FRC as a school sport

[Anthony4004]

I was just curious to see how many teams are registered as their school (or multiple schools) sports team? Also, how many are considered a level sport?

For the MARS Rovers, we are considered a varsity sport and receive school letters. (We are still in process with two of our schools, out of our four)
Does anyone else get the same treatment? ::rtm::

[Blueamber]

Cyber Blue is considered an academic team and we have the opportunity to earn a letter as well.

[dcarr]

3309 students can earn Varsity Letters if they qualify. We are not considered a "sport" as typically sports = athletics at our schools.

[Christopher149]

A sport? Letters? No, 857 has never had recognition or status like that. At least the students can get the time off school :o.

[Anthony4004]

A sport? Letters? No, 857 has never had recognition or status like that. At least the students can get the time off school :o.

Have you guys pushed for it? I, a senior, personally walked in and spoke with our Principal about it with a letter of request and she loved the idea because we put the same (even thought we all know more ;D ) time in as any other sport.

[Jscout11]

11 has been giving out varsity letters for the past few years. This year varsity jackets will also be available, although these are not the same as the ones given to "athletics" but are instead custom to robotics (our colors are different from the school's colors anyway)

[MooreteP]

In Connecticut, the CIAC (Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference) now recognizes robotics as a school sport.
http://ciacsports.com/site/?p=3838

Also:
http://www.firstct.org/news-events/ciac-state-robotics-championship/

[RoboMom]

NEMO has a white paper titled "Thinking about Varsity Letters for your Robotics Team?"

Check it out here: www.firstnemo.org on the Resources page.

[Damiaen_Florian]

As of this year Team 195 was recognized as a varsity sport of the school and now receives varsity letters

[MamaSpoldi]

In Connecticut, the CIAC (Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference) now recognizes robotics as a school sport.
http://ciacsports.com/site/?p=3838

Also:
http://www.firstct.org/news-events/ciac-state-robotics-championship/
This was an awesome event and it was great to have that statewide recognition of our sport.

Team 230 members have been eligible for varsity letters for about 10 years. Of course, it probably doesn't hurt that our head adviser is also the Shelton Athletic Director. :yikes: Meaning that I believe that he knew the right people to work with to make it happen... and that we did not need to convince the athletics people that we were "worthy". It probably also helped that the band members were already receiving varsity letters as well. This can be a good leverage point for those trying to convince their school system.

[Darth Drew]

Team 1701 is currently working on getting Varsity Letters for the team, and we're hopefully going to have them by the end of this season (fingers crossed). We had started to formulate ideas about getting the letters, but it wasn't until we were inspired (at a competition last year) by team 1023's success story that our ideas solidified into our current plan.

[Bob Steele]

Our school has no athletics (other than an ultimate frisbee team/club sponsored by the PTSA) We also have no music or drama.

The "athletic" teams for the school are our academic teams which include the Robotics Teams (both FRC and FTC), our Science Olympiad teams, and our Speech and Debate teams

We actually have pep rallies and great support for all of our academic teams.

If you are interested... our school is Raisbeck Aviation High School in Tukwila, Washington. We have a new building we just moved into and we are a public school that anyone can attend. We have students from many different districts attending our school. No tuition.. but students have to apply.

We have approximately 400 students and it is a Aviation and STEM heavy school. Our school is actually on the same grounds as the Museum of Flight in Seattle. It is interesting here as if I want to discuss the Space Shuttle I can take the class for a short walk and we can go inside the full size Space Shuttle trainer which is housed at the museum... or if I want to discuss the SR-71 Blackbird ... we can go and see one.

Here is the web address for our school webpage.
http://highline.schoolwires.net/Domain/30

We are the robotics team from Raisbeck and we are Skunk Works Robotics
Team 1983. We are supported by many sponsors including Boeing and Lockheed.

thanks!!!

[cadandcookies]

According to the Minnesota State High School League, FRC is a sanctioned varsity level sport. However, letter awards are a high school level decision, so that varies. We've had letter awards since at least 2010, but I know of others who still have utterly incorrigible administration.

Overall, our team has a very supportive administration-- team members are allowed to miss school for events, we have working partnerships with the school's counseling, math and science departments for our annual STEM Career Fair, and we get announcements just like any other sport when we win.

[TNT280Staff]

Team "TnT" 280 has been awarding students varsity letters for the past 8 years. We have 2 schools involved but were secure the status of a varsity sport thru the school board, thus eliminating and issues with the individual leadership at the individual school level.

[ehochstein]

We've had letter awards since at least 2010, but I know of others who still have utterly incorrigible administration.


I would like to quote an teacher in one of our schools, "The administration feels that we are "too good" or "too proud" for shop and engineering classes, so they have been cutting back on them.". Math team, Science Olympiad and others get funding from the school, robotics doesn't. Sports are on a whole different level (brand new turf field/stadium) and they haven't won any awards in years.

So while the MSHSL affiliation has helped the majority of schools, there are still some where it didn't make a difference. Nonetheless, I love the way MSHSL has improved FIRST recognition in Minnesota.

To answer OP's post; all of our students can letter at the varsity level.

[Shrub]

According to the Minnesota State High School League, FRC is a sanctioned varsity level sport. However, letter awards are a high school level decision, so that varies. We've had letter awards since at least 2010, but I know of others who still have utterly incorrigible administration.


As a MN team, the same goes for us, although our match days are never announced (we got to go and announce for State, and our regional finalist win was announced this year) and many people at our school don't consider it a sport at all. Teachers and administration think it's really cool, though, and some people are positive towards it. Sadly most people think that sport = athletic so there's that. I'm pretty sure you can letter in it here though.

[SteveB2977]

We have lettering for our team and work hard to get it recognition = sports.

Starting last year, we convinced the local paper to include our team photo in the newspaper spread that had all the winter sports teams. So right next to basketball and gymnastics, there was the robotics team!

[Jon Stratis]

We've had lettering for 6-7 years now. The team came up with an intense set of criteria to letter, and the school approved it - basically, the criteria helped to show that the students were doing just as much as any sports team at the school, and that lettering wasn't going to be "easy", although almost everyone on the team for 2+ years does manage it. We have a requirement for 2 years or more on the team, and a certain amount of leadership has to be shown (captains, design leads, drive team, scouting lead, pit presenters, etc... there are more positions available than students most years!)

[pastelpony]

We just got lettering this year (team's 4th year.) At first, everyone said we were unworthy of them because all we had to do was "show up." They shut up pretty fast as we brought back more trophies than any other team.

[woudie]

My school recognizes our team as a sport, but we are not 100% we get the same benefits the other teams do from the school, and what is a varsity letter ?

[Kingland093]

Team 4215 has had Varsity letters every year we have been a team (2012 on)
We get our competitions and results announced like other sports teams but we are not considered an actual sport