I will soon be moving to the Santa Rosa area in Region 2 of California. Due to the limited number of established VEX teams in the area, I will most likely need to start my own team. I was hoping to learn more about the costs involved, as well as the challenges and obstacles I may face when starting and maintaining a competitive VEX team.
In terms of a breakdown of typical costs, the Purdue SigBots Wiki has an amazing article that covers a finances that a team had during their first year of VEX. That wiki in general is an amazing website for a new team, I’d highly recommend bookmarking it or saving it somewhere.
The entire Team Administration section on this website will be really useful to you.
I will be on my 3rd start of a VRC team next year, so I am in the same process. One nice thing is working for a school takes care of many of the costs associated with transportation to the events.
Historically I say a team will cost my school between $5000 and $10,000 for the first season and then about $2-3000 less each year after that. The bulk of the cost for me is in parts and supplies. You need at least one super competition kit, an extra brain, at least 3-4 spare batteries and many other items. You will need tools, both simple hand tools, and some power tools. A circular saw with an aluminum cutting blade will save a lot of time working with structural elements. A small grinder or saw with a cut off wheel for the shafts is a must. A laser cutter for precise cuts on allowed plastic sheets is worth the investment IMO.
The biggest challenge for us is always setting up a practice field. Ideally you want the exact same as what you will have at the competition, but this is tough to justify, especially if you are just starting out. and you don’t have the space to set-up or even store what you need. This where I will usually see if I can find someone who has more than I do and see if I can use what they have already set up. Since for us the big majority of time goes into design and building, the lack of a true field was only an impediment to being good, never a problem with fielding a team .
The only other obstacle I can see is finding people who are dedicated enough to put in the time needed consistently in order to be any good. Good luck
I am starting a team for Petaluma High and hope to host competitions soon. We should connect!
Wow for sure, that’s really close to Santa Rosa, my Discord is daiwikm29 lets talk further!
You might be challenged with costs of everything. Robotics gets expensive, especially if you plan on attending a lot of tournaments in your area. My advice if you are short on cash is to work very hard to prepare for a tournament, instead of going to every tournament available. If you are able to qualify for state/nationals/worlds, I would save for that instead of going to a random local tournament