Re: getting your team involved with your school
 

that's the phrase of the day!! AAAAAAAAAGGGHH!!! /pee-wee

I've been asking for software help to make a promo video, but nobody seems willing to help yet :confused:

and I already have some really cool music to put behind it too...

Re: getting your team involved with your school
 

Yup, very good suggestions. I think we are on the right track to get the support we need for next year, but we were off to a rocky start this year. It was partly because we were a rookie team and it took us a while to figure things out. I'd like to point out that this team was started out by students with support from the one teacher and the school principal. We had found out about FIRST robotics from team 188 for the most part. We did know that a program like this did exist but we were eager to start the team when we saw Team 188's website and gallery. We spoke to members from the team. In fact our teacher advisor used to teach at Woburn (Team 188's school). Again, I'd like to thank Team 188 for their support.

Re: getting your team involved with your school
 

i think that there might be some kids on my team that might want to make a promo vid for us...now i just have to suggest it.

Re: getting your team involved with your school
 

RoteAugen:
Promo video isn't that difficult. What software? Maybe we can help. A digital video camera with a cheap remote mic works well for interviews of team members and mentors. Drop in footage/stills of mentoring, competitions, LEGO league,etc and a solid five minute video is easy...

Get those BAE mentors recognized by your board memebers. Make certificates of thanks for them. Get a story in the local paper or in BAE's newsletter - then send the newsletter to the school board and admin.

Get a teacher to figure out one motor calculation for you? Give em a certificate and email the world thanking them for technical assistance.

northendchopper:
It's not about guilt at all. It's about making people feel valued and important. Self esteem isn't just for students.

You are working on changing the culture. This is supposed to be difficult. You need to honor ALL PEOPLE where they are currently "at" before you could ever hope to have them think even a little bit differently.

Have fun.

Re: getting your team involved with your school
 

something amazing happened this morning:
my school finally recognized the FIRST team on its website.

it even mentions 131 northend!

here it is

Re: getting your team involved with your school
 

My heart soared reading your post and seeing it on their site.

Progress!!!

Keep it up cuz that kind of progress helps other schools begin to change their culture, and recognize/want robotics' teams more.

Re: getting your team involved with your school
 

I know I've posted this somewhere else but can't remember which strand...Anyway, we got more teachers involved out of sheer desperation but it had an unexpected benefit. We have one teacher and a teacher needs to be present during the entire build season. That's 47 long evenings/or days. So the students wrote a plea letter, spoke at a faculty meeting and asked for teachers to sign up for 3-4 hours to chaperone so this teacher could go home and have a life. They just had to be there. They could grade papers or whatever. So we had English,French, art, math, music, science, etc teachers sign up. And they were amazed at what they saw. This year we asked them to write a couple of sentences in a log. And they wrote pages of testimonials. Now much more of the school (but we still have work to do to reach more)understands what a commitment this project is and what a dedicated group this is. They now can help spread the word. Hope this helps. oh yes, EVERYONE, and I mean everyone who helps our team for 1 minute or 100 hours gets a thank you letter. Every teacher who helped got a letter. Every parent. Every sponsor.
Another story, we approached Sam's Club last summer for sponsorship. We wanted gift cards to use for food and supplies. We took a great pic of the team at the MD State Fair. We digitally wrote "thank you Sam's Club" and held it in the picture. Actually it was originally a pizza box from another sponsor. Wiped out the pizza and added sam's club. Sam's Club was hesitating about giving us sponsorship. I showed them the photo. They IMMEDIATELY whipped out the gift cards. Bingo. It worked for a lot of sponsors. :) :) :)

Re: getting your team involved with your school
 

We don't have teachers this year, but woo'd one to Phoenix that is paying off for our team much like yours. He couldn't stop talking about it at teacher's meeting, is trying to get us into pep rally. Now he's thrilled we "need" him at So Cal regional.

Meanwhile we've woo'd an educational advisor to go with us to nationals. I suspect he'll be a huge asset - he's a great guy.

We too reward any and every donation of time, money, in kind donations. We have a local pizza guy, for instance, who does a huge 48 piece giant pizza. He loved getting a letter with pic after each pizza, and requested it when I didn't mention it one time.

I've learned that rewarding them, means I don't have to remind them who we are come build season when I suddenly need FOOD!

Re: getting your team involved with your school
 

Same with my school. My American Goverment teacher had 5 of 47's students who are in his class come up to the front of the room and we had to tell the class what we did over the weekend, and somebody ask us what do we actually do and we told them that we build a robot. The only people in the school who know what we do are the teachers, the other school staff, and the students on the team.

Re: getting your team involved with your school
 

well at least you have 47 members. we not only have a problem letting the teachers know of our program, but also we have trouble with getting new members to join. so i figure if we get teachers more involved, make a promo vid, and some more demos we might be able to get what i am looking for

Re: getting your team involved with your school
 

We don't have 47 memebers. We only have about 27 students. But the team always changes every year with the number of people who join.

Re: getting your team involved with your school
 

That's what I like to hear! :) It's exactly what I (and my team) needed to hear right now. This is the first year I had to deal with the school board and needless to say, even though I try to keep an open mind, I was left with a sour taste. It's encouragement like that that we need at times.


[quote] Redhead Jokes
My heart soared reading your post and seeing it on their site.

Progress!!!

Keep it up cuz that kind of progress helps other schools begin to change their culture, and recognize/want robotics' teams more.
[Quote Redhead Jokes


I can't improve on what Cheryl said. This is one of the things my team is striving for---reconition. As a matter of fact my team has a meeting tonight with the board of ed. Hopefully we'll make some progress.


[quote]RoboMom007
We have one teacher and a teacher needs to be present during the entire build season [quote]RoboMom007


Same with us, we also have to have a teacher present anytime we use the building. We have two teachers involved with our team and this year we got a few others to show up some of the nights. Part of this was due to one of the main teachers (and the main team contact) being out most of the six weeks due to surgery (this is also why I took a more active role of my teams behind the scenes day to day functions this year instead of devoting my time entirely on the robot). We're hoping that at least one or two take interest next year. Also as Jenny mentioned, having more teachers involved takes some of the burden off the others.

Re: getting your team involved with your school
 

wow medical problems causing problems with others as well. our main engineer broke his wrist. he was unable to help build for some time due to the medicene he was on. these unforseen problems only make the team stronger.

27 team members is a good number.. we have somting like 20, but in that 20 you have the core team of 10 or so. it is that core that if you lost you would never finish. I wonder if the larger teams also have a small core team the devote the most.

(yeah it breifly mentions us...better then nothing :cool: )

Re: getting your team involved with your school
 

All of you seem to have more students than us, we have 10-15 students with 5-7 who make the core team...

I heard somewhere that FIRST gives you a recruiting video if you order one, anyone know where I can find it?