79-TA
04-01-2010, 10:00 PM
As a student at CSULB, I'm in SAE, the club where we build miniature "baja" and miniature formula cars for competition with similar cars from other schools. Anyway, it all costs money and sponsorship is a major issue. Today, I got exciting news about a new sponsorship opportunity. I'll let you guys read the email as it was sent to me.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have some excellent news. I am aware that many of you may not be checking your emails over the break, but I need a response by Friday at Noon to determine who will be attending Tuesday’s meeting. The meeting is going to be catered, and since I haven’t seen any of you I told them that Hole Mole tacos were pretty tasty, especially since it is Taco Tuesday and they will be cheap.
After Dave Takamoto left Yamaha, we thought the sponsorship was over, and we were right. Well, Ryan Kosanke of the Design Department had an interview for an internship with Yamaha, and during the interview he mentioned that he had built a body for the Formula Car, and how we were going to have a partnership with Yamaha that fell through. He ended up not getting the job (all internships were cancelled) and the interviewer also said that Yamaha was not focusing on sponsoring any FSAE teams. He asked for a copy of the transcripts between Dave and I, and said he’d see what he could do. After wasting a good portion of my spring break working on the Baja car, I got to waste Wednesday at Yamaha headquarters, where Ryan Kosanke, Ryan Mifflin and I were presented with an excellent sponsorship opportunity.
The Yamaha contact worked his network and found a company that was celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2011 and has worked with Yamaha before to created limited edition vehicles. The sponsor felt that sponsoring us would help us to create a car that would certainly stand out from the crowd at the competition, and would be toured around to auto shows and trade shows across the country during the summer of 2011. Students are encouraged to come along with the car at these events, and airfare and hotel will be provided for these events.
As for the details of the sponsorship, I am tired of having promises made and then plans fall apart, and when I expressed my frustration they understood, and offered to deposit $1,000 to our account while we consider the sponsorship. If we don’t proceed with the full sponsorship they require a 6”x6” logo on both sides of the car and centered on the hood. To summarize their sponsorship package, All hardware components will be sourced from Yamaha. We will be given an additional $4,000 to bring the total cash donation to $5,000 to purchase supplies not available through Yamaha. We have two options at this point: The sponsor will provide $500 each for 6 people to defray travel costs to Michigan, or, if we compete in Fontana, Yamaha will bring their dirtbike support 53’ trailer.
The only possible hitch: the sponsor is Sanrio, the parent company for the “Hello Kitty” product line. I know, everyone is going to say “oh no, a pink car!” Well, I have some good news: the car doesn’t have to be pink, because their official color is “Cherry Blossom”. It looks very similar to pink to me, but apparently “pink” is associated with both Barbie and Victoria’s Secret, but “Cherry Blossom” is a proprietary color. It was explained to me like working at a Pepsi factory and asking for a Coke to drink – you get a similar beverage, but it isn’t the proper name. Since the Japanese are very culturally sensitive, I was told that we must refrain from referring to it as pink, and instead must use the term “Cherry Blossom” or “Sanrio” when referring to the color of the car. I was hesitant, but Ryan Kosanke was on board, and since he is in the Design department and liked the color, I guess it will work. They will have the frame powdercoated, and the skin wrapped entirely in vinyl graphics, so the design team will only have to focus on the shape, since the color and logos will be taken care of by Sanrio. They provided a rough sketch that was created during our meeting Wednesday, which I have attached to the email.
As engineers, I think it is our job to engineer a car and let the designers worry about the outside. We just want it to perform well. I’d like some feedback so I can determine if we would rather go to Michigan with 6 or stay local and have the Yamaha support trailer at our disposal (or if we would rather skip the entire sponsorship because “Cherry Blossom” is too girly a color for a car. Our contact for Sanrio, Ms. Aiko Takahashi, will be attending the meeting with some of the other people (whose names I have of course forgotten) so I cannot really discuss this with everyone before the meeting. Feel free to stop by the shop and express your concerns with me directly, or add them to the meeting notes link that I sent in the last email.
Michael Basch
President, CSULB SAE
http://csulbRacing.com (https://webmail.csulb.edu/Redirect/csulbRacing.com)
[email protected]
Here's the attached image mentioned in the email:
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif
04-01-10
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have some excellent news. I am aware that many of you may not be checking your emails over the break, but I need a response by Friday at Noon to determine who will be attending Tuesday’s meeting. The meeting is going to be catered, and since I haven’t seen any of you I told them that Hole Mole tacos were pretty tasty, especially since it is Taco Tuesday and they will be cheap.
After Dave Takamoto left Yamaha, we thought the sponsorship was over, and we were right. Well, Ryan Kosanke of the Design Department had an interview for an internship with Yamaha, and during the interview he mentioned that he had built a body for the Formula Car, and how we were going to have a partnership with Yamaha that fell through. He ended up not getting the job (all internships were cancelled) and the interviewer also said that Yamaha was not focusing on sponsoring any FSAE teams. He asked for a copy of the transcripts between Dave and I, and said he’d see what he could do. After wasting a good portion of my spring break working on the Baja car, I got to waste Wednesday at Yamaha headquarters, where Ryan Kosanke, Ryan Mifflin and I were presented with an excellent sponsorship opportunity.
The Yamaha contact worked his network and found a company that was celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2011 and has worked with Yamaha before to created limited edition vehicles. The sponsor felt that sponsoring us would help us to create a car that would certainly stand out from the crowd at the competition, and would be toured around to auto shows and trade shows across the country during the summer of 2011. Students are encouraged to come along with the car at these events, and airfare and hotel will be provided for these events.
As for the details of the sponsorship, I am tired of having promises made and then plans fall apart, and when I expressed my frustration they understood, and offered to deposit $1,000 to our account while we consider the sponsorship. If we don’t proceed with the full sponsorship they require a 6”x6” logo on both sides of the car and centered on the hood. To summarize their sponsorship package, All hardware components will be sourced from Yamaha. We will be given an additional $4,000 to bring the total cash donation to $5,000 to purchase supplies not available through Yamaha. We have two options at this point: The sponsor will provide $500 each for 6 people to defray travel costs to Michigan, or, if we compete in Fontana, Yamaha will bring their dirtbike support 53’ trailer.
The only possible hitch: the sponsor is Sanrio, the parent company for the “Hello Kitty” product line. I know, everyone is going to say “oh no, a pink car!” Well, I have some good news: the car doesn’t have to be pink, because their official color is “Cherry Blossom”. It looks very similar to pink to me, but apparently “pink” is associated with both Barbie and Victoria’s Secret, but “Cherry Blossom” is a proprietary color. It was explained to me like working at a Pepsi factory and asking for a Coke to drink – you get a similar beverage, but it isn’t the proper name. Since the Japanese are very culturally sensitive, I was told that we must refrain from referring to it as pink, and instead must use the term “Cherry Blossom” or “Sanrio” when referring to the color of the car. I was hesitant, but Ryan Kosanke was on board, and since he is in the Design department and liked the color, I guess it will work. They will have the frame powdercoated, and the skin wrapped entirely in vinyl graphics, so the design team will only have to focus on the shape, since the color and logos will be taken care of by Sanrio. They provided a rough sketch that was created during our meeting Wednesday, which I have attached to the email.
As engineers, I think it is our job to engineer a car and let the designers worry about the outside. We just want it to perform well. I’d like some feedback so I can determine if we would rather go to Michigan with 6 or stay local and have the Yamaha support trailer at our disposal (or if we would rather skip the entire sponsorship because “Cherry Blossom” is too girly a color for a car. Our contact for Sanrio, Ms. Aiko Takahashi, will be attending the meeting with some of the other people (whose names I have of course forgotten) so I cannot really discuss this with everyone before the meeting. Feel free to stop by the shop and express your concerns with me directly, or add them to the meeting notes link that I sent in the last email.
Michael Basch
President, CSULB SAE
http://csulbRacing.com (https://webmail.csulb.edu/Redirect/csulbRacing.com)
[email protected]
Here's the attached image mentioned in the email:
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif
04-01-10