National FIRST Shirt Day

[ebmonon36]

I was sitting in my Engineering 103 class at Purdue this morning and I was wondering how many people in the room are involved with FIRST. I came up with the idea that maybe everyone could wear a FIRST related shirt on the same day so we could all see how many FIRST people we see without even realixing it. I don't know if anyone has ever tried this before but I thought it was a cool idea. Any thoughts?

Eric

[Clark Gilbert]

I know there are a "few" people here that were on the TechnoKats-45 in the past (atleast 6). Also last week here at Purdue at the free Social Burn concert DJ and I saw a kid wearing an OCCRA shirt.

[MisterX]

I am up for it, it sounds really great and would be interesting to see how wide spread FIRST is. just say a date and I'll spread the word to all my fellow L33Ts that dont check out the site

[Pin Man]

sounds good but I think only 17% of the kids involved with FIRST actually go on delphi but other than that just tell me when...

[Tytus Gerrish]

im in

[kane]

Originally posted by Clark Gilbert
I know there are a "few" people here that were on the TechnoKats-45 in the past (atleast 6). Also last week here at Purdue at the free Social Burn concert DJ and I saw a kid wearing an OCCRA shirt.

Social burn puts on a good show, i've seen a few at a few concerts i've been at.

but yeah sure im in

[ebmonon36]

How much time do we need to get the word out for such a thing? Are some days of the week better than others?

[Ken Patton]

What a cool idea....this would be a great way to build up the visibility of FIRST everywhere.

How about picking the same day every month (say, the 13th) to wear the shirts? That way, over time we would have a growing number of people who learn that they are supposed to "dress up" on that day.

Why the 13th? Its easy to remember.

Ken

[Bill Gold]

Everyday is FIRST shirt day for me ;)

[Ryan Dognaux]

Sounds good :)

And if anyone would like to donate a team shirt to my ever growing FIRST shirt collection, IM or PM me :)

Hopefully soon I'll get a picture up with my new team 93 shirt on :D

[Kevin A]

Maybe on fridays?? every other friday or somethin?

Im in

[ebmonon36]

I think I like the once a month thing or even once every 3 months. If we do it too often, it could not only wear out the shirts, but it might loose the coolness of everyone wearing their shirts on the same day.
Eric

[JVN]

Originally posted by Bill Gold
Everyday is FIRST shirt day for me ;)

Yep, I have more FIRST t-shirts than "other" t-shirts. Significantly more. ;)

My roomate and I talked about it today, and we realized that one or both of us is always wearing a FIRST shirt.

[Mike Schroeder]

i dont tend to walk out of the house, wearing team 25's colors, mainly cause they always stick me with a shirt thats to small, and well hawiian shirts in NJ makes people wonder :p but i wear my Team 93,103,56,Brunwick Eruption Crew shirt, PARC crew shirt and soon 229 shirt all over the place

[Ashley Weed]

sounds great.. I know I'd love to see it on campus!

I think the best thing would be to keep it on a standard monthly date like the 13th.

[Rich Wong]

Originally posted by Ken Patton
What a cool idea....this would be a great way to build up the visibility of FIRST everywhere.

How about picking the same day every month (say, the 13th) to wear the shirts? That way, over time we would have a growing number of people who learn that they are supposed to "dress up" on that day.

Why the 13th? Its easy to remember.

Ken

How about the FIRST Saturday of every month?
:D

[Tytus Gerrish]

ya, F.I.R.S.T. Saturday

[Stephanie]

excellent, as the FIRST saturday of september is coming up :)

[ebmonon36]

LETS DO IT!!
Eric

[Leon Machado IV]

Well a bunch of us are gonna be at Riverrage so that won't be that hard.

[MisterX]

PLus the good thing about Saturday is that more poeple typically go out on that day rather then other such days so it would be the whole public and not just those students at school that already know about a such existing club:p

[Rickertsen2]

I'll tell my team

[Wetzel]

Originally posted by Bill Gold
Everyday is FIRST shirt day for me ;)

Word.

Wetzel

[P1NKfreak13]

i'll do it...im totally in!

[MisterX]

I have already told all of the returning FIRSTer and even the ALumni about it in an e-mail to the teams list! So the word is out in L33T Land

[Rich Wong]

For the 1st FIRST (T-shirt) Pride Day, Sat. Sept. 6,

I'll be wearing my 2003 FIRST Volunteer T-shirt
on Virginia Beach, VA!
Look for me.
:)

[Mike Martus]

Chief Delphi members and coaches wear their team shirts every Tuesday in school.

On Friday many staff members from custodians to administration wear our team shirt because it has the school colors. We give all staff members a shirt at the start of the year if they don't have one.

You would be surprised how many people walk up to you in the mall and say they are members of another team or know of the FIRST program.

[Koko Ed]

My wife (a fellow X-Cat) gets all up in arms when I wear my shirt for anything other than FIRST(i.e. casual wear, work, ect.). Geez! It's not like tie dye is hard to clean or something!:rolleyes:

[Amanda Aldridge]

i'm in. i've been trying to find other former FIRST-ers down here. Count me in!

[Elgin Clock]

Yeah, definately won't be a hard thing to do this FIRST Saturday!!

River Rage or bust!!!

[Trashed20]

I already met 3 different random people that were associated with robotics. Its neat. Im sure there are hundred more too.

[Amanda Aldridge]

tee hee. i saw someone at the pizza hut in purdue west wearing a 2003 Championship T-shirt. unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to ask her where she was from before she left. i also met a kid whose mom's best friend is someone special related to FIRST, but that's an entirely different story, for an entirely different topic.

[Tytus Gerrish]

September 6

Im gonna be wearing my SwampThing Gear

[kmcclary]

Is the goal to meet others elsewhere, or help your own team recruit? The optimum for the first would be during a global school break time, whereas the second would be near the start of the school year while most schools are session. Much different goals. (I'll discuss the latter here, as IMHO it could help the team more...)

I'd avoid a particular day of the month (e.g. "the 13th") because 2/7 of the time it would fall on a weekend, and no one at school would see it. Similarly, I feel we should avoid Mondays, as a lot of holidays fall on it.

If monthly, how about the "Last Friday of each Month"? Friday is the "casual day" at a lot of companies.

If you want it once a year, I'd suggest "the last Friday in September". Several reasons:
- It's coming up soon (we can do it this year);
- Most schools are in session that day every year;
- It helps team recruiting by advertising their presence near the START of the school year yet AFTER the "start of year confusion" settles down; and
- It gives you an excuse to "encourage" your industry supporters at "Casual Friday" companies to wear theirs as well to drum up more support for mentoring. :D

What is the goal of the Shirt Day?

- Keith

[Jferrante]

Id have to disagree with the idea of keeping it to weekdays only. First, yes we do want the shirts seen in schools and offices where they can attract attention from people who may want to support the team or become a member themselves. However, we also want to have the entire local communities seeing the shirts where you can get more diversified interest and maybe even a bit of news coverage (not that the news will notice, but you never know).
Second, some schools (my old high school and my college due to the program i'm in) require uniforms. It would be impossible for people in those situations to wear there shirts on weekdays while in school.
I like the idea of the FIRST saturday, or the FIRST of the month, or something along those lines.. the FIRST of the month would probably be better so that it does rotate between weekends and weekdays and ill be able to participate 2 out of 7 times.

[Nick Seidl]

I was wearing a 2002 Nationals FIRST shirt around Purdue earlier this week. Went fountain running with it. Most of the 461 staff was wearing their shirts at the FIRST callout last night too.

[kmcclary]

Originally posted by Jferrante
[...]some schools (my old high school and my college due to the program I'm in) require uniforms. It would be impossible for people in those situations to wear [their] shirts on weekdays while in school.

I like the idea of the FIRST Saturday, or the FIRST of the month, or something along those lines.. the FIRST of the month would probably be better so that it does rotate between weekends and weekdays and ill be able to participate 2 out of 7 times. Excellent points. I forgot all about "uniformed schools". I really like the concept of "FIRST on the First"... It's a lot easier to remember that way! :)

- Keith

[Jillian B.]

Wouldn't weekends make more sense. At school, you're all on the same team anyway, so there's no surprise. However, the weekends, who knows where you'll go and who you see. So, I'm all for the FIRST Saturday of each month. And yay! RiverRage is soon, and a FIRST Saturday.

Now I just gotta get a team shirt (I'm on a different team, attending a different school, such fun)....

Woohoo! Look for me wearing some type of FIRST shirt!

Jill

[BandChick]

This is a GREAT idea, but i have a feeling it would be really hard to promote such a thing. True, many FIRSTers do read chiefdelphi, but what about those that don't? it would be next to impossible to have EVERY team advertise FIRST t-shirt day on their websites. If you could find a way to have FIRST promote it on the official site, then maybe it would actually be possible. The other concern is what about those students/advisors/etc. that DONT have internet access? by word of mouth there is no way that everyone would be able to be involved. I think it's awesome, and we should do it, but i think a little bit more planning may be necessary.

As well, everyone here wants to meet more FIRST people, but my question is, if we're advertising FIRST shirt day on chiefdelphi, who wouldn't you already know from chiefdelphi? just a thought as i know more than half of the cd community.

[Aignam]

Maybe a few people can get together and search around for contact information for the team leaders of as many teams as possible and contact them, asking for support. The season will be in full swing soon, so whoever would do this had better get started soon.

[ebmonon36]

We will go ahead and do it on this Saturday and hopefully it will spread around and everyone will get the word for later months when we do this. I think most teams have at least one person that reads CD so they can tell their teammates who don't. I don't know if CD could send an e-mail like they did that other one last week. I think that would help for those who registered but don't really keep current with the forums.
Eric

[Aignam]

Ask Brandon.

[danielkitchener]

How bout this: Kickoff is FIRST shirt day. Combine it with national prayer bead day for us programmers (I really hope they dont give us something hard to do, like synchronizing motors which dont go the same speed (as happened with the Team 408 Roboticks last year)).

[kmcclary]

It's sounding like consensus is leaning toward "FIRST Saturday" each month, right?

Originally posted by danielkitchener How bout this: Kickoff is FIRST shirt day. Oooooh, that's right! That nicely dovetails in with a "FIRST Saturday" campaign, as Kickoff normally is the first Saturday in January. Even more reason to have it that day!

I still like the idea presented here to have it monthly instead of only annually. That way, students on vacation have several chances each summer to run into FIRST students elsewhere, also wearing their team shirts! The first Saturday often coincides with a lot of American holiday weekends, like 5/7ths of all Memorial Day weekends.

Yes, IMHO the best weekday candidates are either Fridays due to Casual Days, or Mondays to hit a lot of the American holiday time off long weekends. However, I agree with others here. Since the Kickoff is a first Satuday, that makes "FIRST Saturday" a more obvious choice...

WRT advertising it: You don't have to "collect contact names". FIRST has the "Email Blast" List set up for broadcasting messages to all Team Contacts at the same time. All you need to do is get FIRST to approve the idea. They'll then send it out to everyone at once.

Originally posted by danielkitchener Combine it with national prayer bead day for us programmers (I really hope they don't give us something hard to do [...)] LOL! Here's mine... ;)

The FIRST Programmer's Prayer: "Oh Lord, THIS year, please tear the robot away from the tinkering, 'robot mutating hands' of the other groups a little bit sooner than Week Six Saturday. Amen."

We don't wish to EVER pull a 72 hour Continuous Shifts Marathon Autonomous Mode Redesign and Debug Session ever again. Not only do we need more time for normal testing, no more new code for last second design changes!!! :ahh:

- Keith

[Elgin Clock]

Here's my thought on this thread and the subject.

First, if you want to stay with the original title of the thread and have a National First shirt DAY, then it can only be one day.

But in this post I am going to present three specific days to have it on.

One of the most logical days for this is Kickoff. This is the day that EVERY first team has their ears and eyes to Manchester, NH.
While this would not be the best day to wear your shirt to advertise FIRST, it is the ONLY day that all teams are pretty much doing the same exact thing.

The second day would be, Dean's Birthday for obvious reasons but I have no idea when that is... All I can find is he was born in 1951. (Any one know this one?)

The third day would be Woody's Birthday. (Also unknown)

But, for maximum FIRST exposure, wear a FIRST shirt everyday!!!

[Rich Wong]

I still like the idea of Natinal FIRST shirt Day every
month on the FIRST Sat. of the month. Once a year
is too little.

:)

[Jillian B.]

I'm all for FIRST Saturday.

It's often enough, but still not to much.

We also gotta figure out a way to spread this whole idea. I know for a lot of teams, such as my present, and my former, I am the only person who is avidly on here.

[Leon Machado IV]

The second day would be, Dean's Birthday for obvious reasons but I have no idea when that is... All I can find is he was born in 1951. (Any one know this one?)

As memory is serving, Dean's B-day is the Saturday during the Mid-Atlantic Games this past year (2003). I'm gonna do some more research into it however.

[Leon Machado IV]

According to www.anybirthday.com Dean L. Kamen was born on April 5th, 1951. Can anyone confirm this? Thanks.

[Rich Wong]

Originally posted by Leon Machado IV
As memory is serving, Dean's B-day is the Saturday during the Mid-Atlantic Games this past year (2003). I'm gonna do some more research into it however.

Yes, that is correct, Dean was planning to show up and they (his brother and the JnJ Director were planning to wish him a big Happy Birthday) but he couldn't make it down to the JnJ Regional.
(Dean's brother told us that it was his birthday)

:D

[generalbrando]

I'm for FIRST Saturday - good repetition, but not overbearing.

I don't know how we should decide which is best since there is no said leader, is there? Maybe this should become a poll and then the result would be to add events to the CD calendar and possibly a reminder on the front of the site? Maybe we need to bug Brandon about this.

[Jillian B.]

I think the best thing to do at this point is establish what day(s) we want.

Maybe someone ought to make a poll. Although, it definetly sounds like there is a majority of FIRST Saturday, Dean Kamen's Birthday, and Kickoff. Sounds like a great idea to me, as well as quite a few other people.

I'd say someone make a poll, or just tally up what has been said so far.

[Aaron Knight]

Originally posted by Bill Gold
Everyday is FIRST shirt day for me ;)

Stole my line :D

[Elyse Holguin]

w00t! if my picture cd would be nice to me, you could all see me repping FIRST in Cologne, Germany in my 2002 nationals shirt (the blue one, the gray one's just a tad too big..)

yeah, i like my FIRST T-shirt collection... yay to amanda and purdue!... and yeah, i hate this laptop already...

[Rich Wong]

Originally posted by goosefrom71

yeah, i like my FIRST T-shirt collection... yay to amanda and purdue!... and yeah, i hate this laptop already...[/COLOR] [/B]

I JUST COUNTED MY COLLECTION, I HAVE 14 FIRST RELATED T-SHIRTS FROM DIFFERENT FIRST TEAMS AND FIRST VOLUNTEERING.

:)

[Specialagentjim]

Originally posted by goosefrom71
w00t! if my picture cd would be nice to me, you could all see me repping FIRST in Cologne, Germany in my 2002 nationals shirt (the blue one, the gray one's just a tad too big..)

yeah, i like my FIRST T-shirt collection... yay to amanda and purdue!... and yeah, i hate this laptop already...


I can vouch for how cool that picture is :)

[ebmonon36]

I was afraid I would have to dig this one up from the depths of Delphi. Just a reminder, wear your FIRST shirt on October 4th.
Eric

[LizJJury]

i would also be willing to do this...although there are bound to be tons here at GVSU since we have a FIRST team.....to bad liz has no time for it this year. ah well. anyways just give the day.

[LizJJury]

oh one more thing. Oct. 4 and 5 is a free Renaissance fair. everyone come and have a good time. so i will be sneaking my shirt on when i can since i am working at the fair.

please come and talk to me since i miss my FIRST people!

~liz~

oh and just ask for Cambree Canon of the Cross and Crown

[Tytus Gerrish]

the 4th il be in Clearwater Fl i guess il have to wear it

[Elgin Clock]

Originally posted by ebmonon36
I was afraid I would have to dig this one up from the depths of Delphi. Just a reminder, wear your FIRST shirt on October 4th.
Eric

I'll have to wear it under my costume since I'll be scaring the heck out of people HERE (http://www.hauntedgraveyard.com/) every weekend in October, along with a bunch of other people from my team, and team 195 too!

[Rich Wong]

TOMORROW IS THE UNOFFICIAL 2ND NFSD AGAIN!
(NATIONAL FIRST SHIRT DAY)

:D

[Specialagentjim]

Originally posted by Rich Wong
TOMORROW IS THE UNOFFICIAL 2ND NFSD AGAIN!
(NATIONAL FIRST SHIRT DAY)

:D

I'll be representing at our B.E.S.T. Robotics build team meeting tomorrow and at the Hollywood, South Florida Oktoberfest. If ya happen to be there, juss yell your team number/name at me and say hi :D

[FotoPlasma]

Practically every other day is a FIRST shirt day in the Gold household...

I think Bill and I have upwards of 20 shirts. I'm wearing a 2003 crew shirt, right now, and I wore a 368, Kika Mana, McKinley High School, Honolulu, Hawaii, shirt.

Let the good times roll...

[Tytus Gerrish]

Ill Be represnting SwampThing And Her Crew in whatever im doing tomarro

[shyra1353]

has anyone else noticed that today's event is National-Wear-Your-FIRST-Shirt Day?? or was that just me??

and i wore my 2003 nationals shirt all day today...still wearing it now...

edit: spelling

[Jeff Waegelin]

I wore my FEDS shirt today. The only place I went was a small party to watch the football game, though. I did have a few people there make comments about it, though. Of the ten people there, four of us were FIRST alums.

[Tytus Gerrish]

i wore mine today to the movies, It was Verr wierd Because its Flouresent Lime Green and im 6'2" I could "Feel the eyes on me" and noone said anything

[Andrew Rudolph]

I wore my purple shirt to the ucf football game, just like tytus said, the eyes were on me. At one point I was walking and I realized that all around me was the frat that wears purple and gold. So at one point i was normal! Scary stuff being normal.

[Rich Wong]

For FIRST T-shirt Saturday, I was sporting a ventage 1998 FIRST Volunteer T-shirt acquired from the free-stuff FIRST gave out. It was in mint condition, pretty good for a five year old T-shirt.
I showed it off at the Regional committee meeting.

:D;) ;)