Gearing up for Recruiting

[Ryo Chiba]

HBR, team 1747, is gearing up for the new year with a few videos to let the student body know that there actually is a robotics team in our high school. Last year, as many teams do, we had trouble getting the word out about what a "robotics team" really involves.

Hopefully, these videos will put positive spin on an often misunderstood extracurricular activity.

Videos:
The TV (http://youtube.com/watch?v=lqvcdyQThjM)
Accidentally In Love (http://youtube.com/watch?v=zpaRRJKIm_A)
Action (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gchp3zRS9Lk)

How have you other teams been able to raise awareness of robotics in the school's general student population?

[BuddyB309]

HBR, team 1747, is gearing up for the new year with a few videos to let the student body know that there actually is a robotics team in our high school. Last year, as many teams do, we had trouble getting the word out about what a "robotics team" really involves.

Hopefully, these videos will put positive spin on an often misunderstood extracurricular activity.

Videos:
The TV (http://youtube.com/watch?v=lqvcdyQThjM)
Accidentally In Love (http://youtube.com/watch?v=zpaRRJKIm_A)
Action (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gchp3zRS9Lk)

How have you other teams been able to raise awareness of robotics in the school's general student population?

NO!!!!!! I CANT WATCH THESE!!!! stupid dial up.......

when i get the chance i will give these three videos a full review and critique.

[rogerlsmith]

The school where I reside does not have a FIRST team, and a group of us were able to work with a neighboring team for the 2007 season, and I was able to mentor the animation group. Good Times! :)

We're trying like crazy to get everyone at our school to see and understand what FIRST is all about. We figure that video is the way to go, and we've created a website that will do just that. Users can add their videos, preferably linked from YouTube, and they become a part of their profile. Users can also add photos and participate in the discussion forums and write blogs about FIRST related activities. When we get enough users participating on a regular basis, we'll have video voting and contests.

We are emphasizing that this be non-technical, since it is not our intention to scare off anyone that might be overwhelmed with techy jargon.

Take a minute and check out our site: http://www.firstobjective.org

I've been adding a lot of videos, but I'm hoping that more users will soon start adding their own.

Thanks,

[BuddyB309]

Ok ryo get ready for my critique! (cracks knuckels, streches)

Let me say one thing first. a video has to stand on its own, ESPECIALY a reqruiting video, You have to remember when you makeing the reqruiting video that this is for outsiders who know nothing about robotics. THE TV and ACCIDENTALY IN LOVE video look like a standard couple-of-kids-got-hold-of-a-camera-and-made-a-movie, video.

ACTION has the more feel of a reqruting video but is not yet there. If your voice over could have explained what robotics was about if would have made a little more sense what the viewer is whatching. Obviously this video cannot reqruit on its own and has to be involved in a presentation. Keep working and you could have a nice video.

How our team reqruits (or at least how i've done it in the past) I present to the class and make robotics seem like this awesome fun party. Then we get a bunch of kids who join and they eventually ween themselves out. The ones who stay are normally the ones you want.

I've made two reqruiting videos so far. One for the general robotics and another for just the animation team.

animation team (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RG1dXO19Pk)

winnovation promo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiZ7refi-24)

[Akash Rastogi]

Totally agree with Peter: ACTION is almost there but still needs a little work. One thing you could add is any awards that the team has received. Tell the student body about what kinds of companies are involved in FIRST and in your team (NASA =) ) For inspiration check out some of our videos. They're not for recruiting, seeing as how we have around 70 people each year, but you might still get some ideas out of them. Linkage (http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mount+olive+robotics+team&search=Search)

Good Luck,
Akash