down with black t-shirts
 

can someone please tell me how i can convince my team that black is a BAD color for t-shirts? it will get too hot and i know they will all regret it. Erik (Erodge) and I tried to tell them that, but the won't listen. please feel free to visit our site, http://www.geocities.com/hhsfirst02 and vote for what you think the best color would be. ^.^

We had black shirts for our team and I thought it looked really spiffy and professional and you couldn't really tell when they were dirty (a big plus for those boys working in the pits all day). Personally, I liked them. Granted, we didn't go to Florida where heat would have been an issue.

But being on the committee that did t-shirts, here are arguments that we heard against black shirts that you could tell your team.
1. As you said before, heat! (won't work if you're from a cool state or you only competed in winter months like us)
2. Black shirts will fade after many washings and will make your srhits look old.
3. Lots of teams have black shirts and it was hard to find my teammmates sometimes cuz our shirts didn't stick out.
4. You're limited with what colors to silkscreen on your shirt. Unless you do a lot of white, yellow, or bright red, it won't really pop out.
5. White shirts are cheaper than white shirts (though I personally don't like white, too bland and gets dirty easily.)
6. This sounds hilarious and mean at the same time but we really did have to take this into consideration: someone on our team, not mentioning any names, had bad dandruff and it showed with the black t-shirts.

My favorite FIRST shirt of all the ones I've collected is a Steinmetz shirt from Team 19. It's black.

We always talked about black shirts being too hot for Florida, but when it comes down to it... they're not so bad.

During the spring and summer times black is too hot for florida...trust me...I try not even to wear black shorts during that time...

Hey Sara ya i think that light gray is cheaper, looks better, and is cooler. Its a scientific fact that black is hotter in the sun!

Maybe you guys should get Hawaiian Shirts :D

We wear black shirts, and have every year for the past four years. People have tried to get us to change, but it's part of our "image." The FEDS just wouldn't be the same without black shirts and a white FEDS on the back. While I would agree it is not the best color for Florida, I've never been uncomfortable wearing black at Nationals.

Black will make you look thiner

Mabey you can convice them it's a bad idea because the same person who though up that color also says 1089 is an even number.

So will vertical stripes.

I know --- Black Vertical stripes! :)
Oh wait... nevermind..

perhaps a referee shirt?????

Yeah ... I couldn't see the FEDS without black shirts - that would just be weird ;)

We've had numerous colors over the years:

2002 - grey
2001 - red
2000 - white
1999 - black/red
1998 - ??
1997 - ??

I think we're sticking with grey shirts from now on, You can't tell when they are dirty (again, great for working in the pits!) and they don't get too warm in Florida. Grey is a good color :)

- Katie

But it is also a scientific fact that black radiates heat better. Why do you think that in egypt people wear black and dark blues so much.

116 uses three colors, one for each day of the competition.
Usally a grey, a red, and white.
Black is usally mentioned as goning to be hot, but it will be hot anyway, and the tents/pits are covered and air conditioned.

One day you wear it at Nats/other competition. You wear it all over the place at home the rest of the year. (I wear mine all the time, with 14 it's easy)


Wetzel
~~~~~~
Still DRE

Our team has two shirts: one for the practice day, and one for the two competition days. Even though I curse my dark(almost black)-blue practice shirt, I still prefer it as the piles of chain grease and other misc. robot fluids don't show at all. My white shirt from last year has a GIANT streak of black grease down the front, so I don't ever wear it anymore. Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that black is horrible in terms of heat, but worderful for the pit crew.

Whether something gets hot in the sun or not depends on the ratio of its emmisivity to its absorptivity. The emmisivity is a measure of the ability to radiate energy. The absorptivity is a measure of the ability to absorb energy via radiation. If it absorbs better than it emits and there is a source of radiant energy it will be hotter than the environment. If it emits better than it absorbs it will be the same temperature as the environment, because other methods of heat transfer will make sure of that.

For you REALLY technical types I'm assuming steady state here.

For most things emissivity and absorptivity are assumed to be close to the same. There are special applications where materials are deliberately modified to improve one or the other. They are definitely not dependent on color, though if you're trying to push things one way or the other the materials used can do that for you. (ie it's really hard to make white paint that's loaded with carbon black).

I don't know that anybody has ever measured the relative emissivity and absorptivity of a tee-shirt, let alone a black one. But it might be an interesting experiment. (meaning the results might surprise you) Science fair anyone?

We had the same argument last year. I'm told our school has finally chosen school colors (by executive fiat I think) and we will be using those this year. The bad feelings from last year were a major, though not the only, driver for this.

Two years ago we had gray shirts. When I took a picture of the crowd at Nationals we were easy to find. We were the dull spot way up on the right side. But teams in black didn't show up all that well either.

I've been waiting for a year to try and explain this to someone.

ChrisH

Heh. One layer of black shirt is fine. I wore my Dickies work short (team shirt), a heavy yellow or blue tee under it, then a beater as an undershirt. I was fine :) Wimps...sheesh :P

IMO, black is nice, provided you have a nice design. A bright color and large, noticeable design is a MUST!!! Something unique...

Our shirts are black with red and yellow flames at the top. They were never to hot for our team members. (maybe it has something to do with our team mascot, the Devil? who knows?) anyway, our shirts stand out. People know team 87/Diablo/RVR is in the house because of our shirts.

Try all the colors
 

Try Tye-dye, and just use all the colors. :-)

Well, between us, Wildstang, and the X-cat's, it might be hard to find your own Tye-dye design (We are all very destintive)

We manage to tye dye everything. Shirts, short's, labcoats, socks, headbands, we even do our robot in the off season. :-)

http://www.tj2.org/2002/imagepages/p4260241.html

http://www.tj2.org/2001/imagepages/phaneuf.html

We also have our "Dress Blue" shirts. These are usually worn at event's like when we visit the Statehouse, Friday compeition day, or events where we have to look slightly spiffier.

http://www.tj2.org/2001/imagepages/mrscalefandmoe.html


Besides, Blue shows up better than White. :-)

http://www.tj2.org/1996/imagepages/96hamp11.html

I do have to warn you. You have to practice alot with Tye-dye to get it right. (Unless you have someone Make your shirts) We've always hand Tye-dye'd our stuff.

Here is probably the only picture you will find of our First Tye-dye shirts. We've had Tye-dye every year we've been in the compeition.
http://www.tj2.org/1996/imagepages/playerstation.html

Took us till around 1998 to get it right.

well...we just got black t-shirts...and they were quite popular at deleware...everyone was trying to steal them from us and offering us all sorts of cool things... actually they are black and blue. very pretty.

It's Delaware! WITH AN A! Jeez. Actually I did get a lot of compliments on our shirts, they were popular :) I'll try and get a pic up later.

nice shirts 122
 

like your shirts (you have the same style as ours just with blue flames instead of the yellow/red ones we have) if you really want to stand out, use neon colors (i.e. MOE's bright green soccer jerseys) or bright colors.

Auhg...I bot one of those cool Duel on the Delaware shirts and it was taken/lost/misplaced or something. So I went and got another one. Sheesh. 20 bucks for a shirt :/

20 bucks? really? i got one that said "crew" on the back and it only cost me 10... *grin*

If you are really concerned about your team-mates getting overheated: try calling up Rose City Textiles in Portland Oregon and have them send you some swatches of whatever they have in black for different ventilating meshes (not as see through as it sounds) or a fabric they list as COOLMAXtm. Some of the sports fabrics they carry have a nice lumincecsent quality when under certain kinds of lights and would look really cool. There are weaves and knits that will appear flat black, but reflect different colors when you move and light hits them from different angles. Some will even have a subtle to mor obvious sparkle to them.
You can purchase the fabric in bulk really cheap if you can order it through your school (non-profit, business type customer rating). Then get somebody's mom who can sew to make them for you. Makin T-shirts is basic quick work. I know a woman out in Utah who might do it for you.

Er...wait a minute. You're out here on the east coast. Send it to me and I'll do it for five bucks a shirt plus shipping. (unless of course you have like eighty team members. That might be hard)

If all else fails with the black; I haven't noticed any teams that wear a lovely pale pink! JK!

You haven't seen the Space Coast team have you? They wear buttons that say 'Real Men Wear Pink'

And yes ... they do wear pink

Stephen

Actually there is a team that wears florecscent pink. They have Think Pink as their slogan and the guys have shirts that say "real Men Wear PINK". I think they are from Florida.

I forget their number though.

I think Miss Tree is right about the "lovely pale pink" though. Such a color might acutally stand out at Nationals, it being so much more subdued than what everyone else is wearing.

ChrisH

:confused:

Only on here :D

i haven't posted in a while... much school work... anyways...

White is a bad idea for the girls when they start handing out FIRST water. But, black is really bad if you're going to Nationals. Go for grey.

"TBD, USA" ... if Nationals is held in Florida, that is... :confused:

Well...I meant it to show that I bought 2 shirts for $10 each :/

Sorry, she's a little slow sometimes :)

She just wants you to be jealous that we got crew shirts :D

If it was my choice, I'd go with blue, green, NEON YELLOW, or black.

I have a neon shirt laying around and whenever I wear that people can spot me out a mile away (it is fun)

The black shirts were not as bad as i thought they would be in Florida last year. I was on crew in Florida and the black "CREW" shirts were pretty hot but not unbearable. My team (330), however decided to use mainly white shirts due to the excessive heat.

Even if you were in a completely white shirt in Florida, you would still be hot. It is extremely how and the heat will give you heat exhaustion pretty quickly no matter what you wear. The important thing is to stay out of the sun as much as possible (Thankfully most of the fields are indoors.) and drink a lot of water. (Those pesky mentors forcing you to drink enormous amounts of water are actually doing a good thing. Tts better to drink water than have EMS end up giving you an IV due to dehydration.) But overall i think the black shirts were hotter, or at least felt like it. But in the hot Florida sun pretty much anything gets hot quickly.

fact: Florida is hot no matter what color shirt you wear
fact: people like getting wet when they are hot
fact: white shirts become indecent when wet

i really didn't care what color shirt my team wore last year, long as it wasn't white. Guess what they picked.

In 2001, our team made the mistake of having our team shirt be long-sleeved and black... Boy am I glad I wasn't in the group who went to Nationals...

Wait a second... :(

Our team got denim shirts as our saturday shirt back in 2001....they were really nice, but it was almost unbearable...those things got really warm...

Doesnt matter the color, just make sure the shirts are cotton...

Ah yes black T-Shirts. Very Cool for NYC and UTC New Haven Last year, not so good in Fla. Way to hot. lol

Anyways, this really sucks, I have an idea for shirts this year for our team but I have been pricing these types of shirts and they cost like $35.00 each to make them, and that is the bulk rate.
Not Good!!!!!

Arghhh, maybe I'll just have one made @ 50.00 for myself and then see what everyone thinks. Oh yeah!

I wonder if cotton pants would be good lol.

... the fabric of our lives.

Quote from George of the Jungle:
"Im chafing Max, im chafing."
"You moron i told you to always wear cotton in the jungle. Cotton breathes."

I also agree with the Flordia thing. I went to Disney World in March 2 years ago and it was at least 95+ every day. Boy was i sweaty.

Please no wet T-shirt contests either. We are sophisticated people here... or are we?

Only till we go near water when we're sweating our butts off. :D

Black in Florida's really not that hot. Besides, I don't know what everyone's complaining about. The last few years have been nice and cool compared to how hot it is in South Florida at the time (although South Florida is normally a bit cooler then the Orlando area). The real heat in Florida comes from the humidity anyway. I'd worry more about the fabric then the color. Get something like polyester and you'll feel hot and sticky all day long. If you pick something comfortable and light like cotton or maybe that weird porous jersey material (no idea what it is). But this advice is coming from someone who wears pants and long sleeved shirts in the Florida heat with no discomfort, so maybe the heat's just melted my brain.

Hehe. I have no complaints about wet t-shirt contests :P

Anyways...Black shirts aren't all that bad. I think half of the heat is in your head. People just 'know' that black stuff is WAY hotter than white. There is a difference...but probably not as much as people make it. You can always try to buy a light-weight shirt. I think Hanes makes thin ones, but I'm not totally sure. I know I wore an undershirt, thick t-shirt, and a gray dickies workshirt, I wasn't all that uncomfortable.

It could be that Nike Dri-Fit or Cool-max fibers devloped by Dupont. (they seem to make everything cool: Teflon, Kevlar, Cool-Max...)