This is Part 4 of a series written by guest writer Ricky Nietubicz on his experience on the Formula SAE team at the University of Delaware. FSAE is a competition where students design, build, and compete with small formula-style racing cars. Ricky was President of his FSAE club, and his team went to the Nationals in Detroit during the 2006-2007 season.

Let’s recap. By this point in the series, we have an eager team of varying skill and knowledge levels, that is well organized, a solid design, and a motor selected. Which brings us to the obvious point- until now, everything was basically free. Now you need materials. You need supplies. You need tools. You need equipment. So you need money, the more the merrier.

Funding for our FSAE team came from four sources: our “engineering” budget, our “student org” budget, our fundraising, and our sponsorships. This was an interesting setup in figuring how much money we needed from each, and how the best way to get money from each was.

Our smallest amounts of cash came from sponsorships. We were relatively well supported by our school and therefore did not take much time to go looking for major sponsorships. Also, don’t bank on too much in the way of cash sponsorships, I’ve heard some of the biggest ones were right around $10,000 to any one team. Granted, this sounds like a lot, but you’ll need a lot more than that. Remember that sponsorships are basically advertising agreements, and you’re not exactly on national TV every Sunday with a Cup car. Expect more in-kind than cash sponsorships.

That being said, we did pretty well with in-kind sponsorships. DeWalt tools for free, free dyno tuning time, reduced rates on all manner of parts. There are a lot of companies, from SKF bearings to Keizer wheels, who offer special pricing to FSAE teams. Never be afraid to ask, as the worst anybody can do is say “no.”

Our “school” money came from two places, in the form of two budgets. Each had different strings attached and was geared toward one thing or another. First, we had a budget through the Mechanical Engineering department, into which the College of Engineering also contributed money. This was generally used to finance purchases of parts that went onto the car, and to some extent, tools and shop supplies. The department and college also provided other support, such as access to a full machine shop with an assortment of mills and lathes, a TIG welder, and the like, as well as two rooms in which to work (one office, the other for the car) and other support. In return, we showed up for new student and prospective student events and the like, and generally helped the school advertise itself.

It should also be noted that we received support from our school’s College of Agriculture, basically with no strings attached. They had a Ford pickup with an 8’ bed that we could use to haul the car around, as well as a storage spot in one of the ag buildings, which unfortunately was next to a big pile of cow poo, but it was free, so we didn’t complain.

The second budget we got was from the Student Organizations office, since we were, well, a student organization. This budget was generally used to finance the clubs running expenses, from race gas to pizza, to computers. This system gave us a bit more latitude to submit special budgets when the need arose for large purchases mid-year, like when our Gateway computer decided, for no apparent reason one day, to start sparking, partially melt and fill the room with smoke. We were able to get a $2500 replacement quite quickly. These things happen. This budget was pretty freely given, as well as we obeyed certain rules, for which each school is different.

Fundraising was our way of paying for our trip to competition. It is an expensive proposition, as it involves renting a moving van to haul all the stuff, as well as one or two minivans rented from the school (thankfully motorpool has pretty low rates, basically processing fees, for student organizations) and a whole lot of gasoline. Hotels aren’t cheap either for an entire week, and we bought dinner for everyone almost every night out of the fundraising money, so the more the merrier.

Our main fundraiser was a massive lawnmower tuneup event, where we worked on well over 500 mowers, at $35 each for a basic service (blade sharpening, oil change, plug change, air filter cleaning) and more for more extensive repairs (you should see some of the basket cases some people keep running). So figure around $18,000, less $2500 or so for supplies and food that we bought, split between three organizations based upon how many man-hours each put in, we walked away with around $7000 or so each year, enough to finance our trip, with some minor dipping into our student org funds when needed.

All in all, we had the money we needed to more or less do what we wanted to do. Sure, it would have been nice to have all Snap-On tools, but Craftsman got the job done. Yes, it would have been nice to have a nicer this or that, but we were able to scrape and scratch to get what we needed to get done. There was always an element of “get it done cheaper” as in the end we did have a finite amount of funds, and things invariably change, and changes cost money so we had to save money wherever we could. This also helped in the cost report section, as spending less means that you get more points.