Equipment Needed for High School RC Club! Help me generate interest in the hobby!

Julez

WOT and going nowhere
Hi everyone.

My name is Julian Waters. I am a Junior Year high school student at Western Albemarle High School on Charlottesville, Virginia. With the help of school administration, I've set up an RC club at school, and we're really trying to get people interested in the hobby and foster a community around flying.

Unfortunately, we don't have the funds to buy systems for 26 different members, and so I'd like to ask you to consider donating any items you might have, be it electronics, batteries, chargers, radio systems, or even complete aircraft or multirotors.. Your donation would allow us to greatly increase what we can do with the hobby in terms of our aircraft and electronics systems. If necessary, we can cover the cost of shipping. Please consider making a donation to the club, it would benefit us immensely.

If you would like to know more about the club or if you have gear that you would like to donate, please contact me via PM, or you can email me at juliandwaters@gmail.com. If you want to contact someone at the school, maybe to verify that this isn't me trying to scam you, please send an email to gosborn@k12albemarle.org (Gene Osborn).

If you'd lie to make donations in the form of a check we would also gladly accept. Please send any donations, monetary or material, to the school care of:

Gene Osborn
5941 Rockfish Gap Turnpike
Crozet, VA 22932

Thank you very much for your consideration. Happy Flying!
 
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Epitaph

Ebil Filleh Pega-Bat ^.^
Mentor
If I get some money in I'll see what I can do... good luck in the mean time!!
 

Burly

New member
You need a little more of a concrete sales pitch.
If you publish the state, city, and school name you're likely to get more involvement.
That's pretty generic info.

People have an allegiance to a city, state, or region of the country...and are more likely to donate to schools in their state or region.
They also get an idea of shipping costs involved in getting the donations to you.

So where's your school located?
What's the name of the school?

Edit: After I posted this Julez edited his first post...and it now contains all the pertinent information.
 
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Julez

WOT and going nowhere
If I get some money in I'll see what I can do... good luck in the mean time!!
Thank you so much. :)

You need a little more of a concrete sales pitch.
If you publish the state, city, and school name you're likely to get more involvement.
That's pretty generic info.

People have an allegiance to a city, state, or region of the country...and are more likely to donate to schools in their state or region.
They also get an idea of shipping costs involved in getting the donations to you.

So where's your school located?
What's the name of the school?
The school is Western Albemarle High School in Charlottesville, Virginia.

If necessary the club can cover shipping costs.

Here's an example of the message I've been using to ask for donations:

Hi-

My name is Julian Waters. I am a Junior Year high school student at Western Albemarle High School on Charlottesville, Virginia. With the help of school administration, I've set up an RC club at school, and we're really trying to get people interested in the hobby and foster a community around flying.

Unfortunately, we don't have the funds to buy systems for 26 different members, and so I'd like to ask you to consider donating the item you've listed. Your donation would allow us to greatly increase what we can do with the hobby in terms of our aircraft and electronics systems. If necessary, we can cover the cost of shipping. Please consider making this donation, it would benefit us immensely.

If you need more info about the club/school, like if you need to verify that this isn't a scam, feel free to contact me at juliandwaters@gmail.com or the club faculty sponsor (Gene Osborn) at gosborn@k12albemarle.org

Thank you very much- happy flying!
-Julian Waters
 

Burly

New member
Yes...
That's a much better pitch.
Good on you for getting this started.

The only other thing I would recommend is that you post the schools address.
Say that all donations should be mailed to the school care of Faculty Advisor Gene Osborne.

Also, what route are you planning on following...Ready to Fly(RTF) Planes...FliteTest pre-cut kits...hand cutting sheets of Dollar Tree Foam from PDF overlay files?

I know Flitetest has a group that is beginning to do outreach into the schools.
I just don't know how far along it is...or how much momentum it has at this point.

You might want to checkout these links:
www.mesarc.com is a Loveland, Colorado middle school program started by Jake Marshall.
They may be a good source of plans and info.
www.rcfoamfighters.com is an RC blog from Paul and Frank Petty located in O'Fallon, Missouri.
They also have PDF plans.

You also have Stone Blue Airlines just down the road in Lynchburg...www.stoneblueairlines.com.

Give us some more details on what you are planning.
 
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Julez

WOT and going nowhere
I've already gotten our school on the list for FT connections, but it won't be launching for a little while still.

We're going to start out with some RTF planes for training, and as soon as we have all the materials available in our school makerspace we're going to begin building FT planes and other projects. I've already taken a look at MesaRC's website, and we're going to be following their structure as closely as possible, but our school administration hasn't allocated any funds to us, as this is just a club as of now.

Thanks for all your advice and help so far. :)
 

Burly

New member
Wow...I've totally have missed that Connection section of the Forum.
I guess "Connections" really wasn't descriptive enough to catch my eye.
I was looking for something more along the lines of..."Flight Test in the Schools" or "The Flite Test School Outreach Program".

Connections could mean anything...family, church, club, camp, schools.
And in reading through the Connections section...I guess that's the aim...large groups of all the above.
You could definitely offer group rates to all those entities.

I'd like to see an emphasis on reaching into the schools.
I think you'd get more focus with teachers involved, as well as some dedicated build and storage space.
I'm sure as time goes buy there will be added emphasis to STEM type curriculums, as wood and metal shops give way to more advanced technologies.
Come to think of it...do they even still have wood working and metal shops???

As school clubs spring up, you could also have a Forum section devoted to them...where each School Club could keep a running thread of their activities.
 
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Burly

New member
Julez-

Your school has a makerspace?
Awesome!!!!!!!!
What's it got in the way of tools?
 
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Julez

WOT and going nowhere
Julez-

Your school has a makerspace?
Awesome!!!!!!!!
What's it got in the way of tools?
It's new this year, and since our club is the primary user so far I've been able to direct what kind of supplies we're getting.

Currently we've got:

3D printer
Laser Cutter (BU NOT BIG ENOUGH FOR A SHEET OF FOAM! I guess you can't have everything...)
Multiple cutting mats
Soldering iron
Glue guns
X-acto knives

I'm also trying to get assorted workshop tools soon... drivers, wrenches, etc.
 

rockyboy

Skill Collector
Mentor
You guys have a nice school down there - I coach a destination imagination team and we've come to the state tournament there twice.

To help with your RC club, I have a Turnigy 5 channel radio with two receivers I will drop in the mail to to your sponsor - it works great, and should help get a couple scratch builds up in the air for the club.
 

Burly

New member
Julez -
I noticed you edited your first post.
Now it has everything covered...
It looks very good!!!!!

I see Rockyboy has kicked things off...
A very nice donation on his part!!!!!

Julez, you said you have glue guns.
How good are they?
Make sure at least one of the glue guns is big enough for large wings.
The one FliteTest sells in the FliteTest Store is what you really need...and is a very good deal at that price (I shopped all around).
You need the capacity to lay out long beads on large wings...like the The Storch...
If you don't have that model of glue gun...then put in an order for 100 sticks of glue...and have them throw in the glue gun for free.

One thing about this hobby is that people buy way more than they ever need.
Especially if the deal is good...they go a little bit crazy and buy in quantity.

At one point HobbyKing had a deal on Hextronic 9gm servos...and I bought a boatload.
Last year at Flite Fest I bought 3 Storches and 3 Bloody Wonders.
This year I bought a couple of Versa Wings.
Every one of them is still in the unopened plastic.

I'm currently developing some DIY electronics (transmitter, receiver, FCB) to run a 2-surface elevon airplane.
So I need to keep the Versa Wings which have elevon control.

But I certainly can part with a Storch and a Bloody Wonder.
Use them for templates...to cut your own planes from Dollar Tree Foamboard.

I know FT gets Dollar Tree Foamboard delivered to them by the case. But they don't offer it for sale through the Store. The issue is that the shipping costs are outrageous. But if you can't find decent Foamboard in any of your Dollar Tree Stores...maybe you could get a couple of cases from Flite Test...(gratis of course...heck, you already shelled out $80 for glue...lol).

Actually, on second thought, I think you can buy the Dollar Tree Foam Board by the case ($25 for 25 pieces) delivered to the Dollar Tree store.
No shipping cost is involved for in-store pickup.
This is probably the best way to go...getting a pristine box where the foam hasn't been picked through and damaged.

I just hope the quality of the board in the entire case is uniformly good.
Has anyone here bought DTF by the case sent to the store????

Here's the link for a case of Dollar Tree Foamboard.
http://www.dollartree.com/office-sc...rds/610c567c567p16450/index.pro?method=search

I'll also send along 9 Hextonic 9gm servos, new in the bags...and some replacement gear sets for them.
And tomorrow I go to Harbor Freight and pick up some plier/cutter sets...a mini and regular size.
http://www.harborfreight.com/6-piece-mini-pliers-set-94931.html
http://www.harborfreight.com/6-piece-precision-pliers-set-31675.html

I'll send them off to:

Western Albemarle High School
C.O. Mr. Gene Osborn
5941 Rockfish Gap Turnpike
Crozet, VA 22932

P.S. Another buying tip, if you ever need servo extensions, figure out the lengths you need and buy them in quantity off EBay.
 
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Julez

WOT and going nowhere
Thank you so much guys!

Burly- we'v got THIS glue gun. I personally use it and it has the heat capacity to lay down nice long beads of glue.

We've got two dollar trees around here and the foam board they get right out of the cases are very good- no wavy lines recently and little to no warpage.
 

Julez

WOT and going nowhere
Good to hear you've got good quality foamboard locally.
Yes...80 watts is pretty decent.
80W should give is plenty of power, and a lot of the members are interested in building, so it'll get plenty of use.

I'll be sure to post pictures here when stuff starts arriving at school. :)
 

Burly

New member
Julez-

The package is in the mail.
It's the US Postal Service 2-day delivery...so you should see it Wednesday.
I included some more goodies.
There's a little blue charger I threw in...I don't know how it works...I don't have any docs.

I'd probably stick to chargers that can plug directly into the AC wall sockets.
This is the one I have and like...
http://www.hobbypartz.com/thac6smbachw.html?gclid=CPDjiMSCrMgCFVQXHwodCPIEbg
I'm sure there are newer models that may be better.

Other than that, there's a lot of other odds and ends.
I'll send the tracking number over to you in a private message.
 
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Julez

WOT and going nowhere
Burly and rockyboy- I'm sorry for updating this so late, but there's just been so much going on!

Thank you both SO MUCH for your donations. The radio system will be a great addition for our electronics and the kits and assorted other gear is terrific! I've traced out the kits onto spare pieces of foam board, and here are a couple pictures from starting the build. We have a build day today so there will be more to come!

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