Week Ten: The End

My final week has come to a very interesting end. This week the team has left the state to go participate in the first of three competitions. The day before they had to leave, the president, Jason, called me begging for all the interns to come help them. They were rushing to try and finish up the car since they were behind schedule. Although the place was hectic, I was able to learn how to vinyl wrap a car as well as grind cut large pieces of metal. I really hope the car this year exceeds everyones expectations. I'm not sure when I'll be able to post a picture of it, but trust me it looks amazing!

I am still a little disappointed with the fact that I wasn't able to help the team out with the presentation aspect for the competition. I tried my best to get them to make time for it, but they were too busy and far behind schedule on the car. Maybe I'll be able to come in in the future and help them for the future competitions. As for the online fund raising, that will continue to be up and running. It has already collected almost $1,000 in only a few weeks. It may not seem like much, but every dollar counts, and in the long run it'll be very beneficial to the team. The more the fundraising page spreads to more people, the more money it'll be making for the team. It's almost like an investment; put in some time and effort into it and let it make money for you. 

Is online fundraising more effective than the regular means of looking for donors? It honestly depends on the context. If you are a small group that is still trying to get on its feet, then yes online fundraising is a great way to raise money and get yourself known. But if you are already a stable group or company that has a good reputation, then it is a good idea to build those strong connections with larger corporations. That is what happened with a Baja Team last year. I'm not sure which school it was, but it was an Ivy League meaning that they were already well known. This allowed them to get a large sum of money from only one donor, and that was their only donor that year. So long story short, it all depends on your network and what connections you have.

Overall, it was a good experience. I learned a lot about cars and I learned a lot about how stressful it is to be in sales, so you will not find me majoring in that next year. I wish I was able to do more, but not everything goes the way it's planned, but thats how business is! Just got to stay on your toes and adapt to the situation. 

Week Nine: Crunch Time

The first competition is going to be next week! The team is rushing to finish last minute check ups on the car. I still can't show you guys what it looks like, but the team decided to go with black and gold and it is going to look great!

I do have some sad news though. Due to the lack of time and the fact that the team has focused too much on the car build and hasn't put in enough man power on the presentation, they are planning to use the powerpoint from last year. Even after all my attempts to get them to start working on the presentation, they still didn't figure anything out. I previously thought they already started a new one and that I would be able to help them out, but that wasn't the case. Since the competition is next week and they are leaving on the 11th of April, There isn't any time to create a completely new powerpoint. I've decided to take it upon myself and update the powerpoint that they currently have, but the team said only to change the visuals and not any of the actual wording. This really restricts the thinks I can do.

The online fundraiser is doing well. We have raised about $650 dollars within about 2 weeks which is far better than me just cold calling companies. I am still trying to get the word out about the fundraiser; trying to send it out to ASU Alumni who will be more willing to donate back to the college. So if anyone knows some ASU Alumni, please give them this link!

https://www.gofundme.com/wguk6m64

As for what I have been doing on-site, I was able to help the team out with Discovery Day at ASU. I was able to talk to a bunch of little kids and teach them about cars, so that was really exciting. The team brought out 3D printed gear boxes and had the kids take it apart and put it back together. I also got to help little kids get into the previous year Baja car. It was really cute seeing them pretending to drive the cars. Some of the kids tried to press the brake pedal, but the team didn't empty out the break fluid, so some kids ended up staining their pants with break fluid. I bet their parents won't be too happy about that. The other days that I was onsite, the team had me taking out the gear box and clutch and setting up the steering for the test car. And when the team didn't have any work for me or the rest of the interns (Arkesh, Farhan, and Nassim), we ended up cleaning everything up and organizing screws and other parts.

This has been a good second to last week for my SRP. I am still a little frustrated with the team about their procrastination on the presentation, but it's understandable since the car is more important. Hopefully next year they can recruit business students from ASU to help them out so that this doesn't repeat itself next year.