Building a competitive robotics team is an expensive endeavor. We need kits; we need extra parts; we need motors and servos; we need laptops to program the robot to accomplish its objectives... WE NEED YOU.
Thanks to a startup grant from Dow, we were able to purchase our first ever competition kit. The total cost of the kit was $1014.84. They also provided us enough to cover the $275 registration fee and $200 tournament fees for 2 qualifying rounds.
We were fortunate to go to a scrimmage hosted by Mandeville Jr. High's robotics team Dark Matter, which went to Worlds last year. We were able to come in 3rd place there with the materials we have! But there are MANY things that our robot still needs in order to help us qualify for Regionals at our official qualifier tournaments.
We need new wheels that will help us drive up on the balancing stone, linear actuators that will help us meet several other match objectives, and spare motors and wires incase something stops functioning. We have also been currently practicing on tile floor (hardly any friction) with some field dimensions drawn out in Expo marker and stacking random things like tissue boxes that we can find to stack.
We would REALLY like to have an official practice field to practice on, so we are testing in the actual conditions that we will be competing on. This would cost approximately $1500 with shipping. If we have our own field, we will also be able to host exhibition matches or tournaments with other teams at our school.
Our team has other needs as well. These needs include: team uniforms, travel expenses to and from tournaments, and additional registration fees if we qualify for more tournaments. We also want our program to be sustainable year to year and to build a reserve of funds to continue building robots every year and getting better and better as time goes on.
We estimate that we have approximately $3500 in additional needs for the 2017-2018 season if we qualify for regionals and beyond. Having won 3rd in our first ever scrimmage, we feel confident that we will qualify at least for regionals.
We would really appreciate your financial support to help our team become the championship team we know we can be!