[av11d]

I'll talk briefly about our school specifically and then hopefully provide you with some useful advice on changing the attitude your school exhibits towards your robotics team. "School" is kind of general so I'll break it up into individual categories.

Administration
Our administration is very supportive of the roboraiders. Both our principal and superintendent visit us at the NJ Mid-Atlantic Regional. Every year they are very impressed and make an effort to congratulate everyone on our team at the competition. The school board also recognizes us at a local board meeting by congratulating each one of us individually. The board meetings are aired on a local channel. While they don't provide significant monetary aid, they help out where they can. For instance, this year they are purchasing us our own trophy case. They've allocated us space along a wall at the high school This should go a long way in showing the school how successful the robotics team is.

If your administration is not particularly helpful, I recommend inviting them to your closest regional competition. Have them see how exciting and powerful a regional competition is! Maybe even give them a presentation on your team so that they see how cool a FIRST team is.

Faculty
I'm positive every teacher at our school knows about the robotics team. Teachers always ask me how the season is going, etc. Many teachers ask for demonstrations during their classes. The only advice I can give you on spreading the spirit of FIRST to the teachers is to give a presentation on the team at a faculty meeting.

Students
Peers are absolutely the most difficult group to convince that a FIRST team is cool. At our school, it's hard to pinpoint a general feeling. Some people see us an elite group of science students who do amazing things with engineering. Others see us leaders and college-bound students. Of course there is the group who see us as geeky, but not in a bad way.

I think the key ingredient in exhibiting an image of "coolness" is to show the school how successful you are. No matter what team it is, students want THEIR school to perform well. Also show them the non-robotic parts of your team. We've shown our 3D animation to the entire school.. and everyone is always so impressed. Give demonstrations during lunch periods; if anything, they will at least respect you for your amazing achievements in building the robot. Try to get a group of diverse students involved in robotics. This goes a long way in spreading the message of FIRST to the different cliques in the school.

In the end, don't worry about it too much! Just have fun!