Rubberbands are actually quite useful. I remember that a team handed them out last year at competition. The usefulness came in when we needed to tie a few rope strands together on our robot's basket. We didn't have extra rope, but hey! We did had some rubberbands. So, I'd like to say "thank you" to that team :)

How about sleep? Can anyone give out some sleep at UTC?

sleep good
 

yeah, that is a good idea, albeit not as marketable as some other stuff. i think that toys in general are the best giveaways, because they keep the non-involved people in any team's pit entertained, while leaving the engineers and other informed people pest-free to work on the robot!! :p i know they certainly kept me entertained last year...well, that's my idea.

All of the above.

Anything the team can afford to give away is good. Free stuff is always good, just don't forget about buttons. Something has to weigh Woodie down.

Last year my team gave out mainly buttons, but we had a few extra shirts lying around that we gave to judges. We also had quite a few 2in diameter circles of lexan and conveyor belt in our pit that one kid started writing our team number on and passing out. For any of you that watched the WorldCup this last summer, you may have noticed that after each match, the teams exchanged shirts. I think that this would be a fun idea for the HumanPlayers, Drivers, and Mentors to take part in. I don"t know whether it would be better to switch with an opponent or one of your alliance partners, but if you could get shirts cheap enough, this would be a really fun way to remember teams you had a direct involvement with. Also, as my team this year has a somewhat mystical/eastern religous/chi type theme, I"ve thought of getting someone on our team to learn yoga so we could have FIRST type yoga sessions to focus one"s concentration for the intense 10 seconds of box-placing and amass good karma to keep your robot working during the autonomous section.

what about a tree???
 

its been proposed that our team might give out trees this year.

how would you like that? eah?

:ahh:

gear oil pump things
 

OK so I have seen in several post people talking about the gear lubrication things. So here is the story, its called a garudder. I don't remeber the team that was passing them out, but they were by far the coolest thing I ever got in florida. When our team got them we couldn't figure out what the heck they were so we asked our engineer and he explained to us for a good 10 minutes or so how they worked. With the 1 offset tooth on the gear, each time it moves it leave a void to be filled. When it is filled with oil, it acts like a pump to move the oil down the shaft and out the other end. Those things were amazing me and my friend still have them on our key chains to this day.

Oh yea and I wanted to ask Tenley(Team238-aholic) what she wanted cozzies for? ;-) Everyone should talk to her about the whole trading shirts thing too. How many Shirt do you have from our team?

Re: gear oil pump things
 

BERT was handing them out. From what I remember, they said it was the only thing they got from there sponser two years ago.

Koozies are to keep your Mt.Dew cold obviously!!!!

Oh...Shane i think i have like a gazillion Team 60 shirts and a hat :D

ahhh thats what I figured, just had to double check :-)

i was just studing for some test, and it hit me... the one thing that most FIRST regionals have are some form of a party. yeah, sometimes the party fails, miserably, but why not give out something to help get the party started? like, ummm.... like....

well, thats about when i started to study again....

glow sticks? i don't know, but the concept still stands...

Re: what about a tree???
 

:D Trees are good.. Very very good.. Don't you ever listen at our spirit meetings.. Hrm.. ;)
anyways.. yeah..

:yikes: Here at brazil , we will be very glad if you gave us spalding basketballs . hehehheheheheheehe.

I was thinking....exorbitantly large amounts of cheese?

socks
 

I say team socks!!! lol