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

@ my schools our robotics team is recognized by everyone once per year-when we show our 1 ad on the announcements in attempt to recruit members. They recognize all of the other team and club accomplishments except robotics at my school. Its especially bothersome since within the past 2 years my team has been the best in its entire history

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

Our school is similar, but different. Our sports teams are usually great - and they get TONS of recognition. Clubs only get small mentions on the daily video announcements that nobody really pays attention to. Our Quiz Bowl team won the state championship two weekends ago, but does anyone but them and their close friends know? No (I'd post a link to our school paper's editorial on this topic, but it's not online yet). It's a common problem :/

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

everyone in our school knows about the robotics team, especially since about 15% are on the team... the school has a total of 200 ish kids. Due to the small size the whole school meets almost every wendsday and each club gets to talk for a quick sec... but most don't care. All seven teachers do, but few kids do.

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

It's absolutely great that your school supports the program as much as they do.

Unfortunately from my experience support like yours is the exception, not the rule. I mentor 2 teams and while both school districts support the program in that they budget for the entry fees each year. They don't really take advantage of the program. In fact, one of the schools seems to try their best to hinder the program as much as they can.

Oh well, **sigh** I can remember working with the now defunct team #311 back in 2002 and being Finalists on Einstein at EPCOT. The team came back to school the Monday after championships and were congratulated during the morning announcements for being championship finalists in the "FIRST AEROBICS Competition" :eek:

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

When we were at competition in Washington D.C. we got texts from students in class who were watching us on the webcast. Some teachers had set up the webcast on Friday and let their students watch all the action.. Also got some recognition when we returned from those students who got to see it.

A lot of kids are fascinated by it, and some of the seniors I talked with regret not getting into it.

It's hard for our robotics class, because we've started to get so many requests to join that we have to deny some kids each year. (Of course those that are dedicated will still come, but not all)

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

Support? Recognition? That's a joke, right?

Our team's coach is also the Robotics teacher at our high school, so during build season he gives us the shop and tells us to just put the important stuff in a closet during the day (so the P.E.T. class won't get to it). But from the rest of the faculty? The principal? No.

The general population of our school doesn't know the team exists. Those who do assume it's that nerdy thing some of the geeks do after school. They don't understand or care about the scope of FIRST. The school doesn't announce our wins or our game times like the rest of the school sports. A few teachers know about us and think it's a "cool idea", and all of the technology teachers are in on it with their support (and use the tech classes as a pool to draw new members from), but they don't tell their general students about it.

And our coach has a really hard time getting the days off to go to competition. (I've heard Robotics isn't being counted as a school-excused absence for students, but I'm not sure about that one.)

HOWEVER,
Our coach is one of the most amazing people in the world, ever. He has some how convinced the school to let our Robotics team members get a Varsity Letter in the sport. The requirements probably sounded absurd the the faculty, but they're not that bad. (150 hours of team time, 15 hours volunteer time, go to at least one regional, mentor a FLL team) And our coach has also made a deal with another one of the Tech teachers who is also a soccer coach. If Michelangelo (our robot this year) can beat a varsity soccer player in a kick off at the end-of-the-year assembly, then Michelangelo gets a soccer varsity letter. Which is way cool.
(We love you Sal~ Thanks for helping us find support!)

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

I have to say that over the four years our robotics team has been in business that we are getting more recognition little-by-little. Hey, just recently we've been able to get a showcase to put our awards in. Previous to that our accomplishments have always been but on announcements, some classmates and teachers ask us how we've done, we've participated in a local parade, and have done other school related events.

But not much of that has actually has sunk through the minds of many because .01% of the student population participates in robotics (6 of 600).

However, I propose an idea to generate recognition and get more students. Some of you have talked about others in school viewing your machines in shock and awe as they are demonstrated. Well, shock and awe does not work on high school aged students to get them interested in robotics (for the most part). For most of them, their high school dreams have already been set on being in some athletic team or another extracurricular activity. But why? Well, when these same people were of elementary school age, their minds were way more impressionable and viewed these activities in shock and awe, and it became their dream to make touchdowns and whatnot.
So, exposing robotics to the young students will inspire them to join your robotics team, and ultimately have them dream about becoming science and technology heros.

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

We don't have to get people to dream about science and technology. At the very least I want people to recognize and be inspired by science and technology. One way to do this is show how it this robotics team is fun to be in :ahh: People can have a sports dream and be in the robotics team since it happens every now and then.

It looks like you are off to a good start if you gain some recognition steadily. You could perhaps double your team repeatedly even if your attempts reach out to the other students :O

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

It's interesting how big the range of support is for individual teams.

As for the Killer Bees:

Because our shop is not located in the school, for a long time (back in 2000-2005ish) I don't think many people even really knew about our team. When I was a student, and was looking for a 2003 extracurricular activity to do, someone suggested the robotics team, and I had no clue what it is (and they had just come in second place at the Championship in Orlando in 2001!)

Now we're doing better to spread the word around the school. Some of the ways that we have done this are by:

• Bringing the robot to math and science classes
• Demonstrating at freshman orientation
• Demonstrating at freshman cornroast
• Participating in Pep rallies
• Having a booth at the school's Open house
• Providing fan buses to local cometition (FiM has greatly helped with this, by having district events that are located closer to the school)
• Awarding a Varsity letter to students who have made a large contribution to the team
• Wearing our bright yellow team shirts to some sports team's events, like a varsity basketball home game
• Bringing the robot to show off at lunchtimes in the cafetorium
• Winning awards at competitions. The school faculty especially enjoys receiving Chairman's trophies.
• Writing letters to all faculty and administration inviting them to attend our closest event (we had two people show up)
• Having two of our very own trophy cases in the main hallway of the school.
• Updating a bulletin board, also located in the main hallway, in the school every season
• Linking from the school's website directly to our team's website (killerbees33.com go check it out ;))

All this aside, we are still not as visible in the school as we want to be. There are still many students who think it's a geek club or too nerdy for them. And the administration at the school often tells our students that we should change our name to "The Fighting Irish" (as our school is Notre Dame Preparatory, The Fighting Irish), because they don't comprehend the real life marketing that has gone into our image as The Killer Bees.

Does anyone have any other suggestions to gather more school support?

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

I think our school recognizes us. I mean, we work out of an old guidance room right now (right next to the nurse's office) and our coach's classroom and we might not have the most space or the most resources from our school but we are definitely recognized by the staff, students and personnel. We're the kind of school where people go to football games for the marching band. Our sports teams just aren't that good and everyone in the area knows it. It isn't uncommon for the school athletes to congratulate us and ask about our team. Many of the members of 1089 are known for being in robotics by students, teachers, janitors, you name it, and everyone knows we have a team. Mr. Gregory, our coach, and the team members never stop talking about robotics and Mr. Gregory has shown the game animation in his classes and has been known to give extra credit for attending regionals and writing a paper on them.
We have our Chairman's banner hanging in our cafeteria where everyone can see it and we frequent the display cases in the main hallway. We get announcements when we get back from competition and all of our teachers know about the program one way or another. But we are everywhere in our school and our community, for example an Iron Man 2 robot demo yesterday and today, and we make sure you know about our team.

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

Our team's school is a rather large school in upstate New York (about 700 per class) and we've been competing since 1992. We're a large team of about 65-75 kids each year, but I'd say barely a majority of the school is aware of our existence despite our size, success, and longevity. Every student other than the ones on the robotics team cares more about the football team or the basketball team. It does not help that our school's principal hates our team because we miss school, so we get very little recognition when we get awards or do well, simply a two sentence statement on the announcements for a week which really means nothing because nobody listens to them anyway. It's very hard to make teacher's or the rest of the school enthusiastic about the team when the administration dislikes us, making it even harder to get the community notice. We do our very best to be involved in the community, and we do team outreach activities regularly, at least on a monthly basis.

When I talked to other students from teams at the championships who had won regional chairman's awards, almost all but one of them out of around a dozen said that either their school actively supported them in a significant way or that they went to a math/science/technical school. Being the only original team still around to have never won a regional Chairman's award, it almost makes it feel like it is beyond our control. But in two weeks our team is presenting in front of the Board of Ed of our school district with our robot and were hoping to gain support from them. Any advice for the presentation and how to get better recognition from our school?

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

Our team is 2 schools, plus some kids from surrounding towns without their own teams. At the 2 schools our team is officially connected to (Suffield and Windsor Locks), we have about 30 and 10 members, respectively, off the top of my head. Our head mentor is a teacher at Windsor Locks, and that is where our shop is as well. We also have a trophy case there that holds all of our banners. At Suffield, we have another teacher mentor, and the display case outside his room holds our judges' awards and medals, with our 1999 championship banner in the gym. Also, our pre-ship scrimmage, the Suffield Shakedown, is held in Suffield's gymnasium.

The teachers and faculty at both schools know about our team, and one of the vice principles at Suffield often wears team shirts on Fridays. However, many of the students at both schools seem to look down upon and even make fun of the students in the robotics program. They don't really accept it as a sport, and they don't really understand the program either. Most obviously think it's similar to Battle Bots, and when they hear that it isn't, it just makes them think we're nerds playing with legos.

Even though a lot of students and teachers don't quite understand FRC, we still try to inform them about it. For example, at the beginning of the school year, we announce our meeting schedule over the morning announcements. During Freshmen orientation in February, we hold a demo for the 8th graders who are moving up to the high school. We often bring a robot and let the kids try it out, to see what FIRST is really like. Also, we have a morning announcements commercial for our scrimmage, where we encourage students and teachers to come see what we have been doing for the 6 week build season.

Regardless of all of the above, I (regretfully) have to admit, that our team really only gets a lot of attention when we win. When the school gets news that a team, any team, won something, they become interested in them, at least for a little while. After we won in Washington DC this season, we came back to an excited faculty and student body, and many congratulations. Students asked us about the team, rather than putting us down. However, this was all reversed when we didn't win in Connecticut. We were almost expected by the students to win a 2nd regional, just because we had already won a first. And just that in itself is disheartening, because that's not what FIRST is about.

So, overall, I would say that a lot of the student body at our schools really don't care much about us. However, I will say that the schools are supportive of what we do, and they are by no means working against us. I think that a lot of people just judge us, because they don't really know what we're all about.

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

[rant]
The student body in our schools don't recognize us at all. I've been involved with the team for 2 years, and the only time we've had an announcement about the team has been when we were quarterfinalists in Curie this year, completely ignoring when we won a regional Chairman's Award.

Our school district gives us a display case in a minor hallway, some space for summer camp when they aren't using it, free copies, and it covers legal fees in case we get sued, but it treats us more as a minor club than an organized team. Officially, our shop in the school cafeteria, so we have to find other, donated, build sites, which are usually hard to come by. Looking at what Drama, Debate and Forensics gets, we should at least get the same recognition as them, with recruiting announcements, and being able to post flyers on bulletin boards. The support in reaching students through teachers is minimal, with only one teacher, our lead mentor, doing any recruiting. Some of the things that our school district gives us are useful, like how they cover our

I can't stand the "Battlebots factor". People always think that it's something with fighting robots when I tell them about it, and give me advice on how I should put a shotgun, or a flamethrower on the robot. This has even happened with some potential sponsors! When we eventually tell the students what FIRST is all about, they almost always just assume that all this "Gracious Professionalism" and "Coopertition" business is only for nerds. It's sad, because I think that a lot of these students would really enjoy FIRST after seeing their first regional.
[/rant]

tl;dr Summary: Our team barely gets recognized by the school, most teachers and students don't care at all, and older school clubs get the spotlight.

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

In turns of Student Support/Awarness with the student body.... We could be better.

But in terms of faculty recigniton, great. Out team gets lucrative funding from out B.O.E., and has the administration completly behind us.

With the cut of our schools Metal Shop Room, Team Max now has our own work room. We also are the only team/club that has COMPLETE ACESS TO THE ENITRE BULDING. This means that as long as a room is not getting used, we can use it without question. This is has basically taken off all restrictions to getting this robot done, and has kept Build season somewhat smoother (it can only get so smooth no matter what).

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

being a tiny school news travels fast. Everyone knows about our team but they know all the bad things that have happened the past few years, it has hurt our reputation deeply. Last two years we were stuck in a corner of the chem lab and had to clean up and bring everything up everyday. That was from the basement to the top floor 2 flights of stairs. Our school is not allowed to fundraise so they paid for our regional and gave us $300 to build last year. This year with a new faculty advisor we were able to get a real place to work a small room and we were allowed $1000 to build.

we are known at our school. The way we get our meetings known to members is by a weekly assembly that the entire school goes to. Next fall I hope to bring the robot to one in the beginning, (would have loved to do it this year but finals this week along with AP testing) Also bringing it out occasionally during lunch and driving around.

All in all the support from our student body along with administration has gone way up . The school knows about everything that happens with the robotics program, the bad and this year the amazing turn around.