Sunday, October 18, 2009

Fundraising

Ok. I am going to start posting regular updates here regarding everything from build info, to fundraising info.

Anyway, first topic:
Fundraising.
We need to go into a heavy duty fundraising mode starting next week. Whether it is selling candy at school, making donations to the club, convincing neighbors/family members to make donations or organizing events, we need to really start earning money so that we can actually do something this year. I already have a number of ideas and I am working on making them happen, but everyone needs to contribute and everyone needs to help me with this. My first big idea is a Volleyball Game/Cookout at the beach. If I can work out the details, and we can get 50 people to show up, we could rather easily earn $500+ in a single day. Other ideas involve either car washes at school, some sort of event at a Sam's Club(which will match whatever we earn), concert of some sort, or some sort of tournament. I will be looking into all of these, but I would like everyone else to do their part and start by simply coming up with some ideas.

There are other ways of getting money though. I would encourage everyone to contact friends and family to see if any businesses wish to sponsor the club. I am also going to be looking into the possibility of getting a grant for the club. Brian will probably be selling candy at school, and I would encourage other people to start doing that as well.

Ultimately, my fundraising goal for January is $12,000. I am hoping for more, but I am expecting less.

In line with these lower expectations, I am going to be proposing a rewrite of the club charter, as well as a reorganization of the club in general so as to better facilitate the spending of club funds. I will also be encouraging teams to focus on making Beetle/Ant weight robots. We may still have a 15lb bot that we work on as a club, but I do not believe that we will be able to do any more than a single 15 lb bot. Copperhead will be needing some minor modifications, but nothing extensive will be necessary.
Posted by Alan Dreher at 12:37 AM

10 comments:

Mr. Curhan said...

Just remember this whole thing started at PV because a few kids who were really into battlebots wanted to enter school based competitions and needed a team to do so. They didn't start the club because they wanted to sit around in unproductive meetings debating rules and governance. They wanted to build bots and compete.

This is not a class; you don't get credit for attendance, or bringing food to meetings, or engaging in discussions way off on a tangent containing phrases like "titanium full body spinner..."

As a club you need to center the team around who really wants to make a contribution and get stuff done. Those that meet this first requirement need to formulate a game plan where they will put as much effort as possible (even at night and on weekends) into making each step of the process happen.

This might involve buying or hunting down materials, tools, and finished parts from hobby stores or on the internet. It might involve spending a few hours one night making a part out of a sheet of material and carefully putting holes in it and cutting the outline to size. It might involve rigging up the RC system all spread out on a wooden board and making sure the controls and signals all work properly before you cram it into a bot.

The bot design(s)that you select to build need to be realistic given your resources and collective skill set. There is a wealth of info on the internet relating to battlebots including generic construction details, battle videos, team blogs and websites. Do your homework here.

Building ant and beetle weight bots does not require a full machine shop like at Hydrogel, and are quite inexpensive to build compared to a 120 or even 15 pounder. Figure about $100 for an ant and $150 for a beetle, plus you will need LiPo batteries and a charger which will be under $200 total.

If you use G10/FR4 or CF material, sheet aluminum, sheet titanium, off the shelf wheels, shafts, bearings, motor couplings, belts, etc. you won't have to fabricate much from scratch. What parts you do fabricate can generally be done with a bit of creativity and patience using a cordless drill, bandsaw / scroll saw, belt / disk sander, and some hand tools. All of these can be found at Sears, Lowes, HomeDepot, or even Harbor Freight.

The main thing is plan to get stuff done by the team members. If you don't know how to make something, get a few team members together at someone's house and try making it anyway and see what happens. If it's not right when you're done, make it again. Just do it and don't instantly look around for someone to step in and do it for you. Take some risks and get your hands dirty.

October 19, 2009 at 12:40 PM
Alan Dreher said...

Yeah... Thanks Mr Curhan.

I want to build bots, I think we just need to figure out fundraising first because I don't think any of us can put the financial weight behind the club that would be necessary to really do anything significant.

My talk about rules was primarily aimed at Julien, and what I was proposing was pretty much abandoning those rules as unrealistic and unreasonable for a club of this nature. You are right, it needs to be about building bots.

It is not easy to try to figure out what to do here... And I don't imagine it will get easier...

October 20, 2009 at 8:18 PM
Mr. Curhan said...

If every team member donates $25 then you would have enough money to build a few 1 pound bots. I would encourage you to take the 5 most interested kids on the team to Hobby Marketplace and talk with Jim the owner about how to build a 1 lb bot with things he sells in his store. He has a couple of 1 lb bots there he can show you and probably demonstarte in his battle arena.
It's not as hard as it looks if you take it in steps. Don't expect to make a national champion bot the first time you build one, instead aim for just building a bot that runs reliably and is durable enough to survive a few battles. I wouldn't even get too distracted with the weapon system either. This too can be low balled for the first couple of bots you build until you have more experience with making parts and getting everything to work right. Once you can do that, converting a drawing into a bot fairly accurately, then you can let your collective imaginations go wild and design a lethal active weapon bot.
Just take it all in stages.

October 21, 2009 at 12:42 PM
I'm in as long as I don't have to work with pig man said...

Also, if everyone donated $25, then that would only be $450, maybe enough for one bot.

October 21, 2009 at 2:42 PM
Mr. Curhan said...

There is a 1 lb competition at Hobby Marketplace Saturday 10/24 starting at 11am. The details are on www.Buildersdb.com

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