Re: team spirit?
 

well, beside the whole part that there's an award for Spirit (thats really not important in reality... thats just a nice bonus if you win it), having Team Spirit sort of unifies the team. it gets you all together to cheer on your Drive Team and your Pit Crew, and its a great excuse to just let loose and have fun. You've worked SO HARD to built this robot... now's your chance to just have fun. trust me, when you're being spirited (yelling, cheering, bodypainting, running around, starting a congo line or limbo or even twister) you meet a lot of new people that way and make new, amazing friends that you would have never met otherwise.

having team spirit has a lot to do with the disposition of people on your team... usually if you've got more laid-back people, they're less likely to jump up and do the cha-cha slide than if you're with a team with a lot of rambunxious high-energy kids. usually that energy from other teams transfers over, but think of it as being personally up to you to bring the party and get everyone to stand up and have some fun. :) Spirit is all about gracious professionalism and having fun... its about cheering people on, whether it be for your own team or the opposing alliance or for some team you're good friends with or some rookie team who honestly has no idea whats going on.

Don't worry, you'll understand once you finally get to a competition. its the most fun and rewarding experience you could ever imagine, and those three days will probably be near (if not at) the top of your list of favorite memories for your entire high-school career. :)

Re: team spirit?
 

hey, team spirit is having fun without bashing other teams. There is an award for team spirit at the Granite State Regionals. Sometimes a team that doesn't do so well in terms of the robot, wins this award because they cheer for other teams with alot of enthusiasm.
after every FIRST competition i've been to I've lost my voice by the end. :D
dancing, hanging out with other FIRST peeps, and just having fun is what I love about the competitions. Winning helps with the fun factor alot but is not necessary.

Re: team spirit?
 

The extent of our team spirit are 2 foam board signs that say "Bay Shore 271" on them that usually stay on the floor at competitions. Here, we believe that if you are not working on coding, driving, or operating, you should sit down and scout. It's what I did last year, and I had a great time. Why not tone down the screaming and help your team gather information? There is nothing better for your team than to work for it.

Re: team spirit?
 

Basically what we do on our team is that most of the team is out in the stands screaming and cheering and a team 4-5 people goes scouting. We only do scouting on thursday with an occational scouting during the actual competition.

Re: team spirit?
 

I see where youre coming from, but on my team we MUST have flawless scouting or else theres hell to pay. we are supposed to scout every robot every match and average up every single robot in order to have a perfectly averaged inspection. When qualifying matches are over, we have every team in order from "best" to "worst". We really have no time to cheer at all.

Re: team spirit?
 

I guess every team is quite different. We have a huge team of 43 members so I guess that leaves alot of people. Last year our scouting wasn't very strong but this year it is very strong. Well we also have a crazy lady that screems her head off and then we all do. She doesn't let us sit down. It is funny because last year some kid fell asleep at the competition and she got mad! lol. I wish you good luck at regionals!!

Re: team spirit?
 

From what I know about my team this year, we have a morale manager. I'll see how that goes. :P

Re: team spirit?
 

Its very easy to do both. This year we're going to work on Intel and Spirit. On practice day we plan to gather intel and such while the pit crew and drive team practice their skills. On the actual competition days we're going to cheer while they play, after they play, dance a bit a few times, maybe a congo line or two that I plan on starting. And when we're not doing any of that I'll bring my scout team down and walk around saying "Hi" and such making sure everyone is doing ok with their bots. So you can easily gather intel (information) about the other teams and have team spirit that day too! ^_^

Re: team spirit?
 

Depends on what qualifies as team spirit... I entered the thread expecting a lot of talk about what people wear/having mascot.

The social spirit part isn't quite my thing.... I'd much rather be watching what's going on around me than be shouting like crazy (though it's fun at times). And no, watching != scouting :p. On the other hand, my team this year is full of a LOT of crazy people. Certainly crazy enough to name the robot Mango (changed to Mongo...), for they outnumber us sane folk ;) They also choose completely random colors for tshirts this year...

As for items and whatnot, I can think of several things that I've seen:
-Mascot
-Flag
-Beach balls in the audience
-Banners
-Apparel other than shirts

My team has a flag and headbands with our team logo printed on it. A mascot would be sweet (a samurai), but our duct tape man isn't too bad (cape, trench coat, spazziness, etc.). I've got to make a gazillion more of the headbands this week (vacation week). I do bemoan the fact that colors are inconsistent... The flag is purple (school color)... so are the bumpers... and somehow, everyone voted the shirts to be silver on blue :confused:

(purple flag, white headbands, blue/silver tshirts... eww?)

Re: team spirit?
 

my team is not really large enough to have effort used for showing spirit but maybe this year since we are slightly larger we may have a very small spirit group maybe...

Re: team spirit?
 

Being spirited isn't just for big teams going for an award.
Do it because it's fun.
You don't need to be big to do that.

Re: team spirit?
 

oh believe you me we have fun we come up with weird names and everything but we don't really spend much time roaring and cheering in the stands...

Re: team spirit?
 

hmm 1568 was composed of mostly 7 memeber (high school students) 4 ovoisly were the drive team, one was always in pit sometimes 2, if not than the other was scouting, since we had a few problems the team was in pit. the 7th our programmer was always looking for better codes to write and it worked...we were able to drop and sometimes cap as well...this year the team has grown slightly but weve also lost 2 members to college, myself included...however out sprit was showed, there were signs held up while 1568 was on the clock...

so, some teams dont have spirit mainly because they are 2 small

Re: team spirit?
 

Sometimes it's hard to be sprited, I am the spirit un-official leader, but if the team is having a bad day then sometimes people really dont want to cheer. An award should never be the motivation behind cheering or else it isnt genuine. If you have one or two people on your team that are spirited then it will usually (at least on 341) catch on and people will start getting into it. If you ar a small team it is helpful to have as many people in the stands as you can afford especially if it is your match. At regionals we kick most of the people out of the pit when we are in a round and everyone goes to the stands. Being spirited is something that can't really be forced. it just has to happen, maybe with some encouragement!

Re: team spirit?
 

We had a team come over during the Championship and asked if we would cheer for them. They had a small group in the stands (about 6), and their competition team could never hear them cheer due to the overall crowd noise. So, we joined in with them, and their competition team looked up in the stands shocked. Don't hesitate to ask a larger or more vocal team to help if you are smaller. Just don't ask it when they are competing against you!
While cheering is often a measure of "team spirit", it isn't the only one. I patricularly enjoy those teams who form the "gauntlet" at the escalator as you arrive at the Championship. They wish everyone entering the Georgia Dome "Good Luck" and high-five you as you pass. That just starts the day and the tournament off right. It gets extended by teams like TJ^2 (88), who run around with their water bottle rattles and encourage their whole division to "pump it up". Then the teams who pass out or trade their trinkets with other teams. Or teams that help other teams in the pits improve a robot that will be competing against them. There are so many other acts of GP that make up the "spirit of a team" beyond cheering, and I hope the judges take these additional acts into consideration.

Some teams view the events as the "Measure of their accomplishments", and concentrate on how their robot qualifies. But, the teams who view the events more as the "celebration of their accomplishments", are the teams who tend to show the greatest spirit. Something that Woodie acknowledges at the start of every event, when he says "Everyone who attends is already a winner."