WARP7 has access to an abundance of resources from our school’s Engineering-Robotics SHSM (Specialist High-Skills Major). Over the years we've realized that many other teams don’t have access to machinery as we do, and created a program to allow other teams to use our machines or have us machine parts for them. The application form for the use of our machine shop can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/865machining. Our machines include a CNC mill, a CNC router, a CNC lathe, manual mills, and manual lathes. We take requests including (but not limited to) gussets, boxtube, and plates. Team 865 has supported seven teams through our machine shop: 5834, 771, 1310, 5719, 914, 6867, and 6135.

FIRST, unfortunately, is accompanied by many expenses, which leads to the shutdown of many rookie teams. Financial stability is crucial for teams, not only for a few seasons, but in the long-term. Often teams don’t know where to start or how to properly fund raise. To make it easier for rookie teams, we partnered with the Grant Review team at Motorola Solutions Foundation to create a Google Hangouts video call in which they spoke about how to properly go about finding, writing, and applying for grants, and worked one-on-one with us to answer any questions we had. They showed us and 5 other teams how the process works from both the point of view of the applicant and recipient. The goal is to grow this initiative and allow FIRST teams to survive more than a few years and be able to purchase all the tools, machinery and equipment they need. Click here for the link to the presentation.