New independent V5 team with $0 funding – looking for advice or old parts

VEX V5 General Discussion
1

Hi everyone,

We are starting a brand new independent VEX V5 team with absolutely no school affiliation, no corporate backing, and a $0 budget.

We have already tried applying for grants, pitching local sponsors, and looking into corporate options, but we keep hitting brick walls because we don’t have a school or non-profit tax ID. We want to compete, but the $1,500+ startup cost for a V5 kit is blocking us completely.

Does anyone have advice for a completely private team starting from absolute scratch? Alternatively, if any former competitors or retiring teams have old, beaten-up V5 brains, controllers, or spare structure sitting in a garage that they are willing to part with or sell for cheap, please let us know.

Thanks for any help or guidance!

2

Something I’d recommend is looking for someone’s parts that may be selling on eBay- not super cheap but cheaper than vex directly. Just make sure that when buying more nicer parts (like pneumatics) you buy it from vex, some people can be tricky… and that wrapper for container of pneumatics needs to stay on.

If you can, I would recommend asking your school, local library, any popular place nearby that people may be drawn to, if you can do a fundraiser (e.g., bake sale :slight_smile: , sell keychains, penny drive, etc) that will make some money, not much, but it can.

3

I have not been on a private team, but I did get a kit, and I would highly recommend using Facebook marketplace right after worlds, when people don’t need kits anymore.