School Contributions

[Conor]

I'm going to be having a meeting in the next couple of days with our dean to hopefully get money for our program. In the past, we haven't gotten as much as I'd hoped, and recently it seems like we don't get near as much as other teams. I was hoping everyone might be able to help me out and just leave a comment about how much your school contributes to your program. I know some of you would prefer not to say, but for those who are willing, it would help me out a great deal. Thanks in advance.

[Conor]

I'm going to be having a meeting in the next couple of days with our dean to hopefully get money for our program. In the past, we haven't gotten as much as I'd hoped, and recently it seems like we don't get near as much as other teams. I was hoping everyone might be able to help me out and just leave a comment about how much your school contributes to your program. I know some of you would prefer not to say, but for those who are willing, it would help me out a great deal. Thanks in advance.

[Biggy72]

We get anywhere between 3000-6000 depending on how good we look compared to the other clubs. We also get a work space. Other than that we get a student shop with a manual mill and a manual lathe, but that's about it. The department also doesn't seem to care if we go to recruiting events and stuff like that. Luckily the overall College of Engineering and Architecture appreciates it and they have bailed us out from time to time.

[flavorPacket]

we get about $600/year (no joke), but the college is willing to loan us money when we're in a squeeze.

[84z28]

We have a confined room, limited machining time, and our school gives us no money. We had to trick our school last year into sponsoring us. Be grateful with what you can get from them, even getting reimbursed for something small is like pulling teeth.

[MalcolmG]

Although I'd rather not put an exact figure on it, we receive a great deal of support from our University. The Engineering Faculty gives us a pretty substantial financial contribution, and I imagine they're the ones who pay the bills to the engineering Technical Services workshop, who do a large amount of CNC and precision machining for us.

On top of that the Mechanical Engineering Department also gives us a large financial contribution, pays the rent for our workshop (strange set up, but they pay another department of the university for the space we use). They also just paid for a reasonable amount of work on our new premises that we jus moved to. Finally the university's financial department, who administer the accounts for the various parts of the uni, look after things such as invoicing sponsors (means we don't have to worry about paying tax etc because they deal with all of that), and I guess someone is paying the bills for that also!

Generally the university is very supportive of us, and it's great the people in charge all see the value of what we're doing (the head of Mechanical Engineering was our Faculty Advisor when the team started, and the Dean of Engineering just came from a smaller university where they were trying to get a team up and running)

I guess we have it pretty sweet compared to some universities, I'm not sure if it's because we're lucky, or if it's because of the hard work we've put in to get on the good side of important people

[emerjer]

Every year we have to fill out a budget request as part of our schools student ran governing body and every year we only get about $700. Most clubs waste it on booze and trips to vegas. So to them, that's a lot of money. As we all know, it's barely enough to buy a set of tires these days.

This past year I pursued the university and this governing body to help us get our car to Italy for the FSAE Italy comp.

I put together a lengthy and detailed budget request for the trip, gave numerous presentations to the university officials/dept. officials/student government officials. In the end, we received $20K. This was the most we've ever received. Ever. This only paid to ship the car and some people's airfare. The Italy comp. overall costed us a total of $100K.

Because we're not a club that emphasizes on minorities or has a prestigious recognition within the community, of course funds will be harder to come by. But the way that I see it is that you have to try. You have to make the uni. want to fund/support your program. Make them realize all of the good things. Give them a presentation on your car or program. Get more students involved and get to know more people around your campus. Anything that sheds some positive light and recognition. Cause once you have it and keep that momentum going, I guarantee it that things will be easier.

But one word of caution, dont F@#K up. Once you lose that respect, it'll be tough to get it back.

[BeaverGuy]

If I remember correctly at Oregon State, we got between 5-10K a year. This was due primarily to our faculty advisor lobying for money due to it being a senior lab and design class and there were a considerable number of credit hours amongst the SAE students enrolled in those classes.

[JD232]

We dont get much help in terms of cash, but we aint paying for welding or lathe machines, not to mention the basic tools.
We also get a huge workshop 24/7 and of course technical advise here and there... It looks like nothing but I guess it will come to over a $1000 combined together

[Superfast Matt McCoy]

We got a lot of money from our school, but we got it from several different places: the President's office, the Provost's office, College of Engineering, School of AME. We actually get the least from the Student association, which is the organization responsible for giving money to clubs.

So ask around.

[Kyle Roggenkamp]

Our school pays our entry fee. And they let us work on the car in the corner of a shop. 'bout it.

[CU - Andrew]

Cedarville helps its FSAE team a lot. First, we have a sweet machine shop of which we have unlimited use, with a machinist/shop supervisor always on hand during business hours and on Saturdays. The engineering dept. also gives us an $18K budget, and we are responsible to keep track of our expenses and report them to the dept. office (they take care of the tax exemption details). Finally, there is a team from the business dept. that helps us with the cost report/presentation and with fundraising.

It is true that the money the school gives us is less than the tuition the team collectively paid toward the class (FSAE is our senior design project, which is technically a 3-credit engineering course), but Cedarville is undoubtedly a great place to do formula.

[exFSAE]

Total cash? Up to $16000.