So as I am currently forming a vex team at our High school I was wondering how yall bring together the funds for your teams. For us, we will be sharing funds with our middle school program as well as using the funds from our robotics booster club that the middle school and high school has access to. Besides that, we have about enough parts to build 2 full robots with cortex and no dedicated field for the high school. Although this is what we have I believe we will need the funds for at least one set of v5, a field , and out of state competitions(such as open or worlds) as our school district wonāt support robotics out of state. So I would like to know how yall get the money together or possibly any suggestions as to how we could raise any more money
I am part of an after school club, funded basically by my parents and my partnerās parents. Itās definitely very expensive to build robots. Iād say ask your parent to submit a grant to whatever company they work at, and start fundraisers. Best of Luck!
I charged a fee for students to enter my program, and then we hosted 3 events to raise funds for a lot.
We also had a decent amount of money in donations given to us.
I am also trying to persuade & host a Vex Tournament at a public market. (If not, in our school commons) We get funds from the team registrations and will ask other teams to borrow their field sets.
I find it hard to find a [free] venue without one person saying āno.ā Iāve heard there will be tons of ānoā and few [if any] āyes.ā Unfortunately, that is reality.
My club is fortunate enough to get sponsored by small business.
EDIT: Spelling/grammar
I am part of a rather large program with 16 teams so we do go through a lot of money. We get some of it from the school (in-state travel and registration expenses, I believe). Each member has to pay a fee to be a part of the program which garners a large amount. Trip expenses are also paid (at least in part) by parents. We have gathered a many great sponsors over the last decade that really help to support the growth of the program. Finally, we do get a decent amount of donations from families of students and the general public.
So our school is a generally small one (weāre the only high school in town) and not too stem focused. I would maybe like to make the suggestion for an entry fee to be part of the robotics program but Iām worried that it will scare off the few people that might want to do it. Currently, there are probably around 10-15 at most that want to do robotics and thatās without having to pay anything. I think that having an entry fee to join our robotics team would be a good idea especially in the fact that the kids that would be in it would for sure be dedicated since they are having their family spend money but Iām just worried about there not being enough kids for the school to even consider us a club or program after the fact of requiring payments.
Our programās mentor does try to get around this by giving new kids who are interested a ātrialā period. They can join robotics for a month to see whether it is worth it. If they like it, they pay, if not, they can leave and donāt pay anything. It helps those who are on the fence to get a look within what robotics really is
Iām fortunate enough to be part of a generous school. We get a set amount of money to spend each year, and then various grants are added on. We got a Farmerās Grant this year, somehow. But not all the money goes to the teams. We share resources with PLTW classes.
We have a limited budget and then convince our school to give us more because we have been successful of late