[Libby K]

West Windsor-Plainsboro School District has two high schools, North and South.

Team 1923 was originally based out of North (The Knights). At the time, we were Royal Knights Robotics. Blue and grey, the exact same knight logo as the athletic department ...we matched the school pretty well.

Fast forward a few years and we end up offering membership to students from South (The Pirates). We were told by the District we were not allowed to use either school's colors, logos, or other branding - one, because that would 'show favoritism' and they wanted it to look like a unified team, and two, we had just moved to build outside of district property, and weren't really affiliated with the schools anymore... so we changed up the look.

The MidKnight Inventors are black and silver, with their own logo - we keep the K in there as nod to our roots - and their own branding package for fonts, alternative colors, etc. that keeps it neutral between the two schools. As a result, students from both high schools are proud to wear their team gear around town.

With such a large team now (and MidKnight Minions, Mini's etc. through younger programs) the logo's become recognizable in our area. I was in line at a coffee shop in my team hoodie, and a woman said "Oh, my friend's son is on that team! What part of the robot do you work on?" Wow. That's the dream right there, isn't it? (Not the part where she thought I was a high schooler, but you get my drift.)

TL;DR: Branding with the school is great if you're the only school involved, but having your own identity can really help.