Re: School Regcognition
 

One of the things I have done in the past to raise awareness of our team was to create several different videos using match and shop video shot in the previous seasons. these videos would be played on our school's morning announcements as well as posted to YouTube and social media. While there primary purpose was recruitment, by playing one every day for a week, most school administrators and almost every student was at least made aware of the existence of the team.

On 1065 our teams existence is spread throughout the school by our schools news, and team pictures posted to our school district's homepage after winning an award or competition. An easy way to improve team awareness is to make sure to advertise with clarity. Are you trying to be a team or a club or both? 1065 makes it clear we are a club that designs and builds 2 robots 1-2 days a week between January and March with the intention of competing at 2-4 competitions. Another effective advertising tool is having well designed team shirt that members are ok with wearing around the school. These, combined with posters detailing what your team does, can provide year round reminder of your teams existence along with information on how to join.

Re: School Recognition
 

Our team comes from one all-girls' school, and you won't believe how difficult it is to recruit people. The good part, however, is that the people we recruit are extremely loyal to the team.

Our Robotics team is at almost every single school event, especially the ones involving parents. Really though, I've found that the easiest way to recruit people is to get people to invite their own friends to the team, or to demo our robot.

Re: School Regcognition
 

Too true, haha.

"That's a cool robot. Have you heard of --"

"Battlebots?"

"How did you --"

"You wouldn't believe how many people asked us. And no, we don't plan to add chainsaws."

Re: School Regcognition
 

Add mills and lathes instead, they are much more dangerous!

Re: School Regcognition
 

First of all, the recruitment strategies you guys do seem pretty on point. I think I'll agree that making a robot like this seems hard to make to a new student and that it might deter some from joining. Something we do on our team (we have 109 people) is we go to a club fair (where the whole school goes during lunch to sign up for clubs) we sometimes take the robot there, but we always use a Google form and take down names and emails. We then add them to our email list and send out emails when we have meetings and mandatory meetings for parents and students. In these introductory meetings, we do a few things. We first start off with how much commitment is involved, the responsibilities involved, etc. We then show competition/match footage as well as some FIRST footage. We also list our accomplishments, show the awards, and drop the fact that there are 20 million dollars worth of scholarships available to FIRST students. Usually, we have a balance of student leaders and mentors show all this, so that way parents can see our leaders and what type of people our team helps us become as well as students can see that there are mentors who will guide them through the robot building process. Being a huge team, we have 7 build leads (4 captains, 3 coordinators), and we also tell them that the leaders will help the mentors teach everyone during MidKnight U (which is a several week workshop that we do to train new people) as well as build the two robots during the season (so there's plenty to do). That's part of what 1923 does to recruit people. We also tell them about how many leadership positions we have (something like 15-20) and how that might look good on college apps in the future. We are switching to a different recruitment strategy this coming season, but I didn't want suggest that as the point of that is to bring our numbers down to 70 (we aren't kicking anyone off, it the amount that show up after paying dues anyway). Just a little background, we have a very competitive school district where parents try and make their kids do everything, so many joining without realizing that it will be as much commitment as a sports team (I sure didn't realize it when freshman year when I tried to do swim team and this :rolleyes:). But anyways, I wish you good luck on recruiting!

Re: School Regcognition
 

I had to do a double take at the OP to make sure it wasn't one of our students posting; we even have the chair-bot just like you do. If it helps at all, it should be clear by now that you are in very good company as far as being overlooked and ignored by counsellors, teachers, and administration. We all struggle with that issue.

One perhaps useful idea that has worked for us: our students volunteer to do outreach to incoming students and families as representatives of all clubs and sports. They share their robotics experience while promoting participation in lots of other activities too. This works because, to be honest, none of the other clubs bother to show for these events, so we have a monopoly.

Re: School Regcognition
 

Havent read the full thread yet due to time limits, so sorry if this is redundant. if you want your community to get to know you, you have to be everywhere. Outreach is so important for recognition, and it can be hard to do with a small team, unless you have a few members who are very dedicated. Our team goes to a local fair & parade every year, is at orientation, gets on the announcements around the time of our first open meeting, brings the robot to lunches, and uses word of mouth to spread the word of our team, and of FIRST. Winning helps too: whether it's a quality award or a blue banner, something you can show off in a classroom or trophy case is a constant subtle reminder of your existence. once you're known, it is far easier to inspire.

That could be a good idea

you pray using your instrument as an idol one time, and it stays with you forever