Quote:
Originally Posted by waialua359
Most people cant even pronounce our school name correctly anyway. 
School names are hard. I can remember about 800+ different teams by their number, but cant name schools but a handful of them. |
^^ THIS ^^
When we started the team we tried very hard to have the identity of the school as part of our branding.
Our first year our team was named the Kealakehe RoboRiders. Our school is “The Wave Riders” generated from the history of surfing starting in Hawaii, so we thought it was a good fit. After our trip to the championships on our rookie year (Thanks Glenn) and hearing so many variations of Robo”instert your mascot here” all over the pits we knew we needed a better, easily identifiable identity.
Being a rookie team we were just struggling to get a robot built and running in time. We had no clue of the amount of branding that was prevalent with the veteran teams. Let alone how important it is!
On the flight home from championships the team brainstormed for hours for better branding and came up with Tiki Technologies, aka, Tiki Techs. After arriving back to the island we did a lot of research on other team names and branding. We knew that Tiki Techs would be here to stay as there was nothing like it.
Besides Hawaiian Kids was taken..
I agree that most times I remember teams by the numbers, but many names do stick, Hawaiian Kids, Cheezy Poofs, Team Titanium, Simbotics, Exploding Bacon, SPAM (HI state buys the most spam), Robonauts, High Rollers, Holy Cows, Code Orange, Coconuts, and so many more….
Changing our team name was the best thing we have done. It is so much easier for us to design our branding around a Tiki then a surfer, besides there is another team on the island that has been using a robotic surfer long before we started in FRC. Waiakea High School, even though the school is known as the Warriors, they have used the names Hot Rocks (5 years) and Warrior Pride (2 years) they use a robotic surfer on all their branding.
Though they no longer compete we did not want to be confused with nor impersonate them. (we miss you Dale and team 1056/2024)
I agree that having the school name associated with the team branding can be needed when working with the community and sponsors, but do not let it keep you from creating a unique team identity.
Since the robotics programs create their own legacy not related to the other school programs, it is just fine to be separate. There is not as much school rivalries in robotics like in other school sports. There shouldn’t be, since FRC has long been known for co-opertition and gracious professionalism. I love the fact that we are all trying to bringing up the level of our competitors to “beat them at their best”.
Finding your brand can take some time, have many team meeting and kick around as many ideas as you can. It could prove to be a great way to involve the students in making a brand that they get to leave behind as their legacy and will always identify with it.
We were very concerned about changing our identity and losing connection with the few sponsors we had after our first year. In fact our change has increased our visibility and created a unique program that the community can immediately identify. Which is better for our program in the long run.
Good luck this season and with creating your branding, it is well worth the time.
Aloha,
Mr. H