Hey guys! We’re a new private team and are looking for aluminum, sensors, and other misc. parts. Please DM us for our email. Also, feel free to reach out to us about anything we should steer clear of or any advice for a new private team. Thanks and take care!
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Heyy wassup we are also a first year private team. We Started a go fund Me page and had all of our members share it with friends and family. This really helped out with the cost of things like the field and parts. We also got some companies to make a sponsorship donation. I’m not sure if this is a possibility but if you have any connections to companies it is really helpful because they are usually willing to donate a couple hundred dollars. for sensors i would only get the inertial sensor for now. I’m not gonna lie some of the other sensors are really great and helpful but imo the inertial is the most important. Also welcome to the Vex Forum and good luck on your journey.
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I would recommend trying to find sponsors to help pay for things like parts and tournament registration fees. These could be local companies and businesses, somewhere near you that is engineering/tech related that might sponsor a robotics team, etc. As for parts and sensors, I would recommend trying to buy parts (especially electronics like motors or brains) used from another team. For sensors I personally wouldn’t buy any as a new start up private team, unless you can find a inertial sensor for cheap. Just like Timmy said, inertial is the only one really worth it for a new team. After your first year or after you have everything else that you need is when you should start buying other things like vision sensors.
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Make sure you guys create a detailed and dynamic spreadsheet so that you can easily track expenses as well, it’s very difficult to manage expenses without laying everything out. This goes for any team, but make sure your familiarize yourself with the specific game rules and read the entire manual to make sure you order legal parts and make informed decisions. Browsing every part on the vex site is also very beneficial; as an experienced roboteer I can tell you will regret nothing more than not ordering a part that will let you explore various unique avenues. I hope you’re able to easily find support, and best of luck!
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hey man! thanks for all the tips, and i think reaching out to companies sounds like a great idea. would you mind sharing what kind of companies you guys got donations from? thanks!
thanks for the advice, appreciate it!!
gotcha! thank you so much!
I know you were talking to someone else, and I’m not a private team, but I know a few private teams who have given me tips since I’ll probably do a private team next year. I live near Boulder Colorado so IBM is a great company for private teams in my area. Basically any company or business that has an engineering/programming focus would probably be at least somewhat interested in sponsoring you, plus any other businesses you can think of might want to (dental offices, real estate companies, law firms, hair salons, etc).
So we got donations from MHS,materials handling systems, Wire craters qhoe builds wire cages and Samtec who supplies wire connectors. They are all companies In Our state that My dad/coach had connections to.