We left the championship with a handful of pictures and wishing we had more time to get more pictures of other teams and other divisions. Earlier I thought it would be cool to have a yearbook type book from the competition. So I thought about maybe doing one next year.
With that being said, I would bring 2 or 3 photographers to get pictures of all teams in their pits over the 3 day’s, and at least 1 good shot of each team during a match along with pictures of division award winners and the quarter/semi/finals.
While I have no intention of pocketing any money off of this, it would cost me for the photographers travel, per diem, etc… Any profit over what it cost would either go to the RECF, or be used to try and establish some robotics programs in districts without funding. This could be distributed to existing teams that are working within their communities.
I expect the cost of a nice hardcover 8X10 yearbook would be in the $80-$100 range depending on the number of pages and weight of the paper used. It would be based on actual cost of publishing/printing, and the cost of the photographers divided by expected sales.
My question is would you buy one? If there is enough interest I will work on the logistics of doing it. Teams would also have an option to submit pictures of their own before it was published. The books would be available online about 2 weeks after Worlds, and would be kept available for several months.
I would settle for a web page. I did not qualify for worlds, thus I did not get to go. A video, journalist style, of demonstrations in the pits along with the tournament brackets would be interesting. I am thinking of the short videos that where taken of events like the CES. If I had attended worlds, I would definitely buy one, as I have similar ones of high adventure camping trips I have gone on.
If I were to bulk order them they would be cheaper, but that would leave me at risk. To be ordered 1-10 at a time by teams the actual cost is $71.00 FOR 200 pages in hard cover. The base cost is $31.99 plus 20 cents per page. I estimate around $4-$6 per book on average to cover the photographes. An order of 250 or more books drops the price by around $10.00 per book but that woulld require collecting the money in advance so I am going by the one at a time price.
I just want to get some feedback to see if this is worth doing. Paperback is only around $10.00 cheaper, but that is an option as well.