Cost

Costs

Robotics is an expensive activity. It costs about $1600 per team per season. The JMS STEAM fund covers team registration but Ms. McKenzie applies for grants and accepts donations to cover the other costs, such as upgrading robots, team t-shirts, project materials and snacks for meetings. If we have to travel for a tournament, parents will be asked to provide transportation and supervision.

I am looking for a business to sponsor our teams! If you know of a Columbia company that would like to be recognized for supporting educational robotics with their name on our t-shirts oodles of appreciation, please help me connect with them.

Benefits -- Why join a robotics team?

Competitive robotics brings together many skills that lead to success in life and careers. Students learn many technical skills, design process thinking, teamwork skills, time management and how to succeed under pressure, fail gracefully and learn from mistakes.  Universities and employers recognize the benefits of competitive robotics.  FIRST participants are eligible for more than $3 million in college scholarships given to high school seniors every year.  Employers such as Boeing, 3M, National Instruments, Honeywell and Disney are all sponsors of FIRST programs because they recognize the workforce value of all the technical and soft skills that FIRST teaches.