Team Name
 

I just moved to a new school and they are going to be having a rookie team. We need some cool names to think a out. I was thinking Team Phenomena. Another suggetionwas to stick with something related to our school : Jenkins Engineering Warriors (J.E.W.S) I really don't know how that won't come off as not offensive to some. Any ideas? And if some what are some themes and a motto to go with it?

Re: Team Name
 

I think it needs to be a name that came from your team, so that the members of your team can really take ownership of it. Have a brainstorming session at your next meeting. I'm sure the CD community would be happy to help you vet specific ideas and figure out branding for them.

IMHO, I would avoid that particular acronym. A close alternative might be Jenkins Engineering Warrior League (JEWL like jewel) or something like that. Maybe that doesn't match if there's a requisite notion of 'manliness.'

Re: Team Name
 

Maybe relevant:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1641

Los Pollos Locos' name came from a big brainstorming session--it was actually the last one thrown out and didn't even land on the blackboard before I took the picture of proposed names to email later. We know our lead sponsor's mascot (the gamecock) invites some...questionable names for teams and robots. It comes down to knowing our team, our community, and our region.

Re: Team Name
 

First things first this is not your "name" according to FIRST it is your "Nickname" just so during registration there is no confusion

Back to the point: I agree with Ryan let the founding members help come up with the name, and anything that might be offensive should never be considered

Also I would suggest checking to see if any names already exist as a good rule of thumb (Like 3616 Team Phenomena ;) ). Also considering that my team also started at a school whose mascot is the Warrior, I like that our teams name is original and not just our mascot.

Re: Team Name
 

Hard to go wrong with random name generators on the internet...:cool:

Re: Team Name
 

Don't be afraid to be silly. You want people to easily remember who you are.

Re: Team Name
 

True, but do remember that you also have to market to sponsors (business cards, press releases, etc). How silly you get may be limited in part by how comfortable you are standing in front of X company big-wig and saying "Hi, we're ____". Just something to keep in mind. There are certainly lots of teams with goofy names and plenty of awesome sponsors!

Re: Team Name
 

My all time favorite Robotics team name was the "Pink Sparkle Fairy Unicorns"

Yep. An all-girl team. Their teacher says they described it as "the most intimidating name we could come up with... it's one thing to say you lost to the 'Super Spider Death Bots', but no one wants to say they lost to the 'Pink Sparkle Fairy Unicorns'."

As it was they took fifth in VEX world programming skills.

A unique team name should also allow you to build a visual presence around the name. I don't think we have a team named "The Propellor Heads" or "The Rocket Surgeons" (that's what you get when you cross Brain Surgery and Rocket Science, right...?)

And take it from one who knows... if your team name starts with "Robo_____" or ends in "_____botics" you'll likely end up sharing a team name with someone. Better to be the "Dung Beetles of Doom" than yet another "____bots". At least everyone will remember you!

Jason

Re: Team Name
 

One of the most effective teams at marketing I have ever met is 1902 Exploding Bacon, who also has one of the most creative yet silly names in FIRST. I actually think having such a name helps them in marketing because it is memorable.

Re: Team Name
 

This. The number of teams that fall into those categories for me are very small. If you're worried people won't know what you, do what we do: Los Pollos Locos in big letters, "USC/Richland One FIRST Robotics" in finer print.

Re: Team Name
 

My favorite naming convention is ____ of ______. Usually it is tool or mechanical thing of really awesome noun!

Gears of Fire
Wrenches of Doom
Saws of Lost Sanity

It also works with Spanish: destornilladores de inspiración, etc.

Re: Team Name
 

I'd have to seriously argue against Exploding Bacon being one of the silliest names in FIRST... In fact, the combination of the expressive-yet-very-serious "exploding" and the tempering and flair of "bacon" seems pretty common (in general and on the funniness scale) to me, but ok. Love 'em anyway. :)
Now, if they'd been called "floppy pork bottom"...

In general, I think such STEM/serious + unique/flair compounding can definitely make your name memorable: Exploding Bacon, Thunder Chickens, Tactical Sheep, Environmental Tectonics Crusaders, Incredible Hawks, Mighty Monkey Wrenches. It also can't hurt to think about your full team "brand": what name might work well with a logo, motto ("OINK OINK--"), etc. You can also do this afterwards to great success, though.

Re: Team Name
 

Pick something unique to the school or the area to give the team a local identity. The key here is UNIQUE. An example of not being unique: if your mascot at school is the hawks, and you name yourself the "RoboHawks" I will personally drive to your school, commandeer your TIMS account, and change the name.

Some teams like to go with something associated with their number (like High Rollers are 987). A good self check you can make is going to thebluealliance.com team page, then ctrl+f any name you are considering. If more than one team already uses it, avoid it. Ideally you want to become a well-known team, so have a unique name that people can associate with the quality of your team.

Re: Team Name
 

I would also try and avoid common animals or warriors/titans. With over 3000 teams, many of the common team names have been gone for years. Try and think of an outside-of-the-box name. For example, our school's name is Blair High School so we decided to name our team, The Blair Robot Project, after the movie The Blair Witch Project.

If you’re afraid that you won’t be comfortable presenting your name in front of sponsors, just have your name be an acronym with an unofficial meaning.

Re: Team Name
 

I agree, name picking should be a team decision. It's one of the first times you get to see how the team decision dynamic will work with your team.

When deciding our name for Spectrum I think it took us about 4 hours and it was the final name suggested. Some of the others on the list pangea, something something kittens, duct tape was involved in several of them. Lots of them were bad but we ended up with a brand we really like.

We looked at this list to see if any other teams had similar names: https://my.usfirst.org/frc/scoring/i...?page=teamlist

Re: Team Name
 

On our team we have essentially 2 names. Our name that we use with sponsors is Hart District Robotics or Hart Robotics (though there is now a separate Hart High School team). However our name for the past decade has been Harburn Robotics and that's what we use when we are at competitions, logo, and team spirit stuff. We generally try to limit the use of Hartburn to being purely a nickname just because its much harder to seriously market to sponsors.

In my opinion the team name is the first part of the team's marketing/sales pitch to sponsors. When I say this though, it really is only the case for teams who are starting up. However in my experience sponsors will more likely sponsor a team that serves an entire community (in my case our community has around a dozen high schools) than just a single school team. In that sense if you can somehow associate your team name with your region, school district, city, or something of that source, it could go a long way towards getting sponsors to take you seriously from the first impression. In particular in places that have very few teams it gives the impression that you serve a larger area and thus larger population, which would make it easier for a sponsor to justify funding the team with larger sums of money.

This is just my 2 cents about naming teams.

Re: Team Name
 

This obviously isn't the FIRST priority in picking a name, but be sure your name can be shortened to something that can be said quickly in a match. In strategy huddles, while coaching, and some other scenarios, it's really handy to be able to say "chickens", "simbots", "aces", or "OP" than to have to say "terminal velocity". It turns out, "Shaker Robotics" is way easier to shorten.

Re: Team Name
 

Just stating that Team 987 is the Highrollers, Aces High is 176, but nonetheless I agree with your point. I would suggest associating it with your school, team number, or something else about your team.

Re: Team Name
 

Better example, FRC39 (now not playing) went by "39th Aero Squadron", naming their team after an air group in one of the world wars.

(Oh, and on unique/intimidating names, particularly in FLL: try an all-boys team going by "Pretty Pink Princesses of DOOM!" for some scary factor. Yes, one did compete under that name...)

Re: Team Name
 

I would make sure you check the blue alliance. I did a quick search on cougar and found 3 cougar robotics, 5 cougarbots, and 19 teams with cougar in their name.

Re: Team Name
 

Some completely unhelpful thoughts on reading this thread:

1) Leeeerooooy Jenkins?
2) JEWS is a great idea, but you're right, somebody out there will have trouble with it. (I'm Jewish, I think it's hilarious myself. The uniform/costume possibilities alone are almost worth it!)
3) I have a new partner coming in January, who is a Brain Surgeon and did research with NASA before entering medicine. I can't wait to introduce her to the team as a rocket surgeon!
4) Silly names can work fine, so long as you back it up with a pragmatic, successful attitude. Think Thunder Chickens, Pink Team, Space Cookies, and a hundred others.

Re: Team Name
 

IF you go here: http://www.facebook.com/explodingbac...32826956843621

You can see our workshop on Image and Marketing. It might help you weed out and come up with some good names.

Good Luck!

Re: Team Name
 

go with J.E.W.S! its the funnest team name I have seen yet!

and if anything at least you'll get laughs out of it

Re: Team Name
 

But would any Jews who happened to see the name think it was funny? Somehow I doubt it. And with the number of Israeli teams in FRC, I would guess that at least one Jew would see the name.

If you *think* that a name and/or acronym may be offensive to someone, or some group, then there are at least two ways to go about resolving the issue. You can put the name out of consideration, as some have suggested... OR, and this is a little riskier, you can approach representatives of that particular group (or approach that particular person) and say something to the effect of, "We were thinking of calling our robot team _____. However, we realize that you may not approve of this, and so we would like to ask for your permission to do so."

Naturally, if the group refused permission, then you would find another name. On the other hand, if they granted permission (or possibly even if they refuse), then you may have a new community partnership. If nothing else, they will most likely be pleased that you asked.

This is something that the NCAA had a number of colleges do--as I understand it, any college that used a Native American name for their athletic teams had to get permission from the tribe to use the name, or change their name. Some tribes granted permission, others did not.

Re: Team Name
 

My first thought too, but Leeroy doesn't have the best reputation :D

[context]
[explicit language]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkCNJRfSZBU&t=01m22s

Re: Team Name
 

Well then whatever their team name is, "Let's Do this!" can be their team motto and cheer; and they should name their robots Leroy. lol

Re: Team Name
 

There's plenty of us right here in the US, and I really don't find it offensive. But I don't speak for anyone but myself.

Re: Team Name
 

Look to your sponsors for inspiration as well. Many older teams still use names that came from the partnership with their main founding sponsor (X-Cats, Delphi ELITE).

Our name came from integration of our two founding sponsors: Northeastern University (N.U.) + Textron Systems (Tron) = NUTRONs.

-Brando

Re: Team Name
 

Another idea is to name it after a past robot. Our name (PVC Pirates) came from our 2004 robot, which looked like a tallship and was made out of PVC. We've used PVC on every robot ever since. Also, I think the JEWS idea is hilarious. There are far more suggestive acronyms for FRC teams- for example, Team 1687 uses DTF on their shirts (their team name is Doherty Technical Forces).

Re: Team Name
 

Theodore Roosevelt's Disco Haircut - FRC4008

https://my.usfirst.org/myarea/index....ils&tpid=86879

I dare you to get weirder than that!

Re: Team Name
 

A long time ago when I was with 258 out of San Jose, after the first year the team decided they wanted to be separate from the schools mascot (lion) in terms of a nickname. There was a feeling that we were not getting support for our efforts and the team wanted to "go rogue" in their team name.
Pirate names flew during an hour long discussion.
We settled on Sea Dawgs, to indicate we were pirate from the school.

I say all this to agree with everyone who stated that the team needs to pick their own nickname.

Re: Team Name
 

You may also want to wait till you have your definite team number (since you have no number under your name.) Since you may get something like 2468 Team Appreciate.

Re: Team Name
 

As a Jew and a founding member of my team, I'm a little sad I didn't think of an acronym that spelled J.E.W.S :(

Re: Team Name
 

I've always wanted to found a team called The Zombie Apocalypse, because (a) I really, really want to hear Jondarr Bradshaw announce "The Zombie Apocalypse" over the loudspeakers, and (b) the cheer would be an epic double-entendre of the non-risque variety:

What do we want!?!?
BRAAAAIIIINS!

When do we want 'em?!??
BRRAAAAAIIIIIINS!

Re: Team Name
 

The best thing you can do with a team name is do something that means something to your team members, but that's also really distinct and memorable to other teams. We're the Fighting Unicorns and ridiculously bright pink and blue are our main colors. Our school is the "Blazers" and the colors are brown and gold. Really glad we chose something that worked for the team and for FRC rather than just going with the school, though everyone with the school is a fan of the name, too!

Also - you can always change your team nickname! During our rookie years, we were just "Team HB", despite the colors and the unicorn mascot. While it's best to start with a solid team identity, don't worry if your team changes/develops something new over time.

Re: Team Name
 

A great point. We were the rather uninspired "Naples Robotics" until we managed to get Bausch + Lomb sponsorship, at which point we changed just about everything -- nickname, colors, logo -- and have never looked back.

Re: Team Name
 

Jenkins Engineering sounds fine to me at least... Or how bout Jenkineering!::rtm::