Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Ah, I'm so glad someone gave me a chance to rant about this!

One of my (least) favorite quotes about our team came from a fellow student a couple of years ago: "We have a robotics team?". We're getting more awareness, but it's slow going. Homecoming weeks tend to be rough for me, just seeing how much people are willing to go all out for football or basketball, and yet we go ignored. We're currently making duel use in our physics classroom, that's where we build. We were going to get a little nook in a new bus barn our school built, but now everyone's just using it for storage. I love looking at the financial stats: in four years, we've gotten about $2,500 from our school. That's about one-half the $5,000 we got from JCPenney and an even smaller fraction of the $15,000+ we got from NASA. Meanwhile, we're currently installing brand new lights (poles and everything) to replace the completely functional ones previously lighting the football and baseball field. Our team just about didn't happen this year because we didn't know where we were going to get the entry fee. Now, I know we need to take responsibility for getting recognition, at least to an extent, but it's still frustrating when the basketball team gets a full gym complete with programs when we're fighting for their scraps.

Oh, that felt good to get off my chest. Thank you!

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

I have to rant on this one. Our team has had a terrifying lack of enthusiasm and dedication. Our team consisted of 40 members. We run a FLL tournament in our state. It's mandatory for the whole team. 20 said they had other things to do. But, out of the 20 that should have come....only 10 did. Our mentor was mad. So, after only 6 years of action, this year, Ultimate Ascent, will be the final year of FRC team 2348, the Cool Geeks. It was a great time having a team here, and I hope we can find a new faculty advisor.


But, the good thing is that every year at our school's first assembly, we had our club mentioned in a skit, talking about the many activities. This time, we even had our team have a t-shirt cannon. That really got interest sparked :3

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

I have the choice of participating in two different robotics teams because i go to the high school and a career/technical school. At the high school the robotics team is ridiculed but at the career school it is thought of pretty highly. I am on the robotics team at the carer school, Team 3885 The Shockers. I would have to say the difference is how the administration promotes the teams to the school. I'm not even for sure if the principal at the high school knows the robotics team exist. At the career school though the robotics team gets recognition from all the teachers and administration. The career school also has many classes that benefit us in fabricating the robot. We have a machining shop, welding shop, electrical shop, robotics shop, graphic arts shop, automotive shop, motorcycle shop, media design shop, and nursing shop. Believe it or not but all these shops help us build the robot. If not directly it is their unique experiences that can give us an "out of the box" approach to things. So i would say that school support depends on the type of students you have, how your members represent your team, and how the administration promotes your team. Remember that if your own members are embarrassed of the team, how can you expect the general student body to show pride? BE PROUD!!!! :D :cool:

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

I'm quite happy to say that a good portion of our school knows who we are and what we do, though perhaps not in deep detail. We'll have random people walk in and want to see what we're doing sometimes, that want to come upstairs and check out our shop area (but they have to wear safety glasses if we're working, which surprisingly, many of them think are actually really neat)

We have our T-Shirt shooter, which we bring out and use at all the football games, and indoors for some of our rallies. In our most recent rally, I was fortunate enough to be invited to come out and speak about our program for a while (The reaction was great when I talked about this year's game.) Many people came to us afterwards saying things like "Woah! That's so cool!"

Most of our incoming freshmen are aware of our presence as well. We secure booths at all the open houses and tour nights, bringing out an old FRC bot and a few FTC bots to put on display.

What we like to emphasize, and what we find gets recognized more, is to emphasize an open-door policy if you can. We try to make it as clear as possible that we're open to the entire student body, regardless of skill or what they know. There's something for anyone on a FIRST team, but you just need to make it look as welcoming and non-intimidating as possible. In my few short years of FIRST, I've found that so many people outside will say, 'I wish I was smart enough to do this". It's that 'robotics is only for the super smart kids' mentality that we are trying to break.

For teams who are at schools where you're barely noticed, it's important to go out and get yourself seen. Be active. Make a table at lunch, put something on display. Ask to speak at pep rallies. Build a robot for show, a T-Shirt shooter is a great project for the off-season (really nice for training new members and getting them used to working with robots), and is what most of our school has seen us by, leading them to check out the other stuff we do. Shoot shirts out at some school events, and the crowds go NUTS (Just be careful if you ever fill them with candies like we did :p That Halloween day was fun :D )

It takes some work and waiting on the team's part, but recognition comes. Perhaps the easiest ting you can do, is simply talk about robotics with friends and classmates. Ask your teachers if you could say a few words in class. Take the initiative to get the team publicized, and you will.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Very little, if at all. For one, our team has been working out of and storing our materials in an abandoned stairwell/closet for its entire history (which we're actually getting kicked out of soon, and they haven't told us where they're moving us, if anywhere).

Our school administration hasn't shown a bit of positive acknowledgement towards us, it's almost as if we're a burden to them. As for the student body, we have a small local circle of friends and parents that congratulate us when we do good, but aside from that it's not much else. Regardless however, we have a good time at robotics with each other anyway. We actually removed our school logo from our team shirts this year.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

We are pretty lucky with our school. The administration provides us with the entire tech shop full of mills, lathes and other shop tools we can use. We are also provided class credit for joining the team.

As for other students, there is a lot of work to be done. Most people don't know we have a team and the school news did a commercial, they didn't ask us for input and filmed tools that we didn't even use for our robot. It was not pretty.

But having the entire shop to ourselves is nice, especially because they let us use school equipment after hours.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

My teachers tell me good luck as the hand me any make up work that I need, and that about it

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Although all of our robot building and other team-related activities take place in our school, we get almost no (good) attention.

A few days ago, someone next to me in one of my classes was reading about us winning our District Chairman's Award. Someone next to him said "Why are you reading about those nerds?" He proceeded to say "No clue" and closed out his tab.

I show my friend a lot of stuff that has to do with robotics, including swerve drive (thanks Team 16, Bomb Squad for your unveil videos :D ), our shooter, and other things. He always replies to me "I could build something better. That looks stupid."

We demoed our 2012 robot in the cafeteria at lunch, and someone came up to us and said "Your robot is really loud." and walked away. In the same lunch period, someone else came up and said "My brother could build a better robot." and walked away.

It seems that the people from my school (I'm not sure about our other 2 schools) have no respect for engineering, and the six weeks of hard work we put into our robots.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Doesn't sound like much of a friend...

But that's a shame on the part of your school. Those attitudes are the sort that FIRST was designed to change in the first place, and I do hope that your team can turn it around a bit.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

By the end of build season, we are left with maybe 10 students. 2 programmers (though thats how many we've had for 3 years), 1 design, an electrical student, and some build. We do have a sign by the highway for our winning of stl Regional in 2009 and placing 31st at internationals two years ago. We show off our robot every spring assembly. It will be nice because this year, we can actually do something with our robot instead of hanging inner tubes. We start off with way too many kids who dont do much, especially the business side, then as the season grinds on, they stop coming, until competition of course.

We have a very supportive administation, and parents often know more about the team than students due to our media coverage. We have a wall in the cafeteria that has all of our achievements (up to 2009, the wall isn't big enough for our more recent endevours). Most students know about the robotics team, but very few understand what we do. Last year helped a lot because of how easy it is to connect to the robot playing 3v3 basketball.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

We reach out to our community as much as we possibly can to our students. We have a display case with info on our team. We participate in our pep assemblies. Unfortunately, sometimes people just have no interest in engineering. I'm a sophomore, and speak for my class. Some interest probably comes with maturity. I am pretty sure that older, more mature students appreciate the doings of FIRST more than younger people who still believe in cliques (which bug me), or think they are better than everyone else.

I don't think that "popular" people realise this; the phones that they are addicted to? Who designed them? The "nerds". The stereotypical SUV they have? Who designed that? The "nerds".

Everybody loves the football and basketball players, and the cheerleaders and poms team. Why don't people love the robotics team members? What with all the mechanisms and robots we design? You don't know how many people I've told about CADD that don't have a clue what it is. I show them, and give a quick demo on how to make a simple thing (like a box, maybe with a couple holes). They think it is the most complicated thing ever. "You know how to use that? You have way to much time on your hands." I'm sorry, and what do you do in your spare time? "Chill". Chill? What is "chilling"? "Sitting around." Sitting on the couch watching a stupid reality TV show and not doing anything that benifits your brain is better than engaging your brain, trying to solve a problem and make saucers fly and robots climb?

I apologise for my rant, Chief Delphi Community. I'm hoping someone can answer my questions. I just don't understand.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Our school is a tech school so we get a decent amount of money as are school is are only sponsor and we have robotics classes.

Though are old principal liked the program so much that she cancelled the buses while we were at the competition. We also have no mentors and one teacher who stays until 6 if were lucky.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Two years ago our school kicked us out, Plain and simple. We have two high schools in our district, and students from both were on the team. We had so little support from the administration, and the schools population, that they turned the engineering room into a sports medicine room. As of now we work out of a space in a dying mall twenty minutes away from the schools.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Wow. That sucks man. I hope things work out a bit better for you guys in future years.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

1511's first year it was mainly just 8 students on the team and a bunch of mentors. However, our rookie year we won Toronto Regional, and we ended up winning CMPs Rookie All-Star. After that our relations with the school improved greatly (even though they were already really strong) and our student population on our team exploded. Nowadays we are 45 students and have a lot of support from the administration of our school, and many students not on our team also greatly support us. It's very unfortunate that not all teams can have the support from their school that we have.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

At my school, many people do not know about the robotics program, but those that do (mostly the classmates of team members) don't disrespect the program, in fact, they are often amazed by the differences between the stereotype image in their head and the reality. I find most people believe that we build a complicated robot to do some useful task or complete and obstacle course, and then we are judged and ranked in the style of a science fair. when i show them match videos and the sheer scale of participation, they seem much more interested. And then there are the kids that are so disappointed when I have to tell them that FIRST is not, in fact, BattleBots. I wish we had that kind of money....:p

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

also, the trophies and banner from winning the 2011 Las Vegas Regional attracted tons of people at club day. maybe the best thing about winning your first regional!

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Our school administration is VERY supportive of us. They talk about our wins, our awards, and other things like that. The pricipal has always wanted to start a sort of engineering and tech magnet school at our high school, so he's EXTREMELY happy with news of advancement and awards we win, he even convinced our school district even pays all of our competition entrance fees to help us out :D

But that's where the good news ends. The student population, on the other hand, is hardly supportive. If at all, really.
We started the year with 26 members, and even as wins and trophies have piled up, members continue to leave. Now, we're down to 8 kids managing two FTC teams and robots, and it can get hectic. We try to talk about all that we do and how fun it is, but many students aren't willing to put in all the work that we require, even saying that two meetings a week is too much! :/
It's easy to generate interest when your school is an engineering or technology magnet school, but for just a regular high school with average kids, it's hard to get their attention. We make promotional posters, advertise that we're still allowing people to join the team, and even mention that we get to miss days of school. But yet nobody new has joined since November :///

It's sad to know that so many great minds are missing out on such a fun activity, and a productive one at that, simply because they're "too busy" to put in all the time.

Okay. I'm done.

TL;DR: Administration at school loves us, but the student body, not so much.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

The high staff of the school is very supportive of the group, espeicialy now with the new trophy we brought them. The school principal and vice principal came to the competition, and acctualy hugged me at the finals. it was amazing. They agreed to pay for us to go to paintball to celebrate.
We have a pretty small space in the back of a room that only 5 people have a key to, inside the shelter, but it is cool. They gave us some more space, tripel what we had last year so we are not complaining.
As far as the students body of the school than we have some improvments to make. Only a quater of the school knows we exist, and half of them know what we do. Not as bad as the vollyball team but still not good. They just hung our new, big $@#$@#$@# sign in the entry to the school, and we just started making some new videos so this should get better.
The teachers are split between supportive and unsuportive. the com[uter science is managing a mindstorm project, so we keep havin small fights on which of us is beter (obviously us, we built a giant robot he is a grown man playing with legos). and the teachers are between- "go robotics", "so proud" to- "That medal is not an acscuse to not do your hmework roee!".

So room to improvment but we are not complaining.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

most kids know about it cuz we're in the announcements frequently.
BUT most people think it's just a few kids sitting in a dark room playing with their circuit boards and taking them to lame competitions..


Honestly this was my view when i first joined.

I help my team with twitter and instagram and word of mouth to try to connect with the general population since there's only a few of us on the team that truly get around socially.


TIP: try getting kids from all social groups on your teams, not just the "computer nerds" as the rest of the school thinks of robotics.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

We are not given any money or a place to work from our school. We have not for at least 6 years. They give us very little resources. The student are great and so are the teachers they just don't help us a lot. Mostly I feel like they like us but don't really care about us.:(

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Not at all. We barely get funding. The only time people even know there is a robotics team is when we drive our robot or chairbot (sofa mounted on driving base for fun times) around school.

Our administration, student body, and community now know when robotics season is. It wasn't this way two years ago! Last year we hosted the first week 1 MAR district event. Honestly, our team was unknown within the school, we had dwindling numbers and little to no accolades.

Our event last year exposed our school population (1700+) students to FIRST. Now people ask questions, we reveal the game to the school, and over half of the high school came to see the event during the school day!

This is a benefit of the district model. It brings the events back into the schools. In fact the two convince stores near our school (Wawa) are interested in supporting our event in the future.

We also built a T-shirt cannon over the summer, which helps get the crowds amped up at basketball and football games!

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Generallly, only some people that weren't on the team would know about. By some people, I mean like people who were either close friends with or related to members on the team. But since our win at TCNJ(we have not won in a looooooong time), it was all over our school. All of a sudden everyone wants to join the robotics team because the news has spread all over the place.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

First, congratulations on your regional win! Second, enjoy the new students on your team. If our team had a couple more students it would be a godsend.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

I am on 2 teams, FTC and FRC, my FTC team just recently got its own room because a new principal came to the school and had an FRC team at his old school. But the school has no idea that it is there, my FRC team, is not offiliated with a school, we have become an orginization so, no one really knows us, so we do tons of demos each year, probable 30 demos per year, and get maybe 1-5 students to come for 1 meeting, and never return, so because your school is so into it, Congrats you have beat the system lol

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

"you guys are cool."

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

I wish people would say that more...

This thread is describing the exact issue that FIRST is trying to fix. One day, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, some kid from FIRST is going to change the world. That kid could have easily become a world class sportsman, or something else like that. It's our job to capture those kids and show them the possibilities that Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths present, in the accesibility that is FIRST.

I'm presenting the school with one of our World's Entrepreneurship Trophies next Thursday, and I'm doing it two days before we leave for the Hawaii Regional. It's mainly to gain support from our new principal, but I'm hoping some new kids will see how great this program is, and how it can change lives.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

=>0

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

It is not that much better at this side of the river either. We have a team of about 30, but when all is said and done about 6 of us sustain the team entirely. We try to do demos at our school, but only the administration and about 1/3 of the teachers are in full support. We have had to hide the basketballs and frisbees to keep those less interested from breaking things, and like any team, when competition time comes around everyone is a game genius/ driving savant. We are working on getting an off-season event in place, and those who are less driven by the club are complaining about putting in the time and effort.

On a separate note, as a driver/ captain of the team, I respected your team very much, and thought your drivers exhibited much GP. Our qual match 75 with you was a blast. Your buttons are the best, and I do hope we get to work with you again/see you at our off-season event (if it is a go). Much respect, ratchet!:)

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

I'd never guess that by the looks of your team. Just socializing with the drive coach for your team, you have it together. Our team is hoping to exhibit some of your GP habits and imagery in the future. (Unfortunately no fish emoji)

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

I would wager that over half of my school doesn't even know we have a robotics team. I noticed a few people talking about what their school gives them, so I thought I'd weigh in. Our school provides us with a room to work out of and a couple computers, along with a donation each year. We actually prefer this to being the high school's team. With this arrangement, our team cannot get cut when budget cuts come around. If we were more affiliated with the school, the team would have been cut long ago.

More in keeping with the thread, however, we are just the nerdy kids who practically live at school. No one cares, and no one knows, which is extremely unfortunate. We grew this year though, totaling in at 19 kids! Last season we had 15, and five were seniors. I swear, recruiting nine new members in a year must be a record on our team.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

not very much for our FRC team
Our school happens to be home of 3 FTC teams, including one of last years world champions, so when most of our school thinks of robotics, they instantly assume FTC :/

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

our school gave us a room in the back of the school, however they do not even mention when we go to competition. we have gone up to the office to let them know that we are going to competition and they have never had us on the announcements. we go to some school events and people sign up, but no one actually joins. we have 25 students this year, two of which don't even go to our school. schools need to voice their teams more in my opinion.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Not at all. In fact, the only time we get noticed is if we do well at competitions! :mad: :mad:

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

We too aren't well recognized... When I went to join my current team I decided to go to the guidance office to seek info and my guidance counsellor looked at me with a straight face and said "We have a robotics team?"

That pretty much sums it up.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

I can't speak that well about our schools population, but the administration at both our school and district are extremely supportive of the team. We're just one of the many lesser known clubs that are in our school but that is largely because we're only a second year team.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

1816 is very well supported in our community.

Our principal makes regular appearances at our competitions and state championship. They do what they can to let us get visibility with the student body as well; We run robots at the homecoming assembly and at various other events throughout the year.

In our community we are very well known. We do tons of outreach in our schools with the other FIRST programs so it isn't super common to find a family that isn't at least a little familiar with the fact that we exist, some kids have been coming to our events for years and years awaiting being able to join the team.

Outreach is the best way to get interested in what you are doing. If you put yourself out there people will notice.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

In our school, no one knows we exists or thinks we're a bunch of socially awkward nerds, so there is a stigma around joining. The school support is very iffy, but next year we plan to do heavy advertising and (hopefully) get some people who can help spread the word about the team.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

We are a huge football school so this year was very good for telling the rest of the school that we actually exist. I shaved my team number into my head this year and not a single person outside of robotics knew we even were a thing at their school.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Our school rarely acknowledges us, and when we do it's never good. When we brought home our championship blue banner in 2014, our school gave us no recognition until the next fall, and even then we had to nearlt beg for that. When we are acknowledged by the student body it's never good. This is mainly due to one former team member who quit due to some issues with specific other team members. Unfortunately people tend to listen to and trust what he says, and he has a tendency to bad mouth our team. This has been a huge hit to us, as it has framed our team as very undesirable to be part of at our school, and that has made recruitment very difficult.

Edit - our superintendent is very supportive and even traveled from Michigan to STL to watch us compete. However the administration at our high school, many of the teachers, and most of the students show little/no recognition or respect for our team.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

At our school, it seems the only people who care about our team is the members of the team, our tech teachers, and the principal. That's it and it's really sad to think about.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Our school population almost entirely feeds off the robotics team. Although, there is a reason for this.

In our school we have no regulated sports, music program, or anything that is extra curricular that can't be a club. Also, even if we wanted to support those types of things the school is non-UIL so to bad so sad.

So, that's were Robotics kicks in. In school we are the football team, although we don't come with the attitude :p. Last year, we were cheered out of the door on our way to championships. This year, I can't get people to stop asking about how we are or what we're doing. We also have complete access to our machine shop and have our own private field set-up (on the second floor where in the area no one can use).

We're pretty lucky, and we try to spread what we have to other local teams that need the support.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

I don't think I have seen the principal at any of our events. At our closest event, some of our former teachers brought their middle school students to come watch but nobody from the high school came or really paid attention. When we qualified for State nobody really cared. When we qualified for world's, people cared a little more this year than last year. This year, the teachers at our virtual Academy and STEM buildings had the live stream going but when we got back, I just heard "I saw you guys online", nobody really congratulated us. Whenever sports teams qualify for state, the school arranges a police escorts to the highway. I know we aren't a sports team but we didn't even get that much recognition for how well we did. A lot of people don't really know who we are. I think until seeing the live streams, a lot didn't know we had a robotics team. The daily announcements don't point it out that greatly.
We have some school support, but barely any. We don't even get a place to meet on campus, which isn't too bad because where we meet is probably nicer than anything the school would ever give us. The nice thing is one or two of my teachers seem to like the robotics team, so after we got back from world's, they gave us more time than normal to make up any work we missed.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

We have been extremely lucky this year, with multiple teachers and students coming to the 10,000 Lakes regional and stopping by our pit to say hi (the principal was unfortunately out of town, otherwise I'm sure she would have come). That was partly due to an all staff email sent out on Friday night inviting teachers to come watch. We are currently pushing for a dedicated build space, due to a school remodel happening in 2017, and so far it seems promising. I can't speak for other years, but from what I've heard, this is our best year in many more ways than just statistically.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

We get support... but we also get some stuff we'd rather not have. Example: District allows us to have sole use of a box truck. But... they insist on storing spare tables in the area we use as our meeting area, and we could use more space.


Overall, the support is pretty good, and after we had a reveal event (shortly after bag day, with our practice robot) that happened to be well-attended by teachers and association folks, as well as sponsors, that might even get better.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

After asking my friends and acquaintances at school I have concluded they care when we do well but are not very interested otherwise. The principal though always loves to hear how we did and likes to go to our events. We are a 4h program that is not affiliated with any school but includes students from 5 schools in 5 towns

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Not much at all.

Our parents send all school emails while we're at comps telling students and teachers to keep an eye on TBA for us, and the most we ever hear is post comp, a couple teachers walk up to us and ask how we did.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

In general, our school's staff has a lot of support for us. I see many 234 signs in random classrooms around the school. I also see a lot of 234 window stickers on teachers' classroom's windows. Surprisingly, I see a lot of Lunacy game pieces around our school and I'm not exactly sure why. We are located in Indianapolis and our principal took the Friday of worlds off in 2015 when we went. He drove to St. Louis to support our team. He also came to our Kokomo competition this year and was seen around our school when we hosted an IN event during our spring break this year. Now our team isn't by any means what students talk about. In general, students at our school don't really talk about any of our sports or academic teams. I know a big chunk of the school knows who we are. Many of our students wear Cyber Blue shirts and talk about the team with other students. Students recognize that. We were also honored last year at our Spring pep rally last year as well. In general people would say they know who we are.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

My team is two schools (which are rivals in other sports) so I can't speak about the other school, but my school gives a little recognition to us in the form of news videos including us and announcements when we do well (however they don't mention people from the other school which I find kind of funny). Otherwise, people don't know what we do but tend to be curious until they learn it isn't Battlebots, ask about joining, or say they tried to join but couldn't find the lab.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

We are minimally cared about at our school. We got a send off for Championships, but they grouped us with all of the other fine arts activities. No one was told about our regional, or about how to cheer us on at Championships.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

It's a work in progress.
Our school still doesn't care that much or acknowledge us, but we're working on it.
We did get to launch t-shirts at a pep rally earlier this year, that was awesome.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

One of the things that frustrated me the most this past year coming back from regionals is that members of our team weren't willing to represent the team. I sit with a bunch of people on our team during lunch, and when one of the other members wore his team shirt the day we got back from regionals I heard the comment "Why is he wearing that, I want to be done with robotics." I was a freshman on our team, so it was really disheartening to hear these older students that I looked up to badmouthing another teammate in general, let alone for being proud of our team.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

My teams pulls from 3 or 4 different schools (plus likely a discontinuing school-based team starting 2017). Unfortunately, I am not from the school where most of our members are from. At my school, knowledge of our team is limited to our principal from knowing team members that have since graduated, and a handful of teachers and friends of mine.

We are allowed to have segments on the morning news if we ask (getting kids to listen is another story), but otherwise the school is not really obligated to do anything for us, which is one of the downsides to not being affiliated with a school.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

The majority of students at my team's school don't know that we have a robotics team. The school used to put competition dates on the calendar and in homeroom announcements, but they don't even do that anymore. They focus primarily on sports teams and the arts.

When mentioning robotics to my teachers, they always bring up Battlebots or are surprised that we have a team. One asked me if we build the underwater robots.

However, my team is very fortunate to be able to work in such a large space. Our school recently bought some property containing an armory (which they will later tear down to build a pool) and we have been given 4 rooms and a shed to work in, which is a lot of space for our small 14-member team. We also have a large gym floor in the center (used for practice day 2015) which we can use when none of the sports teams are there.

We don't often talk about robotics because, at least in my experience, most people will lose interest. It's hard to understand all of the excitement at competitions and having a time limit of six weeks to build a robot unless you have firsthand experience.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

In our school, our section of the tech wing has 2 trophy cases with all of our awards, and defining pieces of previous robots. Most people know that there is a robotics club, and they might have announcements if we win a regional or do well at champs. Honestly, I talked to some non-stem people, and they thought that we were all huge losers. They also think that mentors do all of the work(They don't). One of our team members posted in 2010 about pretty much the same thing, and it hasn't changed since then. So we have some school culture change to do.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

This is a fascinating discussion--obviously it's timeless since it's been going on at least since 2010!

If you're anywhere near Michigan, you may want to attend our ROBO-CON Festival on July 23, 2016 in Lapeer, Michigan. This year we're putting together a roundtable discussion involving educators who are also mentors, and encouraging other teachers, administrators and school board members to come out to hear how robotics team involvement affects students academically.

This idea came about after a conversation with an alternative ed teacher who started coaching a rookie team this year (and they did fabulous!). We talked about how motivating it is for the students to compete the robot they built. I want educators to hear from their peers about what a difference robotics makes, and I hope this is a springboard to schools welcoming and encouraging their robotics teams.

We haven't yet set a time for the roundtable discussion, but when we do, we'll post it on the event website at MiRoboCon.com.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

I'm not actually a student at the school that hosts us (technically the school doesn't host us anyway) but as far as I've been told, the board and administrators as well as some teachers are actually trying to prevent people from finding out about the robotics team.

I don't see a reason why they would want to do this. Unless the program makes the school look bad, (there are some clubs at my school that do hurt the school image) most schools want students to get involved. And I am unaware of any robotics teams that hurt their school's image.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

From what I've seen at my school, The faculty likes our FRC Team and what it does. They help us out by paying for district event registration and we used to have a shop in our Tech Center. On the whole, the administration generally likes us and supports us. However, At the end of the 2014 season, we surrendered our shop to the school so they could have a "science room" with working gas and water for more science experiments (chemistry, physical science, etc...). It's been two years and the room is technically a science room, and teachers do use it, but with no water or gas, just a few tables in the middle of the room so students cant actually do hands-on experiments in that room. So now our shop is setup in an unused room in the middle school (Which is way smaller than our old shop.). In addition to that, they don't really announce how we did at events like other sports teams.

As for the student aspect of this question, last year there were a bunch of rookies joining the team (We had about 80 kids total, which was about 10% of the school population) and robotics was "the club to join" for the first time I've ever seen. However due to the frustrations of last season and especially this season, our population has thinned to about 60 kids, only half of which are "active" members. This year, the rowing team and other sports were more popular among students, so there as not a whole lot of interest from the students even when we demoed our robot at school assemblies.

Overall, I'd say that school interest has fluctuated considerably over the past few years, but all we can do is try our best and hope that we get new rookies who are hardworking and love robots!

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Outside of the STEM magnet program, most people don't know that we exist. The sports teams get mentioned on the morning announcements whenever they have a game, win or lose, but we never get any recognition, aside from occasional recruiting messages, which all clubs do.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

We have pretty decent awareness and support. Anyone who comes in on the east side of the school or heads back to the football stadium knows about us, because we have the largest, best marked trailer of any school organization. We bring the t-shirt launcher to most of the home football games, which is a great recruiting resource and buys lots of good will from both students and administration. We have even had a number of teachers skip teaching on Bayou Friday to play the web feed in class. It also helps that the robotics team usually has at least one member in common with just about every other team and organization on campus.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Our general population is the least of our worries. Our school is our biggest hurdle. We are currently trying to find an off sight location and become independent.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

We are luckier than most teams.

Our school district recently (2 years ago) idled the middle school due to declining enrollment. We have full run of 3 class rooms. We have them divided as a metal room with band saws and general chassis build area.

We have a second room referred to as the the wood room... We do most of our wood work and game elements here.

The third room is our software room... It is also the FTC team's main build room.

We also have full run of the library during build season because it has lots of space to setup a half field when needed.

I say our administration fully supports our team with this amount of space to work in. They have even purchased new cad workstations for the team.

However, our team struggles to get more than 10-12 students, which is about 4% of our student population in the grades 9-12. We are currently without faculty member of the school system being on the mentor crew.

We are working hard now to up participation and recruiting new members is a top priority for the team for the first time in a while.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

at our high school graduation this past Friday, Team 319 and the robotics team was mentioned by three different graduation speakers. Guess the general population is fully aware of FRC 319 - Big Bad Bob.

Our school has recently begun to have a lot of enthusiasm for the robotics team.

Every student at the school has a robotics t-shirt and I've been told by tons of people that they want to join next year. I'm excited to see if the enthusiasm continues to grow.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Our school's administration is extremely enthusiastic about it. Most students don't really care for it too much, but attitudes are changing, and we hope that, through outreach and an expansion of our team (maybe 30 people right now, though we are recruiting in the next couple of weeks) that we can have much more of an impact on our community.

Re: How much does your school's general population care about your team?
 

Can we perhaps try to avoid resurrecting 7-year-old posts?