Team Names

[Kelten K]

Team 3018 is looking for team names. Any suggestions would help trigger our own ideas. We are looking for a name some how connected to the idea of robotics.

[Koko Ed]

Team 3018 is looking for team names. Any suggestions would help trigger our own ideas. We are looking for a name some how connected to the idea of robotics.

What schools are you associated with? What are their mascots and what are your sponsors?

[Dantvman27]

You could also try to connect it to something significant in your community

[DarkFlame145]

1902 used a random name generator =P

[Rick Wagner]

I suggest you look at all the teams' names (hint: use thebluealliance.net) so you don't duplicate another team too closely. There are too many teams with "eagle" in the name, for example. It can get confusing.

And don't forget the importance of team colors. My team picked two colors not associated with either one of our two rival schools.

[V_Chip]

Imploding Steak

[Andrew Remmers]

Imploding Steak

Pretty much the opposite of Exploding Bacon. HAHA good one

[MarkoRamius1086]

I have heard that Exploding Bacon used a randomized generator to make theirs up, to great sucess actually! I would do this multiple times, then vote on the best of them. That or you could find something about your team that you all like, or is unique to your area or students.

Whatever they like, no matter how silly, go for it! If you look at many of the larger powerhouse teams, they have come up with creative, crafty, and sometimes silly names! The more unique your name is, the more unique and reconizable your team will become! We ran into the same problem three or four years back. We were previously 1086 Pirates, and because there were many local and national teams that had the exact same name... well you get the gist. We were not unique and could not create attention.

Our previous captains eventually decided to drop the Pirates name and go with a trend they had inadvertantly started. We had, for many years, drilled holes into our frames, for the sole purpose to save weight. Eventually one year someone said, "Hey! That robot looks like a piece of swiss!"... or something along those lines. We jumped on it pretty quickly, and also included one of our school colors. Blue Cheese.

Hope this helps,
Sincerely,
Petrie

[Shishkaa585]

If my team could change our name we might go with the CyberKips
(for all those who dont know its a deviation from Mudkips, a Pokemon)
If you guys like this go for it! it would be awesome to see this at a competition

[Chris is me]

Shaker's been looking for a decent team name since rookie year. Bionic Bison never really stuck, and Terminal Velocity is pretty boring. I guess we'll bring some salt shaker costumes to regionals next year and just stick with Shaker Robotics.

Look at names you remember in robotics. ThunderChickens is the one I always use. What's memorable about it? How does the team adopt the moniker well?

[V_Chip]

Buzz's name was influenced by our sponsor's affiliation with space products in relation to Buzz Aldrin and the release of "Toy Story" with Buzz Lightyear.

The smiley face showed up when one of our robots had a suction cup. Someone chose to put a smiley on it.

We've been yellow ever since.

[DinerKid]

I used a random band name generator and these were some of the best in my opinion.

Hard Teamwork
Faded Simplicity (This is my favorite out of the list it just fits a FIRST team so well)
Static Speed
The Default
Professional Placebo

I have always liked names that poke fun at yourself, My VRC team (of one) is called Plan B, maybe you could go with "When all else fails".

One of my friends was saying that there was a video game team called "Hey look you have go a bye" and apparently they have won a few matches only because people get confused and don't show up.

~DK

[James1902]

My suggestion would be to try to get a name that can carry with it a consistent and memorable image. Exploding Bacon as a name really wouldn't be that cool if it wasn't accompanied by the pig on the rocket image, the Oink Oink Boom cheer, the squeeze pigs, the pins, etc etc etc.
I second all of the above posts about how to initially generate ideas, but when you consider all your choices choose a name and an image that can be consistent, instantly recognizable, and as original as possible

[kirtar]

How about some computer related bugs and such?
e.g.
Stack Overflow
Kernel Panic

[Dhananjay T.]

What schools are you associated with? What are their mascots and what are your sponsors?

Our school is home to the North Brunswick Raiders, so naturally, when our team started way back in the day, our coach chose to use that to name us Raider Robotix. Though I'm still not sure why we're spelled with an 'x' :D

[wendymom]

It is true that Bacon used a random name generator to get their name. A little known fact is that the team originally voted on Organized Chaos. The following week and mentor showed up with the pig on the rocket logo and everyone voted to change the name. The rest is history!

[Mike Schreiber]

Imploding Steak

Moo Moo Bang!

[Grim Tuesday]

Dont name it Code Red Robotics. We dont need a third in the clan :P

Interesting fact: We were first!

[JABot67]

I'd say don't name your team the Robo Dogs, Robodogs, Robodawgs, or anything having to do with robots and dogs unless it's exceedingly clever. I hope I don't offend anyone from those teams that have named themselves such, but there are just so many!

List: 216, 288, 435, 545, 2085, 2171, 2221, 2560, 2579, 2917, 3174, 3214, 3307

[Grim Tuesday]

How about the the COLD team?

:P

[Koko Ed]

I'd say don't name your team the Robo Dogs, Robodogs, Robodawgs, or anything having to do with robots and dogs unless it's exceedingly clever. I hope I don't offend anyone from those teams that have named themselves such, but there are just so many!

List: 216, 288, 435, 545, 2085, 2171, 2221, 2560, 2579, 2917, 3174, 3214, 3307

or Robocats.
I remember going to Buckeye a few years ago and there were three of them at the regional alone.

[Norman J]

Lightningturkeys:D

[ExTexan]

How could you not be........IRobot?

[Duncan Macdonald]

...

the release of "Toy Story" with Buzz Lightyear.



Anyone else have a " :ahh: FIRST is old" moment?

[JABot67]

Lightningturkeys:D

Life-saving wasps?

[apalrd]

Lightningturkeys:D

Thundercarp. I'll tell you at lunch.

[Leeebowitz]

Antagonists of Yesterday?
Doesn't have as much of a ring to it...

[BJC]

We were saving this name for when we reformed as a new team for a year so we could win the rookie award (our ultimate goal). However, now that there actully is a team 3333 our plan has been foiled so you can have our name if you want it.

The ThunderCarp

It also doubles as a swear when your mad:D

ThunderCarp!

P.S. I love you Thunderchickens!

[Fireworks 234]

Using a random team name generator I came up with a couple :P

e-LEMON-ators (One of my faves)
Cranium Krusherz
Happy Purple Pirates
Fantastic Lemmings
Questionable Wrecks
Help Desk Dive Bombers

I also like the clever mathematical ones... [i.e. Division by Zero (229), etc]

[Norman J]

Andrew and Bryan:

I actually was on the team when this was made up. Atlanta and chocolate milk and all that.

[angelawence11]

when in doubt, go DISNEY!! WALL-E!
lol. jk. but in all seriousness, everybody who has already posted is right. All you need is something that is memorable!!!!! It has to be something that stands out to people. As long as you make it memorable, it doesnt matter what the teams name is. make yourselves stand out!
and if you feel the need to include ninjas, i think that we would all be VERY ok with that! ninjas are cool!!! lol
good luck!

[yoshibrock]

Win-Win Situation :rolleyes:

[Karibou]

1) Please please please please PLEASE don't name yourself "Robocats" "Robodogs" "Robotic Eagles" or anything of the like. There are plenty of teams out there that already use those names, and it gets confusing pretty quickly. There's only one ThunderChickens, only one Exploding Bacon, one Los Pollos Locos, and it's great to be able to just name names rather than including a number with the name. Not to say "make sure you have a name that NOBODY ELSE IN THE WORLD HAS" (we're The Gearheads - there are other "Gearheads" teams, but we're typically known by our name on a regional level), just make sure it's not incredibly typical and overused.

2) Make the name appropriate, and find a simple image to go with it. 1189 was originally "Breaking Pointe" (we're from Grosse Pointe, and are a combination of two rival high schools: the name was pretty straightforward to those who knew the story behind it), with the mascot of a rabid squirrel. We became The Gearheads after a freshman photoshopped the yellow diamond image. When the logo started appearing everywhere, we realized how much the rabid squirrel undermined the support of our sponsors. Also, printing that image on t-shirts, etc. was pretty darn expensive.

+1 vote for a random name generator.

[Bill_B]

...

I also like the clever mathematical ones... [i.e. Division by Zero (229), etc]

Disjoint set
Incongruent triangles
Triple Integral
radical squares
concentric (name your figure 2,3 or four D)

All leading to the law of:
diminishing returns

[Carolyn_Grace]

Oh this was a fun game that I played all week at the Championship: think of the best rookie team names! I was actually going to create a thread asking other people to join in on the fun. These are a few that my team came up:

The Metal Manatees
Roadkill Zombies (my personal favorite. You could have raccoon and squirrel mascots with tire tracks across their bellys and the fur kinda dirtied. Would be fun painting faces for this team)
Rabid Bunnies
Team 33 (even though the team number would be something like 4267).
Delusions of Grandeur
Whirley Whales
Spontaneous Combustion
The Polydactyl Cats...would be more fitting once team numbers reach 7777 (credit to Isaac for this one)
The Desperate Ants (with the team logo a magnifying glass held over an ant)
or, The Desperate Wormies (with a worm caught on the sidewalk after a rain).

...silly, I know...but I'm of the opinion that the sillier the team name, the more fun the image.

[MagiChau]

You guys could always use an acronym like we did with BOB :D

[rogerlsmith]

Personally I like simple names; I think it keeps it easier on the announcers.

Or, if you want to make life difficult on the announcers, go for a tongue twister like:

The Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers

or RB3 - RB(cubed).

[Chris Fultz]

Take your time to think of a name, think of your logo / mascot to go with, and then stick with it.

If it is catchy and unique, people will remember it and you. If you change every year or two, you run the risk of nobody realizing who you are.

Some teams get remembered by their numbers, but most are remembered by their name.

[Enigma's puzzle]

Think about your selling points, giveaways, ridiculous button designs and mascots and things along that line, if you can come up with something unique thats how you get remembered. Our Question mark logo, and clever name (Enigma) gets questions and complements everywhere we go. And it also draws questions (Very punny) on the street, so it helps us tell people about FIRST.

But when you make a design/logo to go with your name, make sure it looks professional and clean.

[delsaner]

Some corny science/math ones I madeup.

Pi-rotechnics
Ionic
Omega-bytes
Team Torque
The sexy (http://images.cafepress.com/product_zoom/122622854v4_350x350_Front.jpg) team

(others on the way)

[Enigma's puzzle]

The Desperate Ants (with the team logo a magnifying glass held over an ant)
or, The Desperate Wormies (with a worm caught on the sidewalk after a rain).

...silly, I know...but I'm of the opinion that the sillier the team name, the more fun the image.

Where can I get my Desperate Aunt Button?

[hektormagee]

How about "The Root of all Evil" and for your shirt have a Devilish Smiley face under the "Square Root" radical :) just a thought? Opinions?

[ExTexan]

Maybe you should go where every other FRC question is answered: The Manual!

The Minor Protusions
Autonomous Mode
The Frame Perimeters
The Bumper Zones
Kit of Parts
Outermost Exterior Vertices

or you could have some fun with

Line Dancers
Field Faults!
;)

[AmoryG]

Team 3018 is looking for team names. Any suggestions would help trigger our own ideas. We are looking for a name some how connected to the idea of robotics.

The Robuttkicks.

Actually, just Robuttkicks sounds better.

Anagrams are a ton of fun! Try this site: http://wordsmith.org/anagram/

In our team's first year, I looked up an anagram for Robotics Club and got Broccoli Stub. I didn't convince my team to name themselves The Watertown Broccoli Stub, however.
.

[Astreios]

1902 used a random name generator =P

I like this method, I must say. :p

[Mr. Pockets]

I still am fond of:
Magic smoke
Spare parts

[thefro526]

Another one that's used a lot is panthers. In New Jersey in 2007 I think there were three or four teams (us included) with names derived from panthers.

Now we're "The Westech Anomaly" or "Team Anomaly". This comes from our robot's name, Anomaly, which has been around since our team was "The Anarchists", which we dropped around 2005 because it was deemed to be unfit for a team name.

I found that putting "The" in front of anything makes it sound cool.

[Karibou]

How about "The Root of all Evil" and for your shirt have a Devilish Smiley face under the "Square Root" radical :) just a thought? Opinions?
Forget the devilish smiley; just stick Dave's head under the square root. If NASA will let you, that is...

[Shane L]

You can never go wrong with The Packers

[ProgramLuke]

CyberPiggies!
(yay LOTF)

[Vermeulen]

Hmm...

You could go with segfault...
Maybe you could try combining two awesome names (Thunderbacon, X-stang, etc? :D

[J-Brock]

its not really relevant to robotics but "The Toy Soldiers" could be a fun one

[Mike Schreiber]

Something involving Neptune...that way you'll be ready for the water game.

[ThatHubrexGuy]

Here's my input: The team names that sound most like professional engineering companies are the best. Take for example my team: Alpine Robotics. If I were doing a job interview and I said, "Oh yeah, I worked for Alpine Robotics for 3 years", the interviewer would think I had a legit job at an engineering company. As opposed to (and I really don't mean to offend this team because I love them very much) Thunderchickens or something similiar. "I worked for thunderchickens for 3 years". "...What?"

Try to make up something professional sounding. Include 'Robotics' or 'Tech' in the name. That's my advice.

[kjolana1124]

I just looked you guys up on The Blue Alliance. Are you really Team Rocket and looking for a name change or was there a mistake online?

If it's the former, I would personally suggest keeping it. Pokemon is awesome, and you could probably have a lot of fun with that. I see some fun costumes for your drive team in the future.

If you do what to do something different, however, look back on your years. Any fun events/cool stories/inside jokes up out at you? Things that really cling to your team's history and/or traditions are always fun.

[Chris is me]

To Team Rocket: please change your team name so 2791 can take it :P

[Katie_UPS]

Here's my input: The team names that sound most like professional engineering companies are the best. Take for example my team: Alpine Robotics. If I were doing a job interview and I said, "Oh yeah, I worked for Alpine Robotics for 3 years", the interviewer would think I had a legit job at an engineering company. As opposed to (and I really don't mean to offend this team because I love them very much) Thunderchickens or something similiar. "I worked for thunderchickens for 3 years". "...What?"

Try to make up something professional sounding. Include 'Robotics' or 'Tech' in the name. That's my advice.

I disagree. I can't tell you how (no offense to anyone) boring and cliche it is to add robo-, -botics, robotics, tech, techno-, cyber-... etc to your team name. Everyone at the competitions already knows you're a robotics team, and once you say "Hi, I'm part of [Team Name]. We build robots," everyone else understands too. (Quick thread derail: You don't say you "worked for" your team. You say you worked on or were part of... I don't care how formal your team is, its still just a robotics team. Its not a business and its not a job.)

Just be fun. Find something you can play with and make sure it fits your team. Also, if you pick a name and if you find out that you don't like it, you can change it the next year (but changing your name too much is a bad idea as you having a harder time establishing a reputation).

[ThatHubrexGuy]

I disagree. I can't tell you how (no offense to anyone) boring and cliche it is to add robo-, -botics, robotics, tech, techno-, cyber-... etc to your team name. Everyone at the competitions already knows you're a robotics team, and once you say "Hi, I'm part of [Team Name]. We build robots," everyone else understands too. (Quick thread derail: You don't say you "worked for" your team. You say you worked on or were part of... I don't care how formal your team is, its still just a robotics team. Its not a business and its not a job.)

Meh, that's true in some cases. Adding those prefixes/suffixes can make it sound both cliche AND unprofessional in some cases. I guess it's all a matter of personal opinion and how we approach being on a Robotics team. I am very proud to be a part of my team (As is everyone else with their respective teams, I assume) and I feel that a professional sounding team name really adds to that.

[Enigma's puzzle]

Meh, that's true in some cases. Adding those prefixes/suffixes can make it sound both cliche AND unprofessional in some cases. I guess it's all a matter of personal opinion and how we approach being on a Robotics team. I am very proud to be a part of my team (As is everyone else with their respective teams, I assume) and I feel that a professional sounding team name really adds to that.

Maybe going to the extremes is the way to do it. Either as a professional team name, a wacky name, a fun name, a clever name, or a team acronym. As long as your team is presenting a unified and single name, I think you will be fine recognized.

[allyourbaseFRC]

I still am fond of:
Magic smoke


As am I ;)

[Joe Ross]

I like the teams that tie their name into their number (eg 1024, 2468). Of course, that's easier for some numbers then others.

[Koko Ed]

Has there ever been a FIRST team called the Gremlins?

[JaneYoung]

Inspiration taken from my favorite bumper sticker:

Team name: Whirled Peas

Cheer: all we are saying is give peas a chant...

Logo: our beautiful planet ringed by whirled peas

Motto: Green - going going gone - forever, if we don't step up and keep the peas.

--
I could go on and on.
Jane

P.S. To be honest, I don't know if you can just use names or phrases that are already in use in other places - like Whirled Peas. That's another thing a team has to look into when deciding a name.

[Mark McLeod]

Has there ever been a FIRST team called the Gremlins?
Techno Gremlins (http://web.archive.org/web/20050130141544/http://techno-gremlins.org/)
Team 1227 from Grand Rapids, MI
They were active 2003-2007

[blayde5]

Dynamite, Dynamo, something to do with dynamite so you can use this cheer:

Our team is what - DYNAMITE
Our team is what - DYNAMITE
Our team is tick, tick, tick, tick BOOM - DYNAMITE

and as far as I know, Team Dynamite has not been taken by an FRC team yet.

[Captain Slacker]

Team Paragon got our name from the Dictionary.com word of the day :] just found that out actually....

[Andrew Schreiber]

Just some joke ones I came up with a week ago. The fun part is telling which team name I am basing it on. I wouldn't suggest using them.

Protobotics

Pacifist Eulers

Team Cheeto

Imploding Tuna

Sprocket Faces

Literature Jocks

Tadpole Inertia

I'm actually a pretty big fan of Protobotics and Team Cheeto... Imploding Tuna isn't terrible and I suppose Tadpole Inertia could have some funny graphics.


1114,1718,254,1902, 1189, 2337,503

[Cynette]

I just hope that whenever a team picking a name decides they like a particular, that they do a reasonable search to see if there is a team who already has this name. Since Rolling Thunder (1511) formed in 2005, there has been two other teams pick the same name, one in VA, and one in Canada.

(And then we can start the whole thread on picking an image - which I'm sure the bright pink shirted and bright green shirted and tie-dye shirted teams have wrestled with for years. We though we were reasonably safe with red camo and now there is two others of those as well. )

[kjolana1124]

Dynamite, Dynamo, something to do with dynamite so you can use this cheer:

Our team is what - DYNAMITE
Our team is what - DYNAMITE
Our team is tick, tick, tick, tick BOOM - DYNAMITE

and as far as I know, Team Dynamite has not been taken by an FRC team yet.


Our robot was named Dynamite in 2007. We used similar cheers. But that's a fun name. You could do stuff with TNT by AC/DC and Yosemite Sam or pretty much any cartoon with Acme. There's something there.

[Josh Fox]

You could do stuff with TNT by AC/DC

I think Team 280 gets dibs on that. :p

[thelittlesister]

The LuNaTeCs used an acronym (Learning Under Nurturing Adults Teaching Engineering Concepts and Skills)! :)

[Gary Dillard]

If you want to have other teams cheer for you all day long at competition, name your team "Robot Coming Through".

[Noah Booth]

i offer torque robotics, twisted robots for twisted people or mediocre robotics

[EricDrost]

random-team-name-generator (http://www.teamnames.net/fantasy/random-team-name-generator)

P.S. Put a robot word like "robotic" or "tech" in for the town/city and it will make it have to do with robotics.

[ChristopherSD]

We associated our team name with the mascot of our high school, which gave us Falcon Engineering and Design Solutions.

[Phreadumb]

My team's name is Critical Mass, which to us is like this wikipedia definition:

a sociodynamic term to describe the existence of sufficient momentum in a social system such that the momentum becomes self-sustaining and fuels further growth.

It's pretty rememberable, or at least I think it is?

For you, how about Entropy? Quasars? Cool names that I don't think are taken.

[sircedric4]

We spent the entire build season trying to come up with a name last year and the name Aluminum Chihuhua's was seriously in the running we were so hard up for one. :-) Finally I suggested Prometheus since I hadn't seen that named used in FIRST and with ease of logos, costumes and stuff that comes with a fire based theme, the name was unanimously voted for from the team.

I suggest that you break out your mythology, and history, as there's a lot of good names out there associated with science and technology. I mean it was a millenium before the world remembered some of the secrets from the roman empire so tech's been around for quite some time. You can't go wrong with DaVinci and his old inventions either.

Or you could actually cheat like I did and pull the name from a sci-fi show. :-) The name Prometheus has been around from myth and legend but where I really got the idea was the first spaceship human built from Stargate.

[ChristopherSD]

I think Team 280 gets dibs on that. :p

Team 280 plays an AC/DC song before they play, why doesn't RUSH play a Rush song?

[jeanlee411]

I suggest you look at all the teams' names (hint: use thebluealliance.net) so you don't duplicate another team too closely. There are too many teams with "eagle" in the name, for example. It can get confusing.

And don't forget the importance of team colors. My team picked two colors not associated with either one of our two rival schools.

[afowl]

Pick something that's not too wordy (unless it's an acronym) that has a lot of stories behind it. For example my team, Team Mercury was named after NASA's Mercury missions but the word mercury has so many different things to link up to that you can play around with it, especially for robot names.

[Captain Slacker]

Team Paragon got our name from the Dictionary.com word of the day :] just found that out actually....

**CORRECTION**
One of the original team members in 2002 or 2003 decided that "our team will be the best, the top, the Paragon of US First Robotics"

(It is now just FIRST but had started with the name US FIRST).

The other members decided that they liked his description of being the Paragon of the FIRST engineering world so the name stuck.

Sorry for the mis-information!

[Rick TYler]

Our VEX/FTC team has been the Exothermic Robotics Club since 2007. It was a name that came up spontaneously at a club meeting and was not popular. In 2008 the students tried to come up with something "better" and finally gave up. This year, the members of the team just accepted it and never talked about changing. After two successful trips to the VEX World Championships and two trips to Atlanta, our club name is at least somewhat known in both VEX and FTC and we would be crazy to change it.

So here's some unsolicited advice. Pick something you are at least lukewarm about. Stick with it. Never change it. The time and energy you spend establishing a "brand image" will be largely wasted if you change your nickname every year.

[S.P.A.M.er 17]

Don't forget to spend time thinking up cheers for you team name. Also a cool logo to go along with your name. While images don't help teams win competitions, it makes them a lot more fun. I couldn't imagine going to competition and not hearing, "oink-oink boom", "what timea is it? KRUNCH TIME, or "when i say think, you say Pink!" (exploding bacon, Krunch, and pink team receptively.) Spam's is as simple as spelling out our name.

[Vermeulen]

You could also try something with a pun, like The Zip Tie-tans.

[HannahF]

I agree with most of the other posts that say to find a good name you should be original, but I also believe that the name should relate back to your teams story.

Don't forget that sometimes a team names can come about in weird ways. In 2000, team 433 was called MINT (mounties interested in new technologies) because our highschool is Mount St. Joseph Academey. That year, because of some wiring problems, the robot caught on fire during a competition. :ahh: The girls on the team at the time decided that the next year, the team would rise from the ashes (literally) of our rookie season like a phoenix. We have been known as the Firebirds ever since :D

So don't be afriad to change your name after your rookie season. Just make sure when you do decided on your name, own it, with your spirit and T-shirts because a team name is just a name, however a "team" is a representation of the spirit and personality of a group of individuals who are proud to be -insert team name hear-:)

[panther83]

Washington Community High School in Washington, IL is expecting to be a FRC robotics team for next years season and we are trying to decide on a team name. Our school mascot is the Panther and we are orange and black for school colors. Any suggestions would be accepted, except tornado names... too soon.

[RamZ]

Washington Community High School in Washington, IL is expecting to be a FRC robotics team for next years season and we are trying to decide on a team name. Our school mascot is the Panther and we are orange and black for school colors. Any suggestions would be accepted, except tornado names... too soon.

How about the Wild Cats?

....anyone? Anyone? No? Okay.

[Joseph Smith]

I just generated a list of random names, here are some of my favorites:

Purple Lemur Bomb
Hot Nerd Hazard
Preenlarge the Turtle
Timmy is the Lustrous Narwhal
Phatic Unicorn
Masticate the Loaf