Chief Delphi - What does your school think of robotics?

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Re: What does your school think of robotics?

I don't speak for my whole team but most of the people that i hang out with (That aren't on the team) at my school don't even know that there is even a robotics program

Re: What does your school think of robotics?

Like for example today as I was leaving my 6th hour i carried out our 2003 robot from Stack Attack. Everyone was asking what it was and howq it worked. I simply said that it shoots a large out about 12ft and knocks down alot of big boxes, with the fore to knock you unconcious. Everyone was like cool and asked if it was for robotics.

Re: What does your school think of robotics?

Quote:

Originally Posted by av11d

I'll talk briefly about our school specifically and then hopefully provide you with some useful advice on changing the attitude your school exhibits towards your robotics team. "School" is kind of general so I'll break it up into individual categories.

Administration
Our administration is very supportive of the roboraiders. Both our principal and superintendent visit us at the NJ Mid-Atlantic Regional. Every year they are very impressed and make an effort to congratulate everyone on our team at the competition. The school board also recognizes us at a local board meeting by congratulating each one of us individually. The board meetings are aired on a local channel. While they don't provide significant monetary aid, they help out where they can. For instance, this year they are purchasing us our own trophy case. They've allocated us space along a wall at the high school This should go a long way in showing the school how successful the robotics team is.

If your administration is not particularly helpful, I recommend inviting them to your closest regional competition. Have them see how exciting and powerful a regional competition is! Maybe even give them a presentation on your team so that they see how cool a FIRST team is.

Faculty
I'm positive every teacher at our school knows about the robotics team. Teachers always ask me how the season is going, etc. Many teachers ask for demonstrations during their classes. The only advice I can give you on spreading the spirit of FIRST to the teachers is to give a presentation on the team at a faculty meeting.

Students
Peers are absolutely the most difficult group to convince that a FIRST team is cool. At our school, it's hard to pinpoint a general feeling. Some people see us an elite group of science students who do amazing things with engineering. Others see us leaders and college-bound students. Of course there is the group who see us as geeky, but not in a bad way.

I think the key ingredient in exhibiting an image of "coolness" is to show the school how successful you are. No matter what team it is, students want THEIR school to perform well. Also show them the non-robotic parts of your team. We've shown our 3D animation to the entire school.. and everyone is always so impressed. Give demonstrations during lunch periods; if anything, they will at least respect you for your amazing achievements in building the robot. Try to get a group of diverse students involved in robotics. This goes a long way in spreading the message of FIRST to the different cliques in the school.

In the end, don't worry about it too much! Just have fun!

This is almost the opposite of our school: The students that might dislike the team keep to themselves and we are generally accepted in the student body. The teachers are supportive of us, but the administration doesn't support us very much at all.

Re: What does your school think of robotics?

While we don't get money from the school, we get adequate support from administation (if we do well) and very enthusiastic support from the teachers. Students are another issue, I guess. People at our school are really involved, but robotics isn't a big thing. There's always the people who think that you have to be a genius to join, or that all we do is build a little robot with spinning saws and attack other robots (YARR!). But recently we've been making a huge effort to show the school what we're really about and how much fun we have, and it's paid off. For the first time ever, we have a team of about 30 girls. I've had people tell me that they thought it was cool that I was obviously so in love with it. I think all you need to do is show people your passion for FIRST (because i KNOW im not the only one whose absolute love of robotics comes through whenever i talk about it), and they'll be intrigued to learn more and more willing to be supportive.

:cool:

Re: What does your school think of robotics?

everybody regards us as odd since we have jackets :ahh:

Re: What does your school think of robotics?

Most of my friends just get disapointed when they find out Robotics isn't anything like Battle Bots. -_O

Re: What does your school think of robotics?

Pretty much no one in school knows about us. The School Board thinks we're their really loud neighbors (not our fault they're having meetings right in the middle of build season!!!) Even the geeks think we're weird :rolleyes: But I think the best time was when my older sister had to go pick up a fellow student at lunch from the high school during the middle of GLR, so she went to the school in the middle of lunch....completely forgetting the BRIGHT orange feather scarf and that her face was covered in blue and orange face paint...She got a few odd looks :D :D

Re: What does your school think of robotics?

Unfortunately, our school does not even know our robotics team exsists....they know there is this large classroom in our basement that has lots of robots in it, and there have been random kids wearing "bobcat robotics" shirts, but other than that, our school isnt very involved. However, our team has more than doubled in size, and hopefully we can spread out more to our school.

Re: What does your school think of robotics?

I still think we have it really bad. We our a High School team building a robot in a Junior High wood shop with equipment that is older then some of our mentors. They are almost 50 years old and a fire in the wood dhop for us is a weekly thing know. The wood shop classes never cleans up after themselves leaving sawdust to catch on fire underneath all of the equipment. Plus we get yelled at if we leave a part out on one of the tables, they will either take them or not tell us for a week.

Re: What does your school think of robotics?

if this revives the thread then so be it because it is worth reviving.

our school couldnt care less. (considering only about 30 students out of the 3,200 students in the whole school know about it.)
this year (our rookie year) we started with about 15-20 kids who showed interest or were actually working. as the build season progressed we slowly tapered down to about 5 kids who were actually working on the robot. I would say that i probably put about 60 hours into the robot my self. (about half of what the other four spent combined).

it really makes me angry how the other students refer to us over the announcements (we have a t.v. program and it is a live telecast with news and stuff on it) it sounds like they are talking about what is for lunch that day(we have about 6 different options to choose from for lunch and they actually sound more excited for that i think).

but then again i guess i can really blame them seeing as they know nothing about us.

i guess the reason for the low # of kids is because the teacher our sponsor from boston scientific first contacted sat on actually starting the team and spreding word until a week before build season when the activities director stepped in and assigned a new teacher.

Re: What does your school think of robotics?

Well, 675 is at a high school called "Technology High School" where we emphasize on science and engineering, and most of the attendees are pretty geeky. I mean, somebody starts playing DDR in the Spanish Clasroom and a quarter of the school shows up to watch (of course, there's only like 240 students there).

Re: What does your school think of robotics?

Just like at any high school you're gonna get people whho think you're nerdy/geeky/whatever... But the truth is we all are lol. I mean, I still surf and play soccer and do many other "un-geeky" things, but come time to play with robots, i transform into ubergeek lol.

Our team has black jumpsuits with Nasa patches as well as patches from all of our sponsers and our names on them and we wear them around school everyday before a competition; we get mixed responses. The general population thinks their cool, some people think their lame; and some oblivious people think we're astronauts visiting the school. But when we presented our robot last year, everyone in the school was pretty stoked. And this year, people are actually looking forward to seeing us present our robot.

As for the rest of the school (faculty/administration), there are mixed opinions. Many of the teachers like the thought of the program, but a select few are resentful due to the "lack of dedication" they observe over the 6-week build season as students focus much more on robotics than they do on their classes (or so they claim). Seeing as how we are a pyblic school with already low district funding, our administration has been hesitant to dedicate any resources towards our program leaving our student financial team entirely responsible for rasin the appropriate funds for our program.

However, as we have accumulate accolades and gained respect and repute in the FIRST community (we, 1717, are a sophomore team) our administration has become more friendly to the idea of supporting our team.

In no way has this been a knock to our school, overall we have experienced huge support from everyone - our principal even drove down to LA on a school day to observe - and our program is quickly establishing itself as a fortified educational pillar of our school's academia. It is moreso the lack of resources that has been giving us problems.

As for the whole geek/nerd thing. Hey, I'd rather be a geek or nerd and build a robot than not lol.

Re: What does your school think of robotics?

My school, is anti- everything when it comes to the admin.

They first say that they support you likes arts, and science, and education, then, the drop your budget, limit the people allowed to go to competitions and they don't help you get the word out.

Students, most don't know about us and joke with us ( those of them who know) cause they'd never join but they envy our brains :p

Re: What does your school think of robotics?

haha. Im glad someone brought this up. In my school robotics is like taboo to mention to people and ususally the only thing that people think robotics is good for is a day off. ( In our school if we win a competiton we get a day off )

Re: What does your school think of robotics?

At our school, we have a few very dedicated teachers, and one of the assistant principals really is into the team, but other than that, we have a robotics team? The football and basketball team suck and yet they still get more recognition than we do. Oh well, I'm in it for the Robotics and every thing else associated with FIRST, not the fame.