Button Making
 

How many teams have their freshmen/ 1st year attendee(rookie) make buttons before other team members? or hows your method of button making?

Re: Button Making
 

Team 25 has a spirit crew, appropriately named the 'Volcano Crew' for our Hawaiian theme. They are responsible for the production of giveaways, mascot costumes, noisemakers, banners, and generally the promotion of team spirit at the events. The crew consists of members from varying grades, and is an essential part to our presence at ever FIRST competition.

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What is a team required to do (not counting the robot)?
How are other teams getting people to join FIRST Robotics?
What advise would other teams give to a Rookie team?

Stephanie Blocker
Team #1415

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This might be a conversation best left for 'Team Organization'. But, I'll give it a shot...

Teams aren't really required to do much more than play a robot. You can choose to be as active or helpful as you'd like. It all depends on your view of FIRST and your goals as a FIRST team.

Team 25 approaches schools within our region with students, demonstration robots, demo videos, and just an overall impressive array of interesting and captivating information. We try to get the students and teachers as excited as possible, showing them different ways that they can be on the road to FIRST in no time, and helping them get past difficult problems, such as sponsorship and school participation. Team 25 also demos in public areas and at conventions as much as possible. Just get the word out, be interesting, be fun, be sincere. Let them known the immense dedication required for a FIRST team, but also let them know how incredibly rewarding of an experience it can be.

Advice to a rookie team:
Keep your head up. Play the game to your best ability. Learn from your mistakes, learn from others. Take in as much as you can this year. Utilize local mentorship possibilities to their fullest extent. Mentorship is the key to FIRST.

Re: Button Making
 

I Love Buttons!!!

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Our button making is left up to our group, the Chairman's Group. It's probably our secondary function but anyways...

We have everyone who has them submit design ideas and then we vote on the ones that we like. This year we have buttons for each group of our team (Animation, Chairman's and Engineering), a "game button," and a surprise design.

Then, we have button parties. And button parties are rather amusing... We all come over to my house, eat popcorn, watch chick flicks (yes, there are guys that we force this upon too!) and use the button makers to make mountains of buttons in the middle of the table. Just have fun with it!

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Last year we had mr button locally make our buttons. DISASTER!!! misspelled, didn't deliver to our address day before competition as promised...I refused to pay and he didn't argue.

FINALLY this year we'll be getting a
Button Maker

Make the freshmen make the buttons? Mmmm...smacks of our team a couple of years ago. Our version is find something to do, and you may find yourself making buttons.

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We have always made our buttons in the publicity (or Trinkets & Trash) group. We also have an unoffical rule that you have to make 100 or so buttons to go to nats. The hardest part is getting people to make logos for the buttons.

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thanks for the idea!

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At our school, we have activities every Monday morning that people sign up for, one of them is Robotics. We have anyone who goes to that make buttons for us, and the people who have study halls or whatever can go in to our advisor's room and make buttons. Also, at meetings, if someone is finished with a job or whatever, they get the chance to make buttons!
Basically we are making buttons every day, every free moment we have!! And all of us do it! Not just the rookies!

Re: Button Making
 

1089 usually gets together as an entire team and spends an afternoon cutting and making buttons. it's a LONG process but it gives us some bonding time and some time to be goofy. EVERYONE on our team helps cut out or put together buttons, almost in assembly line style (or last year anyway), and i think that's the way it should be. why should a freshman/rookie to the team be forced to do something they don't necessarily want to be doing? besides, it's not like making buttons is all that strenuous ;-)

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Yes on S.P.A.M. we like to make the rookies do lots of buttons-- they get to do various things that we veterans don't like to do. Buttons are not bad but for rookies we make them clean, take out the trash (taking out the trash is a bit hard for many of them) oh and file down parts--- we keep them busy!

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Team 25 uses a BADGE-A-MINIT machine. In recent years, we have borrowed a button machine from the school marching band, but for the 2004 season, one of our NJ FIRST RINOS projects was to buy a button machine to lend out to local rookie teams on a 2-week basis so that rookies didn't need to fundraise for the extra expense, but could still have something nice to give away at competitions. After we rushed to make our buttons in our 2-week period, we sent the button machine around to anyone who requested it.

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Team 237 also has a Badge-A- Mint. From what I know we're on our second one (wore out the first one). I can't even count the numbers of buttons let alone the HP printer cartriges we've also gone through. When ever someone doesn't have something to do they break out the Badge-A-Mint. Also as a fundraiser we cut out all the circles of paper and put out crayons and colored pencils and allow children to design they're own button for a dollar. Our team members just assemble the buttons when they're done. We've done this at the local mall, town functions (October Fest, Dare Day, ect.), local car shows, and such. You won't believe how much of a hit it is for children to make they're own and the publicity your team recieves. :)

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We have different committees on our team (i.e. build team, scouting, animation team, spirit, PR, etc.). Spirit committe is solely responsible for making buttons, and in fact our biggest button-makers are seniors and team veterans who won't waste button supplies and whatnot.

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Stellar idea. I'll bring this one up...

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man button making is a nightmare for me, i get stabbed so many times its crazy, i think some people though shouldn't be given button likes the guys who put them all over, man last season i walked next to a guy at nationa;s and got stabbed like fifty times, not cool. i think buttons are bah!
yeah, but i like handing them out, people smile!
:D

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Anyone with any free time on the team is will be put to work and since the PAW room is a popular hangout joint for idling teens on the team I will be sending alot to go do buttons in the comming weeks.

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Team 135 uses a Badg-A-Minit machine and Bill's 8-yr-old son Andrew who makes PERFECT buttons. Button manufacture is also a punishment for breaking rules such as "No humans hanging from the bar" (penalty 100 buttons) and "Chair's from Jim's room do not go out into the shop" (penalty TBD). After ship date the students will each make a certain number of buttons before each event.

We also print one color copy of a page of 9 buttons and make color copies at Kinko's for $1 a page. Cuts down on toner usage (robotics is a class here and has to run through the school system for printer supplies) and emphasizes the fact that buttons cost money so don't waste.

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Well, PR sometimes get in on the button making, but incoming freshman help out- a bit... besides the fact that we have like 3000 buttons, and still have to make more this year! AHHHHH! :ahh:

(Like making buttons is all that hard- pull down the handle, pull down the handle again, lol... oh how i love buttons!!!!!) :)

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*Glare*

Oh well, I guess I have something to do between ship and nationals now...

(/me thinks of the robot withdrawl :D )

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Team #538 also owns the wonderful Badge-A-Mint machine. We use it mostly as punishment for people who are goofing off -- "you're slacking .... go make buttons!" Seriously though, there is no set group of people that do it, just whoever is there and can't work on the robot due to various reasons (other people in the way, waiting on parts, etc.)

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yeah.team 648 does the whole badge-a-minit dealy..it works out pretty well for us..we get the job done..it takes awhile..but..we get it done..it gives us something to do all the time..so..its all good.i recommend it..its cheap..and it works!

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I'm a freshmen and, I haven't been asked to do the buttons... yet.

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*sigh* it was tough for me to let those who didn't graduate last year take over for me in button making. but at least i still got to design them...and I have taught my crew well! yay Volclano Crew! :D :D :D

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How many buttons do you make for each regional? For Nationals?

This is our first year doing buttons, so how many should we order if we are going to a regional and nationals?

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About 1500 per regional and 2000 to 2500 for nats.

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Holy Cow! I was told by past button maker 500 per regional, 2500 for nats.

I haven't had luck with buttons since I've been there.

FINALLY this year we're going to have buttons *crossing my fingers waiting for the button maker*

Re: Button Making
 

That sounds about right.
We are also encouraging our kids to come up with their own designs (so long as they are tasteful and in the spirit of FIRST). Some day we'll have to make complete sets of all of our buttons to give away as a package.
We're also trying to make t-shirts to give away as well.

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we do this too but then we normally end up with 60-80 designs but for some reason not this year.

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[quote=Koko Ed]That sounds about right.
We are also encouraging our kids to come up with their own designs (so long as they are tasteful and in the spirit of FIRST). Some day we'll have to make complete sets of all of our buttons to give away as a package.[quote]

Aughhh, setting the bar higher. Your post sparked a conversation between my husband and I. He pointed out that you have that many buttons because of different designs. Which reminded me our graphics guy created something very cool last year (haven't asked if I can reveal it) that we have yet to make come to fruition - it has to do with buttons.

Then my husband pointed out that some years ago he was at a computer convention where Microsoft had numbers on all their buttons, and if you found a matching number, you won a prize, so people were wearing 20 Microsoft buttons, and trying to find the match. He said it was the greatest marketing thing.

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We may have a suprise in store for all you teams that have seen our give-aways in the past few years (re: plain buttons)

Maybe....

I'll trade a t-shirt for one of yours!! And that goes to anyone who is interested.
PM me!!

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Team 116 may just have a limited number of "special" buttons to give out at the Regionals we will be attending. That's all I can say for now, anything else would just get me in trouble prematurely.

Heidi

<=======>
wistles and walks away...

Re: Button Making
 

Last year, our team made nametags instead, with little clip on the back. It wasn't really that expensive, especially if you go to one of those places online that make free nametags, laminate them, then attach clips to the back :D also, we had a few nametags with names of each person on the team, the engineers, and people who helped the group.

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Well on team 126 we have a button design contest, and our team members vote on the best design. Then, our spirit team leader Tia with help of other team members make buttons :D

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That is mandatory for us during the build season because of the policies at our HS.... Just more unwanted politics.. But the badges are cool!!!!

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last year we didnt have many people who had time to make buttons; as a result one member saw we would never have enough buttons and began making them faster than i thought humanly possible. the speed at which he was moving the lever defied the known laws of phisics; by all rights it should have snapped. we got enought buttons though we had a few with odd marks where a finger had strayed into the parts. We supplemented our lack of buttons with team magnets and pens

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Yeah we always have our ordered by some company including this year. this year we have a button maker so we might make a "top secret" button. Its just the chairmans/spirit group. (Look for us team 116 at VCU and Cheasapeak)

*please note the secret buttons are very limited and will only be given to teams that give us really cool stuff in return

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We use a Badge-A-Mint. Most the time its the ppl who know how to do buttons do them. This year we had 2 kids do the buttons for the first time and they actually ruined about 200 buttons that wasted us a lot money. so we keep with experinace pplz!

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keep with experienced people?!

how do you do that?

doesnt anyone graduate from your HS?! :^)

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Can anyone forget Ken's limited-edtion "What kind of stupid robot are you?" Dexter pin?(only 5 ever made)

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thanks Ed - it is pretty cool when people come looking for you, asking

"do you have any more of those buttons? PLEASE? "

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The last one in existence is hanging up in the Sparkies area.

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yes ppl do graduate from are HS's! we just use the ppl that have made them last year withch were new pplz(lol) like me but we didnt mess up. We just let the ppl that understand do it

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:yikes: Team 47 has our own button maker. It's actually fun and quick. One person cuts the button shape and the other one just makes the buttons. For us, it gets everyone to have a chance to spend time as a team. For buttons, each person makes their own buttons, but it's pretty hard to have 28 team members do it all at once. Mostly the rookies(myself) does some buttonss for regionals, and for nationals.

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We have our own to. We have ppl print them off the comp and then some ppl cut out. 2 ppl set them up and one person finshes. and then presto we have our!

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does anyone know of anyplaces in md that sell badge a minit makers or other types of button makers

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I laugh at those that say have 500 buttons (or more) for regionals... We have a bag of ~1000 buttons that we've had for at least two years and even though we were trying to forcibly give them away at VCU, we didn't give away more than 100 at the most... Who knows, maybe everyone being sick hurt our button giveaway rate...

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our team didn't *do* the whole button thing
We were getting asked every 10 minutes, too.
freakin annoying

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You could probably try a crafts store.

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I did a search on the internet and didn't find any, although that doesn't mean that there aren't any places in Maryland. You might be better off just ordering directly from Badge-A-Mint. I included a link to them.

http://www.badgeaminit.com/

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We rented two button machines and the PR team tried to convince everyone to come and help make buttons when ever they had a chance. We actually convinced people to come in and work during thier lunch and after school. With all the dedicated team work me managed to make a lot off buttons in a short period of time. Thanks a lot to every one that helped out!

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A local business person made button for our team again this year. We will be at Houston and Atlanta and gave several out at St. Louis. Please take our buttons! I think they made like three thousand. That may be a little too much but I will try to give a person to everyone I can at Atlanta. Here's a picture of our 2004 buttons.

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Great button! We'll be at Atlanta with our button banner ready to display everyone's buttons we can collect. Please help us make sure yours is on it.

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I really like your button design team 1108! We were worried that we would run out of buttons again this year. Last year we ran out on the first day and we had about 2000. This year we made around 2500. I don't have a picture of them right now but you can count on seeing our mascot Kurby on it again this year!

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We have a commitee called "Team Identity" and they basically design our shirts and buttons and such. They most of the button making, but its mostly a freshman job because thats what there for after build season.

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We don't make buttons - instead, since one of our main sponsors is a plastics company (Monarch Plastics), we gave out calendars and dry erase boards with the Malvern Robotics logo at this year's Pittsburgh Regional.