What's The Coolest Promotional Thing A Team Can Give Out?
 

This is a poll for us to see what other people want to get from us. Post other things here and what your team will do.

Well,

The real answer isn't up there...so I voted on something that was....

THE COOLEST THING IS A SLINKY!!!! Yes, I got a slinky! at nationals one year. Boy was that cool.

Slinky, yes a slinky.
Anymore idea's?

What about phone cards???

Team 67 and 447 have handed those out in the past few years and they have been great for when i forget my cell phone and i have a lack of proper change....

The robot itself... :D :D :D :D :D

That's a good idea, we should auction off the robot...

My favorite hand out, which I of course lost, was a clicker. The hours I spent annoying my roommates with that...

I belive it was given out in 2000, but I could be wrong.


-Andy A.

What about food? I rember some of the temas from Hawaii passed out pineapples last year. We're thinking about giving everyone bananas! ;)

How about giving out bottle water....i got so thirsty last year/////aggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh



LOLZ

I personally thought that the NEC frisbees were well liked... just my thought.

How about beach balls? Toss one up at the top of the stair well, and watch the fun!

Well buttons are getting to common i think
Then you have pamflets, very useful, but also overused
Frisbees, balls, and other novelty items are always a winner cause they are usually nifty and new.
Noise makers i feel are just plain annoying (my view)

But the i think the neatest thing would be food... that we know where it came from.

My Fav's
 

2000: At the Jonhson and Johnson Regional, one team gve out a gear and housing that was very nice. Its not a planetary gear, but thats the best thing i can call it, when it spund, it was different then its housing and caused an osciallting CAM motion.

2001: The FORD lightup necklace at Nationals, very cool usage of magnets to complete circuits.

Wow, this is amazing. I remember seeing all sorts of things @ VCU last year! My idea is to creat a HTML page and use it on a mini-CD with photos of Sparky 3.0 and pictures.

i'll give a hug?

-anton

We gave away Hokie Water *yeah yeah yeah, "what's a hokie?"*

It's this silly bottled water that our college sells for "school spirit." The Hokie is the school mascot. It's a funny bird. It'll kick your school's mascot's a**. Believe me, I watched it beat up a couple mascots at the same time at a basketball game.

Banana's are good......

But I still say slinkies are the coolest!

My team gave out bagels at socal. We gave out about 2000 bagels. It was the best giveaway there. Everyone was hungry for breakfast and we were there to help.

Yummy...........
 

...and I ate some of your bagels. Great idea!!

I would love to get a FIRST sticker for my car. Seriously!!! It might look weird among my Incubus and Tool stickers, it'd be on there though...

well our bagels will be there this year, will you ?

I hope so, and maybe WE can get promotional slinkies....yeah, slinkies.....

I have that keychain from Team 225...it is the only handout I still have, although the website stamped on it has never worked...
We (116/Epsilon Delta) had 10,000 stickers printed. We still have 1,000 or so left over. We caught some heat because the stickers started getting stuck all over the place at Nats...
We are not getting stickers this year.

Food from Texas---

I remember when I first moved down here, jalepenos were given to me as a side at a BBQ restaurant. I asked "what's that" and was told, without a hint of a grin, that it was a "Texas Pickle".

That'd be a good handout - it might even inspire some macho contests, which are always fun to watch.

Hey maybe we will hand out some of our Indiana Corn?? :D

corn? indiana doesn't have corn. everybody thinks we do, but we don't.

It was team 225 from York, PA. I only know 'cause I got one from them this summer. ;)

Matt

Keychains...=)
 

Glad the keychains were a hit! Kids spent HOURS filing them!

May have a limited supply of leftovers @ VCU & Philly this year.

The website does work! www.Eysters.com

Glenn Eyster is THE BEST sponsor --- owns a MACHINE SHOP:D

Lisa T

Re: Keychains...=)
 

Well, the site does work, but all it has ever said is "Please visit back soon, this site is under going construction. Questions or comments can be sent to wire@eysters.com" :rolleyes:

I still like the keychain.:)

I want a key chain!! Save one for me at VCU!!!!

We did the slinkies up here!
 

:p

Hey,

We here at Team 5 did slinkies 3 years ago. We where known as the "slinky team." Good-ol' Dean-o even came down and got 3 of em. (Their shapes where a square, triangle, and a circle, and the square was red, the triangle was blue, and the circle was the rainbow!!) Ya, people just came up to us just to ask for our slinkies! Woo-hoo!

P.S. I Kan't Spel!!!

I am a big fan of temporary tatoos.

-Nate

Foam Footballs!!!!!

*bump*

War paint- FIRST STYLE
 

Last year we handed out tattoos and cartoons along with our standard buttons! Many teams liked them and woody flowers wore them on his face as war paint up on stage!!

It was fun

TEAM 69
HYPER

maybe not at this time of year...but in the summer come to Kokomo...corn for miles

How about labeled pens and pencils?
Has anyone thought of footballs?

Our team liked food items and bandanas that were passed out last year! Tattoos were good, too.

sounds like some of the stuff that 234 handed out.


nice to see you post lib!:D

Foam footballs, not hard plastic please.
They will be thrown around and getting hit by a hard plastic football in hte head isn't a very pleasant experince. :(

Best promo items I remember:
1. Limit switch with transparent housing on keychain(given out by a honeywell sponsored team)
2. Lego First men key chains

Oh...Lego FIRST men keychains would be awesome

speaking of LEGO's
CLICK HERE FUNNY

Spirit packs
 

Wow, so many great ideas, this is so cool!

My team's name is hartburn (no, that's not a typo. our school name is hart high). So anyways, we're going with this whole flame and fire theme. At the Seattle competition we're giving out spirit bags to each of the teams. They'll have Red Hots, Atomic Fire Balls, Fire Jolly Ranchers, Hot Tamales, and Big Red gum as well as team stickers and pencils. We also came up with the idea of BURNing all the teams there (there's only 33) CD's. They'll have that "pump it up" motivational music you hear at sports games and stuff. Oh, the teams up in Seattle are gonna be so spoiled.

oohh, why didn't you give out petmobismo? Or should MOE give out petMOEbisMOE...

Frisbees
 

We are trying to get those mini frisbees to give out along with our buttons, it was one of those night when we thought of this one lol...hopefully we'll have them for the Midwest Regional. :D

Actually, we're thinking of making pins designed around petmobismo, rolaid, and tum labels. We tried getting them to sponsor us but they weren't interested, bummer.

And JospehM, love your avatar pic...catch 22 right? I'm reading that book right now.

Yep, good old Yossarian. Great book. I just read the sequal, Closing Time.

I vote for the pinnapples that the Hawaiian teams were giving out during the Silicon Valley regionals last year:D

Oh, and the bag which team 25 was giving out. Really helped to keep all the goods in one place.

where have you been david? maybe you don't have corn in indy, but it's definitely there, lol.

my favorite hand-outs had to be the freeze-pops at nats (71) and the fortune cookies last year (71).

one year my team passed out temporary tattoos... people seemed to like those

i like it when teams give out frisbees though....... its so much fun to have a frisbee for between matches if the robot isnt broken

We are still working on our handout. I can't really give out too many details, as part of the challenge for the other teams at the LA regional will be to figure out what the thing does. However, I have spent many hours using the prototype while watching TV and eating dinner (to the annoyance of my family).

Oh, and BTW, if anyone knows where I can get 1,000 clear plastic disks (lexan, plexiglass, etc.) that are about POG sized (1.5"-2" dia.) and at least 1/8" thick, it would save us many hours of shop work.

I remember that Johnson and Johnson handout. Very cool, looked like a rotary oil pump as I remember. I gave mine up to a student who asked. It had either a neck chain or key chain to hold it together, anyway somehow everyone was wearing them around their necks.
I like the buttons and I will wear any button you give me on my FIRST/SME lanyard. I don't toss them away from regionals either so I can give the xray folks something to look at when the see my bags at the airport.

I think the coolest thing I got was a pair of drum sticks that some team of only boys gave me last yaer at the nationals.

I think the coolest that was given out at the KSC Regionals was the plastic swords that one of my team mates got.

365 is giving out earplugs
 

You all know how loud it can get inside the competition arenas. This year, the Miracle Workerz are giving out earplugs. Judging from the response at VCU, they were a hit. We thought that our initial order would last for both regionals, but we went through almost all of our supply. We'll have more by Philly.

The foam footballs were given out by us (team 108) in previous years, and we should have some at Chicago and nationals.

No Frisbees..but candy so maybe its better
 

OK, so the frisbees would have been a little to steep for our budget (Especially since that darn school board continues to not give us any money, but thats another story) But since our regional (Motorola Midwest) is on Easter weekend we thought we'd give out purple and gold Easter eggs with candy in them, shall be interesting..maybe we'll hide some lol :cool:

What do you listen to?
 

Hey everyone,
As I mentioned before, we're burning CD's for the Spirit packages we're giving to teams up in Seattle and I was wondering if your teams or you had any cool songs that you could suggest. We want to cover a broad spectrum of tastes so I want to know what kind of music pumps you up.

You could either post a reply back, email me at Smarty6748@aol.com, or IM me. Thanks a bunch!

The coolest thing to give out is hologram buttons and little robot dogs on keychains....

Hey, hugs would be cool:p I think that what ever unique item a team gives out is something that I would like. Yet I have to agree that the slinkys were a cool idea, and the simpsons pez dispensers that were handed out were cool too.

Our team was the one giving out the plastic swords. I think it was kind of a bad idea. i think alot of people got hurt after we gave those out. Oh well. We are going to give out a lot more at Nats. Hopefully everyone comes by and gets one of them.

Cody, Team 538 "The Dragonslayers"

Yeah, I tried to find the team that gave them out and I guess I was blind.

Oh yeah?? Our mascot is a pelican! it could...err...well...look at you funny into you melt!

We did helium balloons last year at nat's. It was a big hit. Many on our team came home with blisters from tying them.

Gene

You!! You Dragonslayers! You guys had the best mints! The swords were good, but... but the mints! The mints were godlike! You need to find me at Nationals and hook me up with the mints! Agghh!!! I WANT MORE OF THOSE MINTS!!

Anyway... [obviously] the Dragonslayer style mints are good. As are any kind of toys (i.e. swords, frisbees, blah blah blah).

Our team doesn't give out much besides buttons and bumper stickers. I personally give out hugs (yes, I really do). :)

Also, at KSC I managed to score a pair of pants from some guy on Heat Wave. I'm aiming for more articles of clothing at Nationals. So if anyone has some [clean!!!!] team shirts, pants, whatever... hook me up at Nats. Heck, it doesn't have to be from your team. Just give me any your clothing. :p

Great Idea
 

Team 498 is giving out bubble pens that have stress balls on top!!! great huh? post what u think.





Go Bananas!!!!
Check Out Our Monkey!
;)

I remember very fondly the lego men and clickers....i displayed them both proudly on my backpack until they were both, tragically, STOLEN!! That is how popular they were!!! Also, someone mentioned beach balls....Beach'Bot tried that a couple of years ago. We tried bouncing them around in the stands during our matched, but afterwards we always founds a couple dozen popped beachballs lying on the floor next to countless discarded buttons and necklaces.

I strongly dislike buttons. My first two years i diligently went to every team's pit trading for buttons. I ended up with four buckets of buttons, and all except for one or two very unique ones eventualy ended up in the garbage.

Hugs is good!!!

Candy is better!!! Archer (can't remember team number...one of our dearly beloved fellow socal teams) was giving out CARAMEL APPLE POPS!!! I still love you guys for that, if any of you are reading this! We're doing candy this year, but we don't expect it to taste good...it just happens to be very cheap to print our logo on candy wrappers.

BtW....how did i somehow miss these bagels being passed out at SoCal?? are you guys doing that again?? i love you all!! hugs for the bagel bytes!!

My favorite giveaways, aside from lego men and clickers and caramel apple pops, would have to be useful things like pens. I use the pens for months afterwards, and every time i use it, i remember the team who gave it to me. Needless to say, Beach'Bot is giving out pens this year. Pens to anyone who gives me lego men, clickers, apple pops, pineapples, bagels, or hugs.

Later y'all,
Amy

I think a new pair of MOE SOCKS . Warm look great at FIRST events or just any place but must be sign by me see ya in FL.:D

For swappables this year, we will be giving out buttons, keychains and CARMEL APPLE SUCKERS (yep, you heard that right! ;)) at regionals. For nationals we will also be giving out waterbottles, hackey sacks, frisbees, slinkies and some other cool things that I, at the moment, can't think of!!

I'm definatly a big fan of buttons and keychains from other teams!! ;) The slinkies last year (triangle, circle and square) were pretty sweet too!

- Katie

Love Beads....
 

Well, we always give out love beads. Every one is made by people on our team. We get everyone to make them, even the engineers and machinists. Now that is a sight! We ran out of the ones we brought to KSC in like two hours. So, make sure to stop by our pits at nats early to get yours.......
And don't forget about our face-painting booth......

I think I have found the hang out place at regionals, free suckers!!! Woo hooo! :D

PEZ! I got a bart simpson PEZ dispensor last year I am was out of my mind!

hooray for team 93, and hurray for carmel apple pops!!!!
*hugs for Katie*

Hurrahh! MORE CANDY! If you see a guy in an orange 384 shirt there, it's me (unless it isnt' me)....

Our team met last night, and apparently we're ordering 2500 Pixie Sticks to hand out at Nationals.

That's only if our team doesn't eat them all first... :D

in the 2000 nationals someone was asking me to give him something from my team, but we didn't have buttons anymore, I didn't have anything! so I wrote my team's name and number on an orange and gave it to him.

nevermind :p

We are giving out mousepads. Anybody thought of that before?

Team 102 - Check us out in Florida

See you there :)

Chris

I think the orange is a great idea, Digo!!! Beats lots of other stuff i've gotten.

Mousepads i've never seen before, so two points to Chris's team for originality

I think spam team should give out cans of spam :)

spam... now there's an idea. it's a good one i think. you know how during matches, you get hungry, but you're not always able to get food? well, with spam, you could keep food on you all the time and never have to worry about it going bad! sounds like a solid idea to me.

Chris

/me is disgusted at what he just wrote ;-)

The pixie stix are a cool idea but with that many i think the'll be gone in the first day your there.

Also does anyone remember little key chains that B.E.R.T. has iven out in the pas years. The thing with a gear on the inside, and the outside is shaped to the contours of the gear but it has an extra tooth?

How did teams at the Lone Star Regional enjoy the flags that 118 gave to each team?

I saw a number of them being used on robots, which was our original intent, but we were also pleased to see them on carts, in the pits, and in the stands.

For those of you that weren't there, we gave each team two flags (Old Glory with the team number printed ~8" tall, and a small Robonauts logo in the corner. One was over a red background, one blue.), as well as some cheap mounting hardware.

We're most likely going to do the same thing at Nationals, but we might just slim down to one flag per team - most didn't get that the flag's color was supposed to indicate the team's alliance anyway.

Heh, a few of my friends and I are actually planning to buy some cans and trick people into eating it/have spam fights/make spam sculptures/whatever happens to strike us. :D

I've heard the stuff is actually pretty good when it's cooked right. Maybe I could bring a magnifying glass and try cooking it outside... :p

hey, why bother going outside? we could cook it on our motors.

Chris

OK.......Lots of cool stuff ahs been passed out......my favorites have been......The swords from teh DragonSlayers.....those were neat-o!! They provided fun too when you weren't in a match!!! I also like the lei's from team 233 cuz the cute guys were handingem out and plus htey are cool to wear=) I liked the "love beads" from team 167 i think??? I also enjoyed the little visor with the dinosaur on it from team #37 Cordzila!!! But my all tiem FAVORTIE thing would have to be.......(drum roll please)......the cool little key chain that had three very tiny screw drivers in it......altough i can't remember what team it was but that was VERY COOL!

Our team as said beforei s giving out buttons......our Linux one was popular at regionals.......and everyone sti,ll digs the tradional SPAM logo one!!!! We're also giving out bumper stickers.......and the pixie sticks and one very special thing from me.........you'll have to find me to get it!!! OH yea!!! were also giving out STAMPS!!! WOOHOO!! HeHe!!!
I've always wanted to hand out SPAM at the comps. I'll talk to the team and see what they all say.......noone on our team likes it tho so it might be hard..........

I wanna see a team give away other team members.....now that would be cool.......think about it......the possibilaties(sp??) are endless!!

And I'm also collectiong clothing items!!!! I'm willing to do ANYTHING for an article of clothing!!! Put me to the test please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also come check out or PIT at NATS!!!

Love ya all!
Nicole
Team 180 SPAM!!!!

Items
 

Just about any item you pass out is ok too me.....

I liked the "love beads" from team 167 i think???

Nope, it's us, team 168, and we'll have them again at nationals....
Along with our facepainting booth, and some other things too....

#102 gave out awesome mouse pads at the J&J Mid Atlantic Regional.


All the FIRST guys running the computers all used them, and im using mine right now!


Thanks 102 for the coolest give-away of the Regional!

Mouse Pads?
Wow, that is kewl. Maybe I'll be able to get one at nationals.

Two words GUMMY SHARKS!! lol The ones from 121 at NYC FIRST were awesome!!! I think I'm addicted to them now!!!

Must find 121 @ UTC and FLA if they go..... Wait a minute, they won chairmans award at NYC, See you at FLA guys! Bring more sharks!!!

you like those gummi sharks eh? make sure you find me, i will stock you up on them

Cool Beans!!!!

Kewl! I haven't seen those things in forever.

gummi sharks!!! hook me up!!!

Gummy...

Auauauauaaaa.....

I got a unique gift from team 322 (?). It included a map of West Virginia, a pencil, candy (yes!), and other things. Cool becuase they handed them out on their own private bads, custom made, not with a company sponsor on it (Infenion, etc.).

we definitly have a very dedicated group of people who spend a lot of time packaging those gummi sharks...... i sent them a link to this page so they could see how appreciated they were........ and we will have plenty to go around in florida, so just swing by our pits and we will hook you up


Becky from 121 ...... its all about the gummi shakrs

Re: War paint- FIRST STYLE
 

Some of my team members had your tattos' and ended up with a sun with "69" on it tanned into their arms

At the LA regional one team brought their Roland Stika vinyl graphics cutter and was making free lettering in any color for all the teams. Very cool.

Yup, that was alpha omega from Bakersfield (can't remember their exact number at the moment). We chose them for our alliance in LA, very cool team!