Yes the robots are very heavy and expensive! Most bots were 80 lbs and up and they have a few thousand stuck into each one. Thankfully a lot of the parts can be reused every year to save on costs. This isn't funded by the schools, it's just an after school club that students can join if it's in their area. The money to run the program comes from sponsors and thankfully we have a lot of good sponsors in our area.
I have a two year old daughter and I hope she is interested in this program when she is older as I would love to help out.
Dale P.
P.S. Sorry about the large picts, I down sized them, but apparently not enough. I have a SLR camera and the file sized tend to be quite large.