Fans
 

This is a question for teams who are only about an hour and half way drive to their regional.

Do you try to get your school students to come to the regional?
If so how?
I was thinking maybe if we got another bus for fans on Sat. since school is not in and have anybody that wanted to come to the regional pay a fee for the trip. I know our basketball team has done this but that is for basketball that is very popular here because we are good at it. But robotics is not as well known or popular at my school (that is an assumption though). Thanks to any response and good luck at any regionals you may attend

Re: Fans
 

I heard team 1241 brought 700 kids from their school to GTR a few years ago.
The problem with that is not everyone is going to be down with FIRST etiquette and will be rude to the other teams because they are not used to the alliance structure and think they are working against the other team sand not sometimes with them.
We have some IB groupies who are friends with some of our X-Cat kids and come to FLR on day 2. As well as parents and some teachers. We don't advertise openly in the school or at Xerox to come to the event though maybe we should.

Re: Fans
 

Kids from our PLTW and Physics classes received extra credit I believe for attending the Milwaukee regional a couple years ago.

Re: Fans
 

Well I go to a school where they care more about football more than anything else. Nobody except the engineering students even know or care that we exist, so we really dont have the problem but we wish that we did. :(

Re: Fans
 

The team I graduated from (330) has a standing invitation to the school and church to come watch us compete at the regionals. Not many take us up on it, though. Typically, those that do are alumni. We've never had a problem.

Not sure about 1135.

Re: Fans
 

I loathe the teams who bring in their school's cheerleaders on Fridays and then go on to win the spirit awards...
That's like farming in extra engineers to work on the robot during the competition, and winning quality awards. Idk...
That just rubs me the wrong way most times.

Anyways, that rant aside, we have had a (small - less than 30 students) group come to the regional in the past.

The school treats it as a field trip, and it was ok.. I guess... The students didn't really get into it that much, but that's the same with any field trip I guess.

It was good to have some (more local) fans there for our team that day (Friday) and they did cheer us on when we were up for matches which was cool.

Every little bit of (positive) publicity & exposure from your hometown helps.

Re: Fans
 

I think it would be a good idea, have it announced over school announcements(if you have them), put it in the neighborhood/city newspaper about it and have a small fee, but probably mention that it is free to get in to the competion.

Don't forget about Dean's Homework Assignment:)

Re: Fans
 

I've never seen teams that bring in Spirit Ringers win a Spirit award. In fact i figured it doomed them to losing it. They want to see teams do their own spirit not have others do it for them.

Re: Fans
 

Last year we had our cheerleaders come out, & this year we're doing that again & hopefully they'll bring the tiger mascot as well. :cool:

We also invite out some of our teachers & students.
The teachers make an extra effort to come out.

Re: Fans
 

Our school is only about twenty minutes away from the regional, but we still can't get people to come because no one really cares about robotics. Any suggestions for getting people interested?

Re: Fans
 

I think the idea of getting kids who are actually interested in it out there is a good idea... if the cheerleaders or football players want to come, hey maybe they will get inspired :) I wont comment on the awards side of things... thats for a separate topic :)

As for the 700 kids... we were there that year... and all I have to say, is there were an aweful lot of bored kids there who had no clue what was going on, they just knew they were missing school. I think the concept was good, maybe they would be inspired, but the implementation and lack of adults didnt help.

Long story short, get as many fans as you can, who ACTUALLY want to attend (ie if they are willing to pay or do it outside of school time, they WANT to attend). I think its a good thing. We send out messages at Harris, and put it on the school announcements, maybe in a few years if there is enough interest we could do a bus.

Re: Fans
 

Last year in San Diego there was a team from a small rural school that invited the school cheerleading squad to come with them. The cheerleaders decided that if they were going to do this they should do it right so they spent some time with the team beforehand learning about the robot and the competition. By the end of the Regional the cheerleaders had all decided that they were going to be on the robot team this year. One thing that impressed them was that people appreciated them, including their school's team. Apparently the football squad just kind of expected them to be there.

Re: Fans
 

As I recall, the same cheerleaders were with the team in Atlanta that year. (I think the team won a rookie award or something like that.) They helped 330 (and I'm not sure who all else) with a cheer or two as well.

Re: Fans
 

One thing I find in FIRST is that there is alot of athletes and cheerleaders who get involved too. It's not just geeks who get into FIRST. I think because they can relate to the competitive nature of the event (I call FIRST high school NASCAR) and it's such an insane amount of fun. I'm not sure if FIRST will ever win over society as a whole (the changing of the games every year is intensely fun for those of us who participate in FIRST but I'm sure it's confusing to the average observer).

Re: Fans
 

Since our team is extremely small this year, we are having a few of the team member's friends come and work on scouting and stuff. (Which is only like 4 people). Our fans that are comming and are not really on the team, but are at robotics meetings every once in a while because their friends are there. So in a way, we are having fans come, but they will actually know what to do, and will be an asset not a problem. We are hoping they will join after seeing a real competition.:D

Re: Fans
 

I agree, we advertise openly to our student body (our school is about an hour away from the NYC regional) however not many people are interested enough to come.

We had a couple of members last year who brought their boyfriends/close friends along, and they seemed to be enjoying it.

I think one of the best ways to get people interested in FIRST is to bring them to a regional, particularly on the last day, when the competition really heats up.

Re: Fans
 

As a mostly uninvolved alumni, I (and some friends) came and watched GTR in 2005 and Waterloo in 2007.

This reasoning is based on the idea you've brought a dozen or so people from your high school who have no relation to the robotics team but may be somewhat interested (i.e. not just there to miss school):
I think one problem is that unless you're at a super-regional (the few years when GTR ran double-field), your team isn't up often enough to keep your fans entertained. For the core team, there is always scouting, repairs, preparations, strategy, finding and talking to your alliance partners, etc. You're never idle at a regional. However, for the people from your high school who came to watch, they get to watch a single 2 minute match every 40 minutes. If they go back and say it was the most boring thing they've ever seen, it'll hurt your recruiting efforts in the future. But if each match is exciting to them because they know what's going on.

Based on this, it seems like it'd be important to keep them entertained and informed. Have someone charismatic from your team dedicated to telling them when the next match is, have them analyze the previous match. Maybe they could use some scouting data and give a pre-game preview of the next match, tell your fans what to watch out for. Field some rules questions they might have.