Alliance Partner Gifts/Giveaways
 

Just wondering if/what teams give away as a thank you to their alliance partners when your competition is over.

I don't think we've been consistent. In the past, we have given a team shirt, team-branded popcorn, team swag, and sometimes nothing aside from a verbal thank you because we didn't plan well.

We have received things like team shirts, a personalized thank you note signed by the drive team and pit crew, alliance buttons (made on the spot), and also nothing.

What do YOU do for your alliance partners as a thank you? What kind of gifts do you think would be cool/appropriate?

Re: Alliance Partner Gifts/Giveaways
 

We usually give out the CAD file of our robots on a CD.

Re: Alliance Partner Gifts/Giveaways
 

Alliance buttons sound really cool. I don't think we have given our alliance partners gifts this year (besides dancing around and copious amounts of thanks for picking us!!!). If I could steal your idea for a sec, what did the alliance buttons even look like? :0

Re: Alliance Partner Gifts/Giveaways
 

This is typical of the alliance buttons we give out. We make them over lunch and hand them out during eliminations.

Re: Alliance Partner Gifts/Giveaways
 

That's so cool!! :D Yet another reason our team needs a button machine. Thank you!

Re: Alliance Partner Gifts/Giveaways
 

By far the coolest alliance gift/give away I have received is a hat from 2056 they gave members of their partner's drive teams at World Championships in 2013. I'm not sure if that is something they do regularly, but that is by far my favorite piece of FIRST memorabilia, and something I will cherish for a long time. I also remember our team receiving some excellent chocolate macadamia nuts from Team 359 at IRI last year, and on Team 171 we have talked about giving out cheese curds to our partner's drive teams.

Re: Alliance Partner Gifts/Giveaways
 

One thing I like to do for my team's elimination partners is to do a button swap with out partners. Attached is a picture of the buttons of all the elim alliance partners 1511's been this year except at champs. (Champs was chaotic and I forgot to try to get them.)

Also With regard to alliance buttons and logos I put together a gallery of the 2013 World Champion Sticker which combines all three logos. It's pretty cool to check out.

Also as a spirit activity we like to create an "alliance name" for the MC to announce before elimination matches. At Finger Lakes the alliance name was "Rolling TanX of Wrath" (1511 Rolling Thunder, 3003 TanX, pronounced tanksm and 1551 Grapes of Wrath) and at Beantown Blitz the alliance name was "Red Thunder Hawks." (4048 RedShift, 1100 T-Hawks and 1511 Rolling Thunder)

Re: Alliance Partner Gifts/Giveaways
 

To jump on to the 525 bandwagon the buttons they gave to us 2 years ago were amazing. I swear we picked them, and 3 minutes later they handed our entire drive team a button. It was so cool :cool: truly a professional team.

Re: Alliance Partner Gifts/Giveaways
 

Our team gives away buttons and strips of CAUTION tape throughout the course of the tournament. But, when you get partnered up with us, you gain a seemingly unlimited amount of CAUTION tape to deck yourself out with. Who doesn't want that?

Re: Alliance Partner Gifts/Giveaways
 

Certain teams (254, 2056, etc) give blue banners to their alliance partners.

Re: Alliance Partner Gifts/Giveaways
 

Ba Dum Tis.

Re: Alliance Partner Gifts/Giveaways
 

And I was starting to feel bad about not giving away special stuff. ;)

One of my favorite memories is working with 624 in Denver 2011. They give their alliance partners green hair and temporary use of their capes. Very fun.

I can also attest to the 525 buttons. It was almost magical how fast they showed up in Central Illinois this year after alliance selections.

Re: Alliance Partner Gifts/Giveaways
 

Probably the best gift we've gotten from an alliance partner was a keyboard. The team was QWERTY (3278), and they swapped out the keys to spell out the team names and numbers for the entire alliance, one per row. Totally awesome!

Re: Alliance Partner Gifts/Giveaways
 

Makes one wonder just how many keys they have floating around...

Re: Alliance Partner Gifts/Giveaways
 

This year at world's, since our team is harry potter themed, we gave out little golden snitches that had ribbons inside saying "Thanks for being our alliance partner. ~5012" and the teams seamed really excited when they got theirs.

Re: Alliance Partner Gifts/Giveaways
 

You should have put small blue banners in them and etched on the outside "I open at the close". That would have been epic!

Re: Alliance Partner Gifts/Giveaways
 

I didn't mean to make anyone feel bad for not giving something out (whether it be buttons or blue banners...) I just wanted to get a pulse for what other teams do, as we've had varied experiences with this, at least in the time I've been part of my team. I'm also trying to get some ideas of other cool things that have been given away in the past.

For those of you who have done them, or have received them, please keep posting on your experiences. Everyone, of course, is welcome to post ideas.

Thanks!

Re: Alliance Partner Gifts/Giveaways
 

Trust me no one is thinking this thread was made with any sort of malice or bashing, I am honestly surprised there wasn't a thread like this all ready, my team already gives out both pit awards and alliance partner items at our competitions, usually our "shrek" ears, alligators, and/or fuzzy legs. We also give them a simple framed award like our pit awards that I made the template for years ago.

Here are the ones from South Florida, as well as the pit award for comparison:

Re: Alliance Partner Gifts/Giveaways
 

One part of our team uniform is our rally towel. These are twirled during team introductions. Also, when down on the floor during slow times, the drive team will twirl their towels at the team in the stands until everyone notices and everyone in the stands is twirling back.



We give our alliance partner drive team members towels of their own. These sometimes get used in creative ways.



After Galileo alliance selections, 973, the Greybots, loaned us their spare retractable blocker arm, which we mounted on our bot. They let us keep it after Championships. After we got bumped on Einstein, we removed the net from our pickup arm and cut it in four pieces. We gave one piece to each of our alliance partners, and kept one as a memento.

Re: Alliance Partner Gifts/Giveaways
 

1923 gives out zebra print bandanas to our fellow drive teams.

Zebra print, for silly reasons, has turned into an accent of ours, so our team gives them to each student on the team as a way of adding some pizazz to our pretty boring black/silver/jeans team uniform. We keep an extra box of them around for people who might want them, but we do make a special effort to save 8 for the other drive teams if we so happen to be a captain or get picked.

One of the coolest things to see was Siri from 1640 on Einstein this year, with her 1923 bandana still tied to her vest. That was pretty fun.

Re: Alliance Partner Gifts/Giveaways
 

I don't have a zebra bandana.... :rolleyes:

Re: Alliance Partner Gifts/Giveaways
 

We lend our alliance partners gold ties for elims and we sometimes let people keep them. We recently started selling ties after lots of people started asking how to get them.