What does your school think of robotics? [Archive]

Lisa Perez

25-03-2005, 22:07

At the girls' school, we're considered the "geeky but cool" club, somewhat like the drama club (which is pretty intense here). It seems that pretty much everyone knows of what we do, and many are interested to hear stories from the regionals. People are especially hyped about the team participating in Championships... We get A LOT of support from peers, teachers, and administration - which is completely awesome compared to the first year, when the team was just considered a "shadow" of the Science Olympiad club.

My point being - it takes time, but every team will eventually find its way toward establishing school support.

techtiger1

25-03-2005, 22:09

Rafi A

26-03-2005, 00:26

pretty much our whole school knows of the robotics team, and it seems that a lot of the people with whom I have spoken know, appreciate, and support what we do.
We get a lot of support from our peers, teaching staff, and administrators

- Rafi Ahmadullah, nerd and proud

David Guzman

26-03-2005, 00:41

haha! I wish my school was like that. The other students have no idea what it is and they make fun of us for it. Were are defintely the nerds but hey we like it and we have gotten used to it so it's all good. It makes us tighter as a group. :) The administration and teachers love us though so thats a plus.

Funny Drew, we are in the same team and I dont feel that way. :confused:
In my opinion people in schoo people l aren't aware of what goes on with our team. However they dont make fun of us, they are actually pretty good friends and most of them understand that rootics is something that we like. Also some peple that are not relly interested in robotics have joined our team because of the artistic part of it. I will agree in one thing with you Andrew the staff and teachers love us. So Drew next time someone makes fun of you, let me know. lol :D

Dave

geeknerd99

26-03-2005, 00:52

nobrakes8

26-03-2005, 01:39

Depends on who you talk to.. Some people think it's awsome others think we're losers... But hey, it's their loss not ours, not one night goes by when we don't have 1 really good practical joke or stupid comment that you need to stop working for about 5 minutes just to laugh at somebody. (we don't take offense because everybody has their night to get picked on, just some have more nights than others.)

Meredith343MiM

26-03-2005, 01:52

Teachers- Ask about it ALL the time and are proud of us for making an effort that is academic-based
General Public- "Battlebots? COOL!" Me- "No actually (_____ insert nerdy and factual content based on that years game here" General Public- "ooh... I guess I'll... check that out sometime"
Fellow students- "Oh, so you're in robotics? interesting..." Some ask what it's like, some consider you a geek and laugh, others think it's great and become team members!!!
Fellow Team Members- Well... we just love being "geeks" despite the fact that we're really cool! :rolleyes:

Dorienne

26-03-2005, 02:03

We don't have too much of that kind of problem at our school. Our school is for nerdy and geeky kids. ;-) (it's a magnet school).
Our school never really was too involved until 2003. We incorporate teachers to come "babysit" one night in the build season so that our head advisor doesn't have to stay each night. This year, we had 15 teachers step forward (some for more than one day!) and help us out. It was great!
Also, our administrators weren't too into the robotics thing until January 25th, which was Thank Your Mentor Day. We had a little "Tea With The Robot" thing, celebrating our mentors and sponsors, inviting the community, parents, school advisors and teachers, political figures, sponsors, possible sponsors, and, of course, our mentors. Our administrators came to the TWTR, and they were so amazed at what we do. They said it was a shame they found out about what we were really doing now, than earlier. All of them were supposed to come to our regional, but unfortunately things came up and they were unable to attend, but they will be watching Nationals! =)
I'm very excited about their involvement. They really will be a big help to us next season, once they get even more involved (since they found out so late this season).
You see, this is why FIRST is so amazing. Anyone and everyone gets psyched about it. No matter who they are.

DeepBluSomethin

26-03-2005, 07:42

We're pretty unknown to most of the student body, but we're respected by the people that know about us.

Julia Magoolia

26-03-2005, 08:14

We try REALLY HARD to emerge our team into school life. Sure, we may get the geek comments occasionally- but for every "your such a geek!" we get, there are ten more, "That's so cool! How do I join?"
That means more to me then getting everyone in the school to not label us as geeks- it's the people we've actually impacted that count.

bradleym1559

26-03-2005, 08:30

Being our first year, our school hardly knows we exist, and if they do they think it is some geeky club. But that is about to change. The shadow claw can not be ignored! Plus, they don't realize how much fun it is...and addicting too.

StephLee

26-03-2005, 09:12

Our team has members from two schools. At my school, the teachers love it, and my friends think it's pretty cool, although I think they get tired of hearing about it after awhile. The yearbook editor loves it, and she's finding space for a ton of pictures. Most people think it's something like battlebots, and they just go "Oh" when I try to explain, though some of them ask how to join. They apparently announced our team at the winter sports assembly, but we were at Chesapeake that week.

From what I hear, members from the other school get pretty much the same reaction from students and teachers, altough the yearbook isn't as into it.

Our school board absolutely loves us. They've promised $10,000 from the budget next year for us, and we had the Superintendant and Assisstant Superintendant at our regional. Some of our mentors are from the board, too.

People already thought I was a geek before I joined robotics, so there's really no difference, there. :)

Jill1022

26-03-2005, 09:32

Hmm... I usually get something like, "Cool! You guys build battlebots or something?" from the general public, "Robotics is eating you alive!" from my friends, and "How's the autonomous code coming along?" from teammates.

Haha, I get the same exact thing, minus the autonomous thing, we leave that to Kyle O and Mike K.

Our team is considered the lesser known geeky team at school...I actually dont think more than 55% of the school knows we have a robotics team...and this is our third year of being a team!

We dont really get made fun of too much I guess, I mean, occasionally, but mostly we just get playful or not too serious jokes made by friends.

But does anyone have any ideas on how to make the team more well known, accepted, and liked? That sounded kinda wierd, I meant to say, how do we get more students interested? Everyone I ask to join says, "Oh I can't do that, i'm not smart." How do you guys get the word out that Robotics is fun, no matter if you can progam a robot or not?

StephLee

26-03-2005, 11:11

Haha, I get the same exact thing, minus the autonomous thing, we leave that to Kyle O and Mike K.

Our team is considered the lesser known geeky team at school...I actually dont think more than 55% of the school knows we have a robotics team...and this is our third year of being a team!

We dont really get made fun of too much I guess, I mean, occasionally, but mostly we just get playful or not too serious jokes made by friends.

But does anyone have any ideas on how to make the team more well known, accepted, and liked? That sounded kinda wierd, I meant to say, how do we get more students interested? Everyone I ask to join says, "Oh I can't do that, i'm not smart." How do you guys get the word out that Robotics is fun, no matter if you can progam a robot or not?

I talk about it all the time, and eventually the amount of fun it is seems to sink in. One of my friends, the least technical person I know, is considering joining just because I make it seem like so much fun. I guess that would be considered word-of-mouth, and I don't think it impacts more than a few people at a time.

Julia Magoolia

26-03-2005, 12:35

But does anyone have any ideas on how to make the team more well known, accepted, and liked? That sounded kinda wierd, I meant to say, how do we get more students interested? Everyone I ask to join says, "Oh I can't do that, i'm not smart." How do you guys get the word out that Robotics is fun, no matter if you can progam a robot or not?

Actually BUILDING the robot gets a lot of people on our team. "Power tools? NICE!" When my friend and I originally said, "I can't join that... I break everything!" Our team advisor told us, "Good... We'll give the robot to you guys for 10 minutes, and then we'll know what we need to work on!"

Ethulin

26-03-2005, 12:37

I believe that my school has a pretty unique perspective on FIRST robotics.

You see, we only have 450 students, and only about 200 of them are high schoolers!
I think we have about 30 registered members from our school, so 15% of our school is on the team!

We are a district wide school, who use a lottery to tell who they admit, so we keep our numbers consistently low. FIRST robotics is the only high school sport we have! For anything else (soccer, football, tennis, etc) you have too go too your local high school.

After we won the PAC NW regionals for the second time in a row school spirit in support of the team has really sky rocketed. We sell t-shirts almost every day. The astounding support has even amazed me, it was "cool (read: popular)" to support the robotics club!

av11d

26-03-2005, 13:44

I'll talk briefly about our school specifically and then hopefully provide you with some useful advice on changing the attitude your school exhibits towards your robotics team. "School" is kind of general so I'll break it up into individual categories.

Administration
Our administration is very supportive of the roboraiders. Both our principal and superintendent visit us at the NJ Mid-Atlantic Regional. Every year they are very impressed and make an effort to congratulate everyone on our team at the competition. The school board also recognizes us at a local board meeting by congratulating each one of us individually. The board meetings are aired on a local channel. While they don't provide significant monetary aid, they help out where they can. For instance, this year they are purchasing us our own trophy case. They've allocated us space along a wall at the high school This should go a long way in showing the school how successful the robotics team is.

If your administration is not particularly helpful, I recommend inviting them to your closest regional competition. Have them see how exciting and powerful a regional competition is! Maybe even give them a presentation on your team so that they see how cool a FIRST team is.

Faculty
I'm positive every teacher at our school knows about the robotics team. Teachers always ask me how the season is going, etc. Many teachers ask for demonstrations during their classes. The only advice I can give you on spreading the spirit of FIRST to the teachers is to give a presentation on the team at a faculty meeting.

Students
Peers are absolutely the most difficult group to convince that a FIRST team is cool. At our school, it's hard to pinpoint a general feeling. Some people see us an elite group of science students who do amazing things with engineering. Others see us leaders and college-bound students. Of course there is the group who see us as geeky, but not in a bad way.

I think the key ingredient in exhibiting an image of "coolness" is to show the school how successful you are. No matter what team it is, students want THEIR school to perform well. Also show them the non-robotic parts of your team. We've shown our 3D animation to the entire school.. and everyone is always so impressed. Give demonstrations during lunch periods; if anything, they will at least respect you for your amazing achievements in building the robot. Try to get a group of diverse students involved in robotics. This goes a long way in spreading the message of FIRST to the different cliques in the school.

In the end, don't worry about it too much! Just have fun!

Jill1022

26-03-2005, 14:23

This was from an article in the school newspaper about us getting letters:

“The Robotics Team is smart,” asserts Joseph Slaughterbeck, a junior involved in various athletic teams, “However; they don’t break a sweat like the football and track teams.”
This perception is refuted by most Archer GEeks members, Paul Verdeyen, a third year member, claims that mental work can outweigh physicality. “Whereas we don’t physically put in as much work as the sports teams, we put in as many hours, and sometimes more.”

For the full article go to High Tech Tic-Tac-Toe (http://archergeeks.org/bbs/default.aspx?f=3&m=3072)

Mike

26-03-2005, 14:57

StephLee

26-03-2005, 15:10

I don't think the whole school will think your a geek if your on the robotics team, it all matters on who you are and who you ask. If you're the most popular kid in school and you join the robotics team, all of a sudden its the best, most popular thing ever.

That's very true. Since I was a geek before, I still am. I wonder if that makes the rest of the team geeks by association? :)

Billfred

26-03-2005, 15:20

My school digs FIRST. Heck, they even gave it a subdomain: http://palmettofirst.engr.sc.edu/

(Now if only that correlated with a reduction in schoolwork this week! :D)

As for Irmo, back in the dark ages when I was there (irony alert!), I think there was a perception among students that robotics tended to draw the Honors/AP/IB (now) kids. And there is some truth to the statement--there's lots of them there--but it's by no means a prerequisite.

On the administration side, I'm yet to hear a bad thing about FIRST. (I recall my graduation day, I was speaking with the district superintendent on my way into the Coliseum. He's definitely pro-FIRST.)

[527]phil

26-03-2005, 15:21

In my schools everyone makes fun of us and calls us nerds. But then again the jocks may have muscle, but we have extruded aluminum :D

katiyeh07

26-03-2005, 15:28

Our team is known in the school, mostly from the science teachers, and a few other teachers, but most of the student body considers the team "geeky" or "nerdy". We do better than our football team who seems to only win one game a year, yet, the football team gets more respect from beating our town rival, than when we beat 10 or 20 other teams. We work really hard, but the only people we really get recognition from out of the school is the janitors that we've made great friends with, and the teachers. After each competition, we'll put something on the announcements that'll say that we went and competed at such and such a place, and how we placed, but that's about. We've altered our very narrow display case so there's pictures of all 10 robots, and some of our trophies, and its in front of the library, so its hard not to miss it (plus its pretty bright, yellow sticks out). But the main feeling about it is either wow, how can I join, or wow, that's real lame. It's a hard thing to explain to someone (and not have them look at you like you've just spoke in a foreign language to them) and have them completely understand it, and get excited about.

Sam Lipscomb

26-03-2005, 15:29

our team gets a lot of support from our school, even if we do have a slightly geeky reputation. :rolleyes: we aren't a club, with officers and dues - we're a team, with captains, the ability to letter, and any other privileges any sports team in our school receives. even though our board of education can't afford to support us budget-wise, it still recognizes us as an asset to the school.

students are a bit different. i know my friends have no problem with me being on the robotics team - they know it's what i love to do, and they don't consider it uncool or anything of the sort. some people think you have to be smart to be on the team, and all you have to do is work on the robot, but that's untrue. ;) when we recruit members in october every year, we try to attract artists, writers, builders, video game players, the works. there's something on our team for everyone, and we try to attract a diverse crowd. even if we have some certified geeks on our team (haha, love you guys :D), we aren't labelled as a nerd group. :)

i don't think, however, that a popular person joining a team would make the team more popular. maybe that person just wants to be on the team - his decision wouldn't really make others truly want to join as well. they might have a higher opinion of the team, but it wouldn't change what FIRST and robotics stands for.

servo175

26-03-2005, 16:13

I personally could care less about what the rest of the school thinks about it. Our team (like katiyeh07 said) really gets no recognition from even the faculty. I don't understand the lack of interest from the teachers perspective, we are the most successful team in the school not to mention the fact that it is one of the only one's with a future after high-school. When you think about it the only real people who complain or make fun of it are the ones who are involved in nothing. So when they get out of high-school and have no direction or promising future they can look back and realize what they missed out on

Mike

26-03-2005, 16:16

Chino 237

26-03-2005, 16:18

basically to sum up what mike said, our school hates us. they are convinced we take all their funds and thats how we earn our money.

BaldwinNYRookie

26-03-2005, 17:16

We are considered nerds but since when is that a problem? Robotics is the one place at school where it's okay to be a nerd. I say be proud of your nerdom, I wish I had a badge that said "ROBOTICS NERD". To tell you the truth, more than half the students at our school wouldn't be able to do this. Build a robot in six weeks? Forget about it, they'd tell you. Don't try to get the whole school involved, get those that want to do this, the brightest minds in the school will do. Seek out the willing, the able, and assemble your schools' elite nerds. Put a small army of nerds, in a room, give them a computer and some metal, and you will have a fully functional robot. Can I get an amen?

BaldwinNYRookie

26-03-2005, 17:23

O yeah, and I don't believe wrestling or football will get you even the slightest chance of leaving the state much less ATLANTA!!! I remember a time when being in the chess club meant you were a nerd, those days are long gone thanks to FIRST.

Sam Lipscomb

26-03-2005, 19:06

Sadly, our school still considers us a club. But I have yet to see one of our sports teams be the #8 seed in an international competition. :rolleyes:
haha yea, our football team was a state champion, but i don't see -them- going to atlanta and winning there! :D

tiffany34990

26-03-2005, 20:13

our school district reconizes the program but doesn't support it that much
as long as we fund ourselves and pay attention to rules and reg. we are okay

at my school, SFHS, our principle thinks it's pretty great. she always tries to come on saturday of ucf to see a few matches.

for fellow students...they think it's cool..consider us a bit nerdy but that's okay...we are all proud to be in s.p.a.m.

EricH

26-03-2005, 20:42

For those of you who think you have it rough, meet the (gasp) homeschoolers. At least two teams are pretty much all homeschoolers (1315 & 330). Homeschoolers have to: 1) rustle up funding from wherever they can find it and
2) Find a place to build.
On the other hand, you know most of the people in your group, at least by sight and name, and they know you, so you don't have to put up with the nerd and geek stuff as much. Unless you're already one. :rolleyes:
It's also a little easier in the recruiting department, though not much. Administration? Parents of the students, for the most part. They leave us alone or help out.

Crash&Burn

26-03-2005, 20:58

wow, first off, let me say, I believe the correct term for the robotics race is 'NERD'. There is a grand difference between the word 'geek' and 'nerd'. If you've ever seen Revenge of the Nerds you'd know what I was talking about.

I'd have to say, seldom, if ever, is the team acknowledged by the general population of my school.
But, when teacher and peers ask me why I miss so much school, and my reply is 'Robotics'... the concensus is usually positive. "oooh thats nice" or "hmm, so, is that, like, a new club"

My friends laugh at me and just tell me to join the cheerleading squad.

deathbycornchip

26-03-2005, 21:05

EricH

26-03-2005, 21:13

there is a kid in ne of my classes that says he could esaly lift the tetra on to the top gol (he is 4'10") and thinks he could build a robot by him selff (he gets D's and down on his grades so he is not to bright)
Show him a tetra. If he can lift it, show him a center goal if one is available. Have him try to place a tetra. (He probably can. If he were 3'...)
As for the building a robot by himself... Ask him if he means LEGO Mindstorms or a competition robot. If he says a competition robot, ask him how long it would take. If he says less than six weeks, get him aluminum, motors and hardware. Give him a challenge and say, "have this done in six weeks." If he succeeds, put him on the team.

vijay24

28-03-2005, 01:27

They may call us geeks and nerds, but deep down under that prejudice they know they want to be the hard-core, sleep-deprived, hand drill-toting, robot builders we know we are! (woot) :cool:

Kashi Chan

28-03-2005, 01:35

Hmm... I usually get something like, "Cool! You guys build battlebots or something?" from the general public, "Robotics is eating you alive!" from my friends, and "How's the autonomous code coming along?" from teammates.

haha thats so our school too :p cepts its why isnt this working? go check the programming! when its CLEARLY a mechanical problem :P *cough cough* jk jk hehe

Koko Ed

28-03-2005, 05:15

My wife had told me once one of her students commented that the team was just another way to "seperate the smart kids from the regular kids". What a sad statement and I hope the acception not the rule because we don't only take IB students on the team but the so-called "regular kids" from jocks to kids strgulling to get by in school (though they are required to show improvment if they are to stay on). FIRST should never be looked upon as some sort of adversary but an opportunity.

Winged Wonder

28-03-2005, 12:59

Our team is made up of two different schools (rival schools i might add) Cocoa Beach and Rockledge. The first time i walked into the cafeteria at Rockledge High, i saw two beautiful trophy cases just covered in PINK with trophies, pompoms all that wonderful stuff from our team... and was immidiately jealous. my school (cocoa beach) barely acknowledges our existance, and it seriously makes me mad. Cocoa Beach students make up about half of the team this year, and we barely get recognized. just this year before UCF we had a "Pink Day" for everyone to show spirit... about a grand total of 3 people remembered who werent on the team. it was seriously pathetic. We have a few teachers who are really into it which i have been begging to get to actually help out with the team because Cocoa Beach does not have any teacher mentors, and the librarians love us to death which is nice, but its not good enough. even if we dye our hair for spirit at competitions PINK, we have to dye it back before we go back to school if we dont want to get suspended for having "distracting hair". we had a student last year from rockledge who had no trouble having her hair flaming Hot Pink, but even with pink streaks, we'll get yelled at. (i know i'll feel the heat when i get back from nationals this year, but its worth the risk in my eyes) We couldnt show a promotional video for robotics because our principal was very concervative and didnt like how there was video of girls running around in pink body paint with bikini tops on (we later went through the video frame by frame and found that there was no such footage... :mad: ) My school is comprised of a great deal of IB students, so robotics kids arent really labled Nerds or Geeks, but i doubt we'd care since we sport pink "Nerdstock 2k5" shirts at school and competition alike, and i personally have a pink armband that says "I <3 NERDS". i seriously wish my school would show more support. we have this thing called "Pizza and Sodies" when someone/some people do something well extracurricularly, they get pizza and soda on friday for a small "congratulations". when we came back from the UCF regional, our win was not announced to the school (and if i was i did not hear it), the only thing i saw was a slide or two on the rolling announcements that no one ever really looks at. we never really got congratulated on a grand level... and when before i left, people were saying "good luck you guys, i hope you win this year" i was about to scream "we win something every year!" but thats not exactly gracious professionalism and it makes me seem arrogant and i dont like that. but the fact remains that people dont really hear about us at our own school, despite how well we've done in consecutive years for 8 years in a row.

i dont know.. i'm sorry for this really long Rant... just my two cents and a little vent in my frustration... but for those of you who really have supportive schools, i'm happy for you. :) you guys are really lucky.

Sunjit

28-03-2005, 13:33

our school suports robotics alot, You will be able to tell cuz we brought 700 pple to gtr regional last year and we will be doing the same this year.

were lucky to have all the suport, principle is also in love with robotics

KORN_lover_2007

28-03-2005, 18:26

Everyone I ask to join says, "Oh I can't do that, i'm not smart." How do you guys get the word out that Robotics is fun, no matter if you can progam a robot or not?

Yeah, I get that a lot too. At the beginning of the year I asked a bunch of my friends to join, and that's exactly what they said. But now that I've explained to them all the things they could do in robotics, I think a lot more may be trying to join next year.
With the students at our school, a bunch of them have no idea what robotics is. Well, they may have a smidgeon of an idea from the school paper, but I don't think they really get it. The teachers give us a lot of support though. I think all the kids who are on the team have a bunch of their friends on the team too, so we all kind of hang out with each other all the time. Although, we do get called nerds at school, but it's always in a joking manner. We call each other nerds all the time too, but we all know we love each other. Even if we weren't friends to begin with, we ended up becoming friends from spending so much time together for robotics. :)

DarkJedi613

28-03-2005, 18:42

Well...a lot of the teachers are interested when I tell them, but not much more so then like "what is it? how did you do?" The administration is interested, but not a huge supporter. They do fund us however and allow us a room in the school.

I'm not sure how many kids know we have a robotics team - not that many I think. Or if they do a lot think they can't do it. Which is unfortanate cause we could always use more kids. :(

Jill1022

28-03-2005, 21:17

We call each other nerds all the time too, but we all know we love each other. Even if we weren't friends to begin with, we ended up becoming friends from spending so much time together for robotics. :)

Yeah, usually when we get called nerds and geeks it's not in a very serious way. And some of us are so cool that it makes robotics a bit cool too.

PVCMike

28-03-2005, 21:35

We're pretty unknown to most of the student body, but we're respected by the people that know about us.

My team is pretty much the same way. Every year at one or two of the pep-rallys we drive around but my school is our band so no one else gets much coverage. everynow and then we get made fun of, but its only the night school kids so we just laugh and keep building...

WLitchfield

28-03-2005, 21:48

Being from a school of a mere 500 students lends the the robotics team to much notice. Few think its only nerds or geeks who are in the club but almost 90% is made up of athletes who often have a conflicting spring sport. The club also attracts the car fanatics in our school, one of those myself, who love working with their hands and customizing everything possible, so our robot comes out w/ a sick paint job thanks to our talented air brusher (Chris Yankun). So when we got the bot up and running in the school it tends to attract a crowd, personally I enjoy chasing them. Unfortunately myself (driver)and most of the build team ( all 5 or so of us ) are graduating so good luck to the team after we leave.

Freddy Schurr

29-03-2005, 13:10

Our school likes robotics. If it was not for our board and parent organizations we would not be in FIRST. They have help with being a FIRST team for 6 years. I would like to say thank you to them. But we would like to attend the championships, so maybe next year, EASTERN. Good luck to all the teams

Liz C

29-03-2005, 15:27

Our administration likes the team, comes to certain events for a bit and remembers to wish us luck/congratulate us, but we have to go to them to inform about our happenings (which isn't necessarily bad or good). Most of the teachers like the team (except the ones who can't stand it when their students get our of school for *gasp* two days). The students react differently: some think its cool, some don't really care, and some make fun of it. People's negative responses don't seem to bother me anymore; they're uneducated about FIRST, so they don't have a good basis for their remarks. Overall, I think we're a bit neutral - we function kind of independently. Like some of you said though, I would love to get rid of the "club" title.

dmurdz

29-03-2005, 16:39

Our school knows about us a ton more now that we won the Chesapeake (thanks again to Rage and team 53).

In fact, with all the publicity that we have been getting since 2 weekends ago, we are riding an up wave right now.

See everyone in Atlanta!!!

Termite233

29-03-2005, 16:46

Oddly enough, my school seems to barely know the Pink Team exists...weird huh? :confused: we have like 1 trophy in our school office (we have two schools on our team...the other school has the rest of the awards...) and its an imagery award whereas Rockledge has everything else. And its kinda funny cuz last time I looked at the award it had no base. it was just the three things coming up from the base. I asked where the base was and the Dean comces out of her office and says "I really don't know". Is that supposed to make you feel appreciated? Our school doesn't seem to care how we do at competition. They don't even seem to care if we do competition...makes me mad... :mad:

Tiki

29-03-2005, 17:28

If anyone were to make fun of robotics in my school, I'd personally kick their (for ettiquites sake) butt. But Anyway, for the kids that do know that we have a robotics team, they wish they were in it cause we get to go on those overnight "trips", because thats the only time they ever hear about it, :P.

Seriously, I almost punched a kid in the face for calling me a geek, and trust me, I look like no geek.

Cyberguy34000

29-03-2005, 18:34

Well I have to admit, most of the people on our team are geeks. I think that it's a title of honor considering it might as well be "boss" or "head supervisor" or something along those lines.

As far as school support goes, we're a district-wide activity with students from 4 local high schools. THe school that our main mentor teaches at with engineering courses and such brings in most of the team membership, but at the other schools we're fairly unknown. We're vagabonds, we've never had a perminent build site. The district supports us a lot by paying our entry fee, but we're still not getting a whole lot of recognition. Working on that. They'll give the lacrosse team a party for going to state, but it's still hard to get something for our team after winning 2 regional championships, and getting semi-finals this year. Guess it's just not a real "team compitetion" Oh well, we'll be working on that :)

Jeremiah Johnson

29-03-2005, 19:28

Does anyone else have the problem of being considered the "Geeky" or "Nerdy" team at school? A lot of the teams I've seen at competitions seem to have a lot of support from their school.

Actually, since our team is the MOST successful at West High, we shouldn't be regarded as geeks/nerds. But I don't go there so I wouldn't know.

QC648Elite

02-04-2005, 01:21

As Budda said, at one of three of the schools our team represents, our Robotics team is the best thing it has going. The football team, horrible. Baseball, nobody cares. Basketball, a joke. Robotics, more winning matches in one competition than our football team has had in the last 8 seasons, literally. Which is really sad.

But it gets worse...this school doesn't do jack for our team. The new prinicipal, is "supportive" of our team, but we get no money, and are not allowed to do any fundraising, because its competition to the others teams at the school. Every year, the congratulate our team on the announcments..and thats that. Its too bad really, but hey, its their loss. As a student attending this school, it does kind of dissapoint me..but like i said, their loss.

dubious elise

02-04-2005, 09:23

But it gets worse...this school doesn't do jack for our team. The new prinicipal, is "supportive" of our team, but we get no money, and are not allowed to do any fundraising, because its competition to the others teams at the school. Every year, the congratulate our team on the announcments..and thats that.

I hear ya on that one. All we get from our school administrators or our school board is a handshake and a weak "Thanks". In previous years, we have gotten some monetary support, but we will be going your way soon, QC648, since our district just found out that they have a nearly $3 million deficit from consistent over-spending. You would think that the most successful team in the entire district would get a little more recognition :rolleyes:

Other than that, most of the kids in my school know that we exist, and a lot of them joke that we are a "cult" because we spend so much time together. Who wants to go out with friends on a weeknight anyway when you can spend the night at school and play with robots the entire time?

Tully

02-04-2005, 09:34

The kids that know about us are either friends with a team member or a tech student. I guess those kids think it's kinda neat, but I'm pretty sure the rest of the school (we have about 3000 students grades 9-12) isn't really aware of the team. My French teacher likes to call our school the Shenendehowa Country Club because of how centered the school is around sports. All our school money is poured into sports, especially football. It's pretty ridiculous that football (not swimming or crew, etc) gets a lot of funding while our robotics team just gets payment for substitutes when the teachers need to go to competitions.
And it's not like the administration shouldn't know anything about us - we've been involved since year 1 and we've always done pretty well, but I think most of the administration has only heard about us in passing. No one has ever bothered to come see us compete (except the tech department chair).

...yep.

wk1989

02-04-2005, 20:51

It's our first year, I only remember one response from a girl in my science class:
"Meh, Nerds club."
"OMG Jack! You're such a geek!"

Vin211

03-04-2005, 00:40

You know at one point in high school. Our school did in fact believe that we were the geeks, nerds, and outcasts. But I think they finally realize that FIRST is an excellent program which is capable of molding many students in excellent leaders in the technology, science, and mathematics field. Knowledge and experience like that would someday most likely make us the future business leaders of top companies. I believe they would realize that someday they will be working for us.

As Bill Gates once said, be nice to the nerds in high school for someday they will be your boss.

Now leaping to college, Central Connecticut State University does not have a team affiliation as of yet. But we are strongly in support of FIRST Lego League. CCSU is actually the State Competition holder each and every December for the FLL competition.

So I believe that each school has its own feelings on FIRST Robotics Teams.

AJL930

03-04-2005, 01:23

At our school we are definitely look on as nerds mostly due to the fact that football controls the school. A girl i work with and goes to my school laughed at me because i was on the robotics team, but then i told her "Im proud to be a geek". Only a select few support our team, and thats only when we actually win.So our school doesnt exactly support us, even the administration doesnt support us.

dradius

04-04-2005, 01:29

hehe. if it were that easy, you wouldnt be asking then!

frankly, our school as a whole hates us. the adminstration doesnt know what to do with us because we dont comply with all the standard rules for clubs and whatnot. yeah, thats right, we're the deviants.

everyone else at school either goes "robotics? duhh...whats that" or "dude you build battle bots and destroy stuff?!" or "omg that must be so hard. youre weird." the computer science club supposedlly feels threatened by us

those who appreciate us are those who have seen or experienced. those who have any idea what we actually do have respect--especially when certain individuals rebel against the system and hack the network (hehe...oops).

unfortunate to say, only so much can be done with no support or help from the school. pretty stupid if you ask me.

PURPLE!

04-04-2005, 12:51

riboSquirrel

21-01-2006, 14:52

School: "o_o.... we have a robotics team?"

-_- yeah, that is the responce of a lot of people at the school. It's not because we don't advertise and support it... it's because people at our school is oblivious....
xxxour school could care less about us... our school is PURE SPORTS!!!FootBall(ALL the booster money... oits as if they think that there is no one els ein the school other than them) we don't even get funds... and i mean the booster money just went to a feild that they didn't need and insurance for their teeth... have YOU ever been attacked by a robot gone wild after school?!?!? heh whimpy football jocks... never been hit with metal but they need insurance when they have PADDING... we have our killer safty goggles mwahahahaha hey... everything yellow ... tee hee kewlal :D

BuddyB309

21-01-2006, 16:01

most of are people care more about our basket ball team than robotics. And yes, everyone thinks we are geeky or they don't even know we have a robotics team cause they tune us out when we tell them about it.

spamified88

21-01-2006, 16:08

Most of the school hates the robotics team because we go on so many trips and we also got to fly on a plane to go to nationals. I just think they're jealous and they don't have the commitment to join robotics. Oh well, their loss. :rolleyes:

bigboi146

21-01-2006, 16:25

well in my school people think it is cool. i get props for it almost everyday. the teachers ven give me a break on some homeworks

EOC

21-01-2006, 16:32

After a brief survey I have made a list of geeky teams at our school in descending order.

1. Chess Team
2. Scholar Bowl Team
3. Math Team
4. Speech Team
5. Robotics Team

As you an see we have barley cracked the top five. But we will keep trying.

june_2008

21-01-2006, 18:10

At our school, the band geeks and robotics geeks (which are pretty much the same people) are pretty much just considered geeks and otherwise ignored by the majority of the student body....

BotBattler

21-01-2006, 18:33

My team's Robotics team is usually ignored or unknown by most of the students...however, we are not as geeky as we seem. We not only have geeks, video gamers, and anime-maniacs, but we have "cool" people, a couple metalheads (the music lovers, not the Robotics team), a whole bunch of dudes who play basketball, and 5 girls (OMGWTFBBQ!).

But...a girl in my History class looked at my T-shirt, the team shirt, one day, and made a O_o at the 2004 Robot's name (The Dentist). She said "That's pretty wierd...do you guys even have any social lives?"

Yeah, that about sums it up.

Arkorobotics

21-01-2006, 18:48

Our administration likes the program and is proud of us. But all the popular football people are the ones that get the fame... They just call most of us geeks! But hey that is cool :D GEEK POWER!

Wayne C.

21-01-2006, 18:58

Our school thinks-

"geez- how does that team manage to do such incredible stuff when we do so little to support them"

If the real question is what do most of the kids think, my response is "who cares?" - the real question should be "what do the kids on the team think of their own performance on the team?"

The opinions of others (especially children) about the value of things they know little about is of very little interest to me.

Down off the soap box again....

WC :cool:

(?????- whats a soap box Mr. C.??? )

ChuNalt787

21-01-2006, 19:24

our school is so big and we are a rookie team so not many kids know about it or what it is. all my football friends know about it and haze me a lil about it but they know that it wont do any good and that I love it too much to stop. Also what they dont realize is that all of us will be making more money than most of them in the future and we are the ones that will be driving the technological breakthroughs of tomarow

ctshirk7

21-01-2006, 19:33

our school didnt think much of it at first but after our first regional in 2003 and ended up winning the competition part we had a pep rally and all that jazz(our school is really big on competition and winning...but we are gradually helping them realize the benefits of robotics) this year our team is using the administrative building for hq and thats cool cuz its like we're getting recognized by the school... but the biggest thing is that this year robotics is a lettered event... thats huge... so it just takes a while to get the school to understand the program but once they do you become one of the cool nerds ;)
good luck

Nitroxextreme

21-01-2006, 19:39

some of us have just come to realize that we are geeks...but we are Cool Geeks :cool:

Donut

21-01-2006, 19:47

We have growing support at our school, but it's very recent. We do not receive any kind of monetary support from our school, the main thing we get is a place to build and keep stuff. We have a good amount of teachers that help us by staying and "watching us" during build season (we have to have a district employee at all times to be working there) that way our main sponsor doesn't get completely burnt out.

Prior to last year, very few people knew about our team (even though last year was our 5th year), but we did fairly well at regionals for the 2nd time, and the Principal came down and saw us compete. We got to show the robot off at a pep rally last year, and at club day and a state-wide student council assembly this year, so we've become alot more recognized this year.

We do get somewhat labeled geeks and nerds, but alot of people think are robots are pretty cool, so it's not in a bad sense, more in a "we know alot about technology" sense.

pwilczynski

21-01-2006, 20:13

Our team comes from a very small school (about 450 people) so most of the people know about us. I would say that there is a large amount of support from administration, respect from the teachers and not much from the students. Because we are such a small school, most of the students who are not involved have at least a few friends who are, so we don't get made fun of much. There are people who call us nerds, but its all in good fun :)
Overall, we have a pretty supporting school. However, jurisdiction-wise, we are probably the most troublesome group. We aren't a team, with letters or anything, and we really aren't a club. I mean, what club meets almost every day for 6 weeks and sometimes pulls 40+ hour weekends? So in that respect we have a slight problem with the administration in the specifics of what we are allowed to do and where we are allowed to go.

TEAM456MS

21-01-2006, 23:24

I come from a school of a little over 1,200 and everyone knows exactly what the robotics team is. We are one of the most respected groups in the school and are considered the "popular" group in school.

Daniel Morse

22-01-2006, 00:13

At our school, school pride is below zero. I would assume the most common thought of the average student at my school is "I am not smart enough to do that" or "I am not that nerdy". Nerds are not really made fun of at our school, they are left alone, and other people usually just place them in a group that they will be a part of. This basically means that we are left alone as a team, people know we exist, but don't care.

SURVIVORfan44

22-01-2006, 13:25

The people of my high school could care less about robotics. They are too simple minded to understand anything. I feel sorry for them. (Well, some of them). We are the only team or activity that ever wins anything at our school. If you combined all the games our sports teams have won, they still wouldn't compare to how many matches we have won. So once our school knew that we were actually successful, they decided to cut us off and canceled our robotics team. Sounds foolish eh? The people that were on the robotics team aren't really considered "nerds" at our school. We had people on our team such as the valedictorian, the prom queen, the homecoming king, and the quarterback of the football team.

Nita

22-01-2006, 15:48

At our school, the band geeks and robotics geeks (which are pretty much the same people) are pretty much just considered geeks and otherwise ignored by the majority of the student body....A lot of our team members were also in band but most of them quit after their freshmen year due to lack of space in their schedules.

Anyway, my school knows us as 'the people who sell truffles' because that's our major fundraiser. :P

Clam

22-01-2006, 21:38

A lot of our team members were also in band but most of them quit after their freshmen year due to lack of space in their schedules.

Anyway, my school knows us as 'the people who sell truffles' because that's our major fundraiser. :P

Yea, and frankly I am known to be "the truffle seller"

But it's more than just that, some people I've talked to who aren't in robotics think we're a bunch of smart people/ geeks/ nerds/ genieses... u get the idea. And that their intelligence cannot compare and status cannot go down that low to join. But they dunno what they're missing! Seesh! :cool:

Cpt_Dave_Lister

23-01-2006, 03:05

T_T most of the people at our school don't even know of our existence..

lpbangel

23-01-2006, 10:08

they show a lot of support at our school

Josh Murphy

23-01-2006, 11:58

people at our school don't even care so people don't feel bad. it is the best thing going here at our school but is so lowly recognized. as they say the black cloud that covers pch prevents that from happening. we were at the board meeting a few weeks ago and our occra team was highlighted and the people there were actually shocked at our success we had the best program in the county winning 8 awards in 6 weeks plus the founders award similar to the chairmans so it was a good year for us but yes we are overlooked!!!!!!!!
:) :eek: :eek: :(

MyNameHere

23-01-2006, 13:10

Most people at my school either don't know or don't acknowledge the fact that we have a robotics team. But, it is not seen as nerdy as it could be b/c we also have a science olympiad team, and that has a good number of kids. To be perfectly honest though, the kids in robotics and science olympiad are the "nerds" of the school.

kawelch

23-01-2006, 14:09

The students on our Robotics team must deal with open hostilities from other students and even some teachers. Now that we are in build season several teachers that normally give small assignments or no homework have increased the load to make it difficult for Robotics. Our students have been assaulted because it is a "smarts" activity. Every day that the entire team does not just quit I consider a victory.

sheyna

23-01-2006, 14:19

we are definitely the "geek" club of our school. my school is an all sports school if u in nething besides sports such as robotics or debate you are considered a geek. because we devote all of our time to robotics our school mates gave us the nickname lab rats which is out team name. they don't make fun of us they kind of admire us. they constantly ask us how we do it some of them are just afraid to join because they think it is extremely hard. when we go to competition i kno they are not going to be there to support us because they dont have a way to get out to the competition, which is kind of sad :( .

~sheyna

Aburame Shino

23-01-2006, 14:31

"What's FIRST Robotics?"

I hear that one a lot whenever I'm telling somebody about the team. The only people who really know about FIRST are the people who take multiple technology classes and/or go to Tesla, our school district's engineering charter school.

Zyik

23-01-2006, 20:28

" We have a robotics club?" is the response I get the most. Sometimes I talk about and people say something about a kid who isn't in the club and claims he is and because of that is saying he's better then everyone. *sigh*

IraJason

23-01-2006, 23:56

I must say, seeing as we are a rookie team, we are actually quite well known in our school. People have asked me about the competitions and what we do after hearing about the team on our school announcements. Our school district has given us quite a bit of exposure, with our picture being on the school district website (which everyone must go to in our school to get onto the internet), saying our results on the daily annoucements, and allowing our local paper to write a feature article on our team and the Technology and Engineering Club as a whole. (our FIRST team is just one part of a much larger club that involves TSA, FIRST, and a few other tech related subjects.)

Probably because I can be identified with the smarter people in the school, a surprising amount of sports guys ask me about the team whenever they annouce something about us or put us on the website. But then again, we didn't really have anything that remotely resembled FIRST before this year, and a lot of people are amazed that we are able to build a robot from scratch.

It also helps that everyone knows the Tech Club as the ones who used to sell Krispy Kremes during midterms and finals... all of the ones near us closed down, so we had to switch to Dunkin Donuts this year... :ahh:

Conor Delaney

24-01-2006, 10:27

I don't speak for my whole team but most of the people that i hang out with (That aren't on the team) at my school don't even know that there is even a robotics program

BRosser314

24-01-2006, 16:22

Like for example today as I was leaving my 6th hour i carried out our 2003 robot from Stack Attack. Everyone was asking what it was and howq it worked. I simply said that it shoots a large out about 12ft and knocks down alot of big boxes, with the fore to knock you unconcious. Everyone was like cool and asked if it was for robotics.

Reyner

24-01-2006, 16:51

karinka13

24-01-2006, 17:19

While we don't get money from the school, we get adequate support from administation (if we do well) and very enthusiastic support from the teachers. Students are another issue, I guess. People at our school are really involved, but robotics isn't a big thing. There's always the people who think that you have to be a genius to join, or that all we do is build a little robot with spinning saws and attack other robots (YARR!). But recently we've been making a huge effort to show the school what we're really about and how much fun we have, and it's paid off. For the first time ever, we have a team of about 30 girls. I've had people tell me that they thought it was cool that I was obviously so in love with it. I think all you need to do is show people your passion for FIRST (because i KNOW im not the only one whose absolute love of robotics comes through whenever i talk about it), and they'll be intrigued to learn more and more willing to be supportive.

:cool:

spadercool

24-01-2006, 18:58

everybody regards us as odd since we have jackets :ahh:

Lazarus

25-01-2006, 10:21

Most of my friends just get disapointed when they find out Robotics isn't anything like Battle Bots. -_O

FuzzyJo470

25-01-2006, 14:05

Pretty much no one in school knows about us. The School Board thinks we're their really loud neighbors (not our fault they're having meetings right in the middle of build season!!!) Even the geeks think we're weird :rolleyes: But I think the best time was when my older sister had to go pick up a fellow student at lunch from the high school during the middle of GLR, so she went to the school in the middle of lunch....completely forgetting the BRIGHT orange feather scarf and that her face was covered in blue and orange face paint...She got a few odd looks :D :D

Kim Masi

25-01-2006, 15:23

Unfortunately, our school does not even know our robotics team exsists....they know there is this large classroom in our basement that has lots of robots in it, and there have been random kids wearing "bobcat robotics" shirts, but other than that, our school isnt very involved. However, our team has more than doubled in size, and hopefully we can spread out more to our school.

BRosser314

25-01-2006, 15:36

I still think we have it really bad. We our a High School team building a robot in a Junior High wood shop with equipment that is older then some of our mentors. They are almost 50 years old and a fire in the wood dhop for us is a weekly thing know. The wood shop classes never cleans up after themselves leaving sawdust to catch on fire underneath all of the equipment. Plus we get yelled at if we leave a part out on one of the tables, they will either take them or not tell us for a week.

vivek16

27-03-2007, 21:30

if this revives the thread then so be it because it is worth reviving.

our school couldnt care less. (considering only about 30 students out of the 3,200 students in the whole school know about it.)
this year (our rookie year) we started with about 15-20 kids who showed interest or were actually working. as the build season progressed we slowly tapered down to about 5 kids who were actually working on the robot. I would say that i probably put about 60 hours into the robot my self. (about half of what the other four spent combined).

it really makes me angry how the other students refer to us over the announcements (we have a t.v. program and it is a live telecast with news and stuff on it) it sounds like they are talking about what is for lunch that day(we have about 6 different options to choose from for lunch and they actually sound more excited for that i think).

but then again i guess i can really blame them seeing as they know nothing about us.

i guess the reason for the low # of kids is because the teacher our sponsor from boston scientific first contacted sat on actually starting the team and spreding word until a week before build season when the activities director stepped in and assigned a new teacher.

Otaku

27-03-2007, 23:08

Well, 675 is at a high school called "Technology High School" where we emphasize on science and engineering, and most of the attendees are pretty geeky. I mean, somebody starts playing DDR in the Spanish Clasroom and a quarter of the school shows up to watch (of course, there's only like 240 students there).

EmilioM

28-03-2007, 17:04

Just like at any high school you're gonna get people whho think you're nerdy/geeky/whatever... But the truth is we all are lol. I mean, I still surf and play soccer and do many other "un-geeky" things, but come time to play with robots, i transform into ubergeek lol.

Our team has black jumpsuits with Nasa patches as well as patches from all of our sponsers and our names on them and we wear them around school everyday before a competition; we get mixed responses. The general population thinks their cool, some people think their lame; and some oblivious people think we're astronauts visiting the school. But when we presented our robot last year, everyone in the school was pretty stoked. And this year, people are actually looking forward to seeing us present our robot.

As for the rest of the school (faculty/administration), there are mixed opinions. Many of the teachers like the thought of the program, but a select few are resentful due to the "lack of dedication" they observe over the 6-week build season as students focus much more on robotics than they do on their classes (or so they claim). Seeing as how we are a pyblic school with already low district funding, our administration has been hesitant to dedicate any resources towards our program leaving our student financial team entirely responsible for rasin the appropriate funds for our program.

However, as we have accumulate accolades and gained respect and repute in the FIRST community (we, 1717, are a sophomore team) our administration has become more friendly to the idea of supporting our team.

In no way has this been a knock to our school, overall we have experienced huge support from everyone - our principal even drove down to LA on a school day to observe - and our program is quickly establishing itself as a fortified educational pillar of our school's academia. It is moreso the lack of resources that has been giving us problems.

As for the whole geek/nerd thing. Hey, I'd rather be a geek or nerd and build a robot than not lol.

beemusicgeek

28-03-2007, 17:18

My school, is anti- everything when it comes to the admin.

They first say that they support you likes arts, and science, and education, then, the drop your budget, limit the people allowed to go to competitions and they don't help you get the word out.

Students, most don't know about us and joke with us ( those of them who know) cause they'd never join but they envy our brains :p

lrdblaster03

28-03-2007, 18:32

haha. Im glad someone brought this up. In my school robotics is like taboo to mention to people and ususally the only thing that people think robotics is good for is a day off. ( In our school if we win a competiton we get a day off )

Schnabel

28-03-2007, 18:40

At our school, we have a few very dedicated teachers, and one of the assistant principals really is into the team, but other than that, we have a robotics team? The football and basketball team suck and yet they still get more recognition than we do. Oh well, I'm in it for the Robotics and every thing else associated with FIRST, not the fame.

LightWaves1636

28-03-2007, 20:28

Let's see at my school, we post robotics commercials on the announcements, team members constantly talk about it, and we show up at rallies. Ask anyone who is not a part of the tech arts department they'll say "We have a robotics team?". Go figure.

CraigHickman

28-03-2007, 21:20

At our school, everyone thinks those on the robotics team are insane, as we drive through the quad on robots or weird carts we made.

But the staff and teachers and those who know what we actually do think we're awesome. (at least I like to think so)

cire

28-03-2007, 23:44

Our team has always had little support from the administration and the school. Last year was the first year we ever got any money from the school, about a 600$ grant out of the tech departments budget. We acuired a interested teacher 3 years ago thankfully, but the school doesnt really help him and he isnt paid for all his time running the team or anything. The school refuses to let us work past midnight and we have a hard time getting into the school on weekends or days off.

The majority of the school (about 2800 students) does not even know the team exists. We are just another name on the list of about 50 "clubs" the team has. Our school is sports / arts based and the majority of school support goes to the music and sports teams. The football team got a new million dollar rubber grass football field and the whole school had to go to a assembly to learn about it, but the school doesnt even have supplies in lots of class rooms and lots of busted old text books.

Students think of us as nerds and wouldnt ever associate themselfs with us, even though they have no idea what we are. I must say the entire school was quite impressed last year when we drove our robot onto stage and fired balls accross the stage. You could see the entire school jump back as it turned towards them haha ;)

whytheheckme

29-03-2007, 01:11

About 15-20% of our school participates on our FIRST team (ok, ok, our school only has 300 students...), but this is still a large number. Everyone knows at least that we have a robotics team, and most kids know about the competition. Luckily, we are widely suppored by our administration and faculty/staff, seeing that we are a school for Science and Engineering. I'm not sure exactly what the situation is at the American School for the Deaf (our partner school), but all of the Administrators/Faculty that I know there are in great support of the team.

Jacob

Rick TYler

29-03-2007, 15:32

Null! We started an Explorer Post and meet at our sponsor's offices. Who needs a school?

ZackCraig

29-03-2007, 15:55

Our school wants to be apart of the team. We are some of the hypest peepz in hea:cool:

wolfj

29-03-2007, 16:03

It's been incredible. I remember in October 2005, when the team started, there was a lot of "Robotics? Who would join that?" Now, it's the exact opposite. Team 1713 has become such a source of school pride. It's just great. :yikes: :) :eek:

Joohoo

29-03-2007, 16:24

In our school there are those who have no idea about us, a large portion though does know and is curiours about what we do. the same thing can be said about any club. There will always be those who think all we do is a bunch of "Black Magic" and weird club that lives in the technology wing.

katiyeh07

29-03-2007, 16:35

When confronting out principal about the lack of support he told me

"I can't be everywhere at once..."

and so I said

"Well...you could've stopped down during our six week build season once or twice. A few teachers stopped down during vacation, I saw your car at the school, but I didn't see you come down to the shop."

and so he says

"Well, you don't see me attend basketball practice do you?"

at which point I almost lunged across the table to knock his teeth out.

Then I argued the point of how can you be more supportive of the basketball team. I asked him how many kids do you think will go on to the pro's from our athletic teams (note that all of our fields got shut down due to the fact that we have illegal pestisides in the soil) and he says none.

It's frustrating that our school isn't supportive of one of the most successful programs it has going that gives their students jobs at corporate companies.

But we did make a few small steps this year...we got some of our banners hung up along side the athletic banners in our gym and we have one of the better display cases in the school. But it's still not the support we're looking for.

Maybe next year it'll be better...

vivek16

29-03-2007, 17:07

^ yep i definetly know how you feel.
like i said before, the only thing i hate is the lack of participation by the students. we have it pretty good other wise. oh and a little more recognition would be nice too.

EmilioM

29-03-2007, 17:25

oh and a little more recognition would be nice too.

Well... As far as recognition goes, take that into your own hands. Email/contact your local newspaper/radio/tv plugs and solicit your robot/program. Most media outlets enjoy having people come to them with stories and will most likely jump at the opportunity to do a piece on you if you sell yourselves well enough. We did so just after arriving home from SD, our second of two competitions, and we now have two local newspapers in line to write articles on us.

Once your school/community sees this recognition, you may just have a little bit more support :D

mastermind12

13-05-2008, 14:18

Most of my friends think I am a geek for being in robotics. Those same people think I am crazy for spending most of my time at school. A couple of my friends think its cool and want to give it a try which are the friends I met this year. Our principal as far as I know has never come down to see what we do. Its like they don't even know we exist.

ttldomination

13-05-2008, 14:23

My school doesn't think that robotics is the coolest thing in the world. But usually we get props from the administrators. :D

Nin_estarSaerah

13-05-2008, 14:32

we have finnally gotten over the "we have a robotics team?" response, but we seem to be in much the same categorey as the math team and the science club, the nerds. even some of our own team members consider it negatively as a nerdy activity. one of the freshmen admitted he doesnt tell anyone he is in robotics because it is for geeks. that makes me sad. FIRST is my life.

JaneYoung

13-05-2008, 14:50

one of the freshmen admitted he doesnt tell anyone he is in robotics because it is for geeks.

Does your teammate read ChiefDelphi?
If he doesn't, pick out some of your favorite posts or threads and share them with him. Give him some names of FIRSTers that post here, like Andy Baker, and have him search some of their posts and see the world of robotics and FIRST through their eyes. CD is a great place for geeks to get their footing and figure out just how cool they really are.

Being smart and wanting to make a difference in this world is something to be very proud of. It's also something to have fun with.

Laura_587

13-05-2008, 18:35

Our school has never been very supportive, and we normally get the "robotics":rolleyes: response (especially some of my friends). But we got a new principle this year, and he's more supportive. He even came to VCU. And my soccer team is stilll reeling over the fact that I skipped prom to go to Atlanta, but they're respose is "okay, have fun" (which I did). And anyways, I've always been weird in a nerdy sort of way.

Shmee

13-05-2008, 18:55

Our school is sort-of supportive. Like the principal and admin and people like us, but the team itself is considered rather nerdy and we literally lose people because of our captains.

Sadly, we haven't done much to actually get anyone to like the Robotics Team, even though this was our rookie year...we only had an assembly before the high school (800-ish people) and then everyone hated us because we took so long. We get a little money, but we have to fix our colours, from black and neon green to white and green (official colours) if we want to keep on getting money for next year.

SEA

13-05-2008, 19:28

Our school is very supportive of robotics. Each year, we do a school wide presentation to show off the robot, and everyone loves that. When we present, our message isn't "I know this is nerdy and weird, but see how cool it can be..." but is "This is super awesome, I love it!" and the enthusiasm spreads. :) Since we share a classroom with the video productions class, we get a lot of coverage from them on the school's video bulletin.

Also, we brought two school buses of people from our school and our feeder junior high to the Los Angeles Competition this year, and they all had a blast and it gave them a sense of how big the competition and FIRST actually is.

Our principle wasn't really supportive until we began doing well, but now he is really into it and came to watch us put the finishing touches on the robot the morning before shipping.

notaPINKtruck

13-05-2008, 20:54

They don't.

ttldomination

13-05-2008, 21:22

Our school allows us plenty of space to show off our robot and demos and event nights and stuff...but reputation wise...pfft...forget it.

Come on PINK...someone's gotta care....

thefro526

13-05-2008, 21:32

Our school doesn't really know much about our robotics team. We have a bulletin board and stuff but no one's ever really made an effort to reach out to anyone except incoming freshman. Then again our schools not too accepting towards anyone that's smart either...

hoorayforpink

13-05-2008, 21:42

They don't.

Well thats only partially true. At Cocoa Beach where Ryan goes the kids get in trouble for having the pink hair and are from what i hear given a tough time about robotics from the administration.

At Rockledge (where I go) the administration loves it when we dye our hair pink and they had a special pink day at school when we got back form Atlanta. Not that any of the kids really took any notice but still it was pretty nice. The principal is always letting us go do demos and such during school which is pretty awesome. In fact I'm missing 4th period tomorrow so I can demo 2k6 during all the lunches. The kids themselves don't really look down on us as nerds or geeks, if only because we've been doing pretty good lately, and we have such a large and diverse team as far as who people hang out with. Our team is pretty well networked in Rockledge at least.

Ctrl Alt Delete

13-05-2008, 21:45

Our school doesn't do much. I think besides our National Championship run and the three banners hanging in our "pendulum area" (which has no actual pendulum, just the space for one), they don't really acknowledge us. A little bit of money would be nice, but the school basically just give us a room and that's it.

lingomaniac88

13-05-2008, 21:57

Unfortunately, our team isn't too well-known around the school.

My school's teachers aren't too thrilled about kids taking field trips (a.k.a. going to a regional event) because it "disrupts learning time." Then again, I don't think they know what FIRST is really about, nor do they know we even have a robotics team. I think that if people really knew what we do and what FIRST is, we would get a lot of support.

usbcd36

13-05-2008, 22:47

We do get some support from the school, but not nearly as much as we'd like. Our advisor is very enthusiastic, and gave up coaching basketball to spend more time with us. If it were not for him, we wouldn't have had much of anything this year, especially since his van was our main means of transporting the robot to working locations. Also, the principal and a few of the math teachers don't have as much time to donate, but they do what they can (including loan money to the team to pay for the kit). The rest of the school doesn't care nearly as much. The robot does turn heads when we roll it down the halls on our cart, but people who aren't members of the team rarely show a lasting interest. One of my friends (who also happens to be the captain of the robotics team) noted the fact that the school puts more of an emphasis on liberal arts than math and science, and that might be a reason for the lack of general interest in the robotics team. I think the school would care more about robotics if there were more students who were more involved.

Personally, I'm frustrated that the school was able to spend a few million dollars on remodeling our media center (which could have ended up a full order of magnitude better, had they put a little more thought into it), yet they haven't officially given us any money.

BT987

13-05-2008, 22:55

ha i was just talking to my buddy on the team about this

at our school we get alot of support we do demos at lunch and drive at the assembleys.

and for anyone who thinks its nerdy i just tell them we had our schools cheerleaders at the vegas competition ....and they loved it:cool: ;)

Dancin103

15-05-2008, 10:10

I don't mean to brag here (I'm just answering the post). Our school loves robotics. They have been bitten by the FIRST bug. Our school has graciously built us our own building which houses a full sized playing field, they pay for all of our regional entrance fees, and our school got a National Blue Ribbon Award for excellence for having robotics. As well our administrators come to all of the competitions. And I thank them for all of this! :)

Cass

Suspect_Deezy

15-05-2008, 10:50

our principal and the teachers are the only ones who really show us love.

My Baseball Coach Kicked me off the team because i missed practices during build season and i missed 4 games that we lost for regionals.

the kids in the school don't really know what robotics is, they just know that we're nerds. and as far as im concerned,..... being a nerd is way cooler than being cool!

234smidget

15-05-2008, 19:30

Our team has respect at our school but A LOT of student still call us nerds. It is cool though because some students admit they would never be able to build or do what we do.

Our team is pretty normal. You have those misfits but we are one big happy family! :D

DarkFlame145

15-05-2008, 20:04

I'm the only student on 145 from my school. I can keep talking and telling them about FIRST, but they will still look at me like im from Mars. I'm doing a demo with a mentor, trying to gain interest in students and teachers.

Scott Carpman

15-05-2008, 20:25

Bronx Science is highly supportive from the administration down to the student body. About three times as many kids show up to the NYC regional than to any sport held at school. We've got about half a dozen display cases throughout the school dedicated to the teams and their endeavors, with assorted trophies and news clippings scattered throughout the building. To put it into perspetive, our only banner is hanging between the Intel finalist plaques and around the corner from the Nobel Prize alumni case.

As hard as we try though, we'll never be the most prominent team in the building. Debate has us beat by far, apparantly they have a teacher on full salary just to coordinate their team and travel. Until we can get a full time mechanical engineer whose sole job is to run our robotics teams, we'll be second fiddle.

Mitch1525

15-05-2008, 21:20

At my school, we're usually regarded as nerdier than Mathletes and no one really wants anything to do with it. Some of the team member are rather border line when it comes to how much they care about the team.

Most of the teachers support us though, and although our school has yet to fund us, we usually have a few administrators at the Chicago Regional.

We're a little bit of an undercover team at the school, mostly because we aren't from a very hands on town, people just pay to get anything fixed, so people are wary when it comes to building anything.

This upcoming year though, we have a TON of interested freshmen which warms me from inside out!!! :D