This year, members of our former team 7998C will be making a Robotics team of our own. I have designed a sponsorship information booklet to give to businesses that our future team will seek. I would like to see what you guys think of it and what I need to do to improve on what I have. Maybe even some other tips.
Newest (1).pdf (5.18 MB)
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Wow. Thats incredible. We tried to get sponsorships, sent out letters to 10 different businesses, all resulting in a no. I think it was because of the not - so - high quality letter we sent. We eventually did get a sponsorship though. I’m sure you’ll pick someone up easily.
One thing- I see you noted a very high price for your expenses. In theory, it’s a good idea to overestimate so you have room if anything goes wrong, but in practice, it can really turn someone away from a deal if they think your project may never leave the ground. Surprisingly, we were able to do everything in about 3500 (Including worlds ticket). Especially since you are trying to form a team, it’s a good idea to be the biggest cheapskate ever. For instance: We never bought the actual field, we just bought the foam tiles and built the perimeter out of wood and pvc (instructions on vex’s website), and we only bought 1/4 of the field elements. Saved us $1200. We designed and CADed our robot before we ordered anything. We didn’t buy any kits, only what we needed. Saved us over $1000. I do suggest lowering the final price of your project in your booklet.
Finally, what businesses do you think you will be sending this to? We sent our letter to T - Mobile, Exxon, Shell, Ford, etc. They all seem to use the same Portal to accept sponsorships: Conxport.com or Versaic. All of the businesses we tried to get through these two portals turned us down. Do you have any special businesses in mind? Local ones are usually more open than big corporations.
Hope you find a sponsor soon and get this team off the ground! Cheers!
Funny thing is we are creating this team without any adult assiant. Guess that makes us a little different. We are planning to approach Walmart and Tyson later on. Right now, we will try to build up small business support.
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My guess is that this number is not your teams “real costs” if you did in fact attend the World Championship. I’m thinking your coach/advisor perhaps hasn’t fully disclosed all of the little costs which really add up. With our two teams we easily run up about $2000 just in registration costs each year. Let alone hotels, gas, food, tools…oh, and the robot.
yeah, going to competitions is expensive. $850 alone for entrance fee to worlds
Hi there. Also being a new student run independent team, we reccomend you apprpach sponsorship in this order:
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Exhaust all the established contacts you have. Parents, family friends, their clients, etc. Whoever is in a role to put a good word in for you or sponsor you directly. The chances of getting sponsorship from them is a lot more than other companies since it is more personal.
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Local companies. Local companies will like to utilise their spo sorship budget on local teams as ling as you provide them services also.
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Size, name and type doesn’t matter. Finally, I would advice writing e-mails or letters to all and every company you can think of. You’re bound to get something.
Hope this helps.
@4149G I am not including travel costs. Yes, they should be factored in but I sort of consider them separate. If this were a school team, you would pay for that yourself, wouldn’t you? As far as I know most teams do. All I am including in the total is registration, full field setup with 1/4 game objects, and the robot, which is what I consider basic needs for a team. The field setup cost us about 750, going as cheap as we could. The only thing that was official was the nets and tiles and everything else was either homemade or from robosource.net. Great site, btw. Regis cost us 1000, our states was 100, 850 for world, and we only went to one event before that to qual for states, 50. We were easily able to make the robot with 1500, and so can you if you carefully construct your cart. Spare 250 which was spend on random things, can’t fully recall. I am %100 positive this is the exact cost. We don’t really have a mentor, just my parents. Anything that we bought, we requested my dad to buy. There were no “behind the scenes” costs.
I see what you are saying, but the travel is a huge part of the cost in the real world (especially when going to Worlds). Also, in reality you need some tools, bins/toolboxes for storage. I just wanted to point out to other people that the “small” incidental costs add up quickly. I would hate for someone to jump in thinking it will cost “X” amount of dollars and it actually ends up being significantly more.
For example, for my team to travel to the World Championship it cost around $8,000. This would include registration, fuel, hotels, food, highway tolls, etc. This was to get 10 students to Kentucky from Minnesota.
Yes, we will not include travel fees since this raises the costs very much. If we do qualify for Worlds, we will find fundraising in order to go. Also, I forgot to mention that I designed a list of orders specifically for parts and field elements. Vex Costs - Google Sheets
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@7998C The list is great, very organized. However, IMO, it seems a bit excessive. As I said, only order what you need and make a CAD first. Not saying you haven’t already but this is essential to keep the cost low. If this is what you need then buy it, but if you can find anywhere to lower costs, do it. Just don’t cut corners on the robot. Also, you seem to have a couple extra parts. The license plates and notebook come with registration, no need to buy that.
Ok, I thank you very much for your help.
I have to agree. A couple members of my team and I are doing the same thing, and while we had an estimated cost for the robot parts, after making the CAD design, we were able to shave $1000 dollars of our estimated cost.
Okay, I’ll plan to make CAD designs to help cost.
Seems very nice! But the only way to legally get a sponsor is to get an adult to be the one to achieve the money, otherwise it would be illegal.
I would say $2,000 might be a tad big high to have the logo be on your robot. I would assume that they should pay around $1,000 - $1,500. I think that you guys are doing a great job on that layout!
Here’s a good website that you guys could consider looking at to improve your letter:
http://practicalsponsorshipideas.com/blog/31-create-a-winning-sponsorship-proposal
I probably should lower the price on the Gold sponsorship… Thanks for the suggestion.