battery a year. The average team should have 4-6 good batteries at a time, so buying two more for this season is a good idea.
You get new motors every year, and they change year to year - but you’ll want spares of the ones you are using this year, as well as additional CIMs. CIM motors are the best in the kit and you’ll easily use all four of them every year (the kit usually only comes with 2).
I believe you can give FIRST some money to hold toward next year’s registration.
That is correct. I would prepay for another years registration. I know that I have money that will disappear in March if I don’t send it and that is what I am going to do with the money.
Extra battery and tools are good ideas, but here is one some of you may not think of.
As a FIRST team I believe it is your job to make an impact in your community. Why don’t you take that extra money and spend it towards some kind of exhibition of your robotics team, mainly for the younger audience? (this is also called recruiting ha!)
I agree with Chris. If you qualify (via Rookie All Star or winning your regional), do you want to go to the Championship? That money would come in very useful if you do.
I’ve suggested the same thing in other similar threads:
Second cRio: http://www.ni.com/academic/stem_first.htm
AC TIG welder: http://www.everlastgenerators.com/PowerTig%20%20200DX-351-pd.html
We have access to the UW machine shop, so i doubt that we will buy any welding or engineering tools for now. Thanks for all the other recommendations.
Save it for the potential rookie all star, or buy batteries, chargers for batteries, jaguars, and another CRIO and associated electronics
Definitely get more chargers for your batteries. One charger will not be able to charge two batteries fully between matches.