New team t-shirts

[EricH]

Originally Posted by thefro526

To me at least, there's nothing wrong with changing up shirts from year to year, as long as they stay somewhat similar. You don't want to be Orange one year, Green the next and then Purple the following. Makes it a bit hard to remember your team.

Unless you're 399... but they only do that to their robot.

Since 2003, 330 has only changed their basic design once, and it was a minor change (though the exact blue used has changed a few times). Blue with yellow lettering, front stays the same, sponsor list on the back changes.

[Peter Matteson]

We do a different design every year. Some have to do with the game and some don't, but each different design brings back a little nostalgia for that year. We also in the past used to get 2 different colors, our traditional maroon with gold graphics and the inverse, gold with maroon graphics. We have also thrown in hoodie's, polo shirts and long sleeves every few years so each group of students going through can get them if they want to.

But thebiggest reason to vary tee-shirt design is so that you can participate in "THROWBACK THURSDAY", wearing an older year tee-shirt to events on Thursday. This is a tradition on my team and we encourage others to join in.

[Andy Brockway]

Team recognition is very important. Our first year was 2001 and oe thing that stannds out for me is Team 175 and their yellow smiley face.

On 716 we wear a tie dyed shirt with a huge question mark on the front during competition days. On practice days we allow the students the option to wear a silk screened shirt with question mark.

[smurfgirl]

It seems like most people have already hit on the point that branding is extremely important, so even if you change some aspects of your t-shirt design you want the overall appearance to be recognizable from year to year. Changing just one side of the shirt, or keeping the same color scheme and certain aspects but adding game-specific designs seems like it may be a good option if you do want new designs each year. 1124 re-branded as the UberBots in 2005 after our main sponsor changed, and we didn't come up with a logo until 2006, but since then our shirts have been essentially the same each year because of the branding aspect.

[Carol]

Originally Posted by thefro526

....
That being said, there are quite a few teams I can think off of the top of my head that have a different shirt for every year, but usually use the same color combinations or shirt type. 1089 and 365 come to mind here, they use soccer type shirts and print a different logo for each year. From a distance, the shirts look the same, but up closeen it's neat to see how they've changed the logo for the game..

MOE does has the continuity that each year's logo has one gear per year of existence - last year's shirt had 12 gears (really - see if you can find them). They are all at http://moe365.org/shirts.php . The design (and robot name) are chosen each year in a contest from entries submitted by team members.

[JaneYoung]

418 seems to continually add to our repertoire. We have a logo that is recognizable and is always on the shirt but the shirts seem to evolve and change. We have tee shirts, polos, and we've recently added a Hawaiian-style shirt with a mixed pattern of our logo and different robots. We place our tee shirt order very early in the fall semester in preparation for the community outreach efforts and for various competitions. Our next order coming up will be the polos. We wear those as a team on the days that members of the team have a presentation to make at Texas BEST or for the Chairman's Award or in meetings with sponsors/VIPs. By wearing the polos as a team, we want our presentation team to know that we are supporting their efforts. The tee shirts have become our generic shirts for travel, practice days, demos, and S.M.A.R.T. Camps. Our Hawaiian shirt is still evolving. We used it last year at the Dallas Regional on Saturday. Saturdays can be very intense but they are also a lot of fun and I think the Hawaiian shirts reflect that.

It's hard not to want to create new shirts because the team is full of creative people who are always thinking. The constraints that we deal with are the family budgets and what they are willing to spend on shirts, the branding aspect of the design, and the overall appearance as a unified team. When we travel, we ask that veteran members pack extra and share with the newer members at the event. We make sure that the members keep track of who borrowed/loaned what and it works out. Then as the new members become veterans, they are asked to share with the new members as needed. It's become a cycle of helping our team keep ourselves unified and branded in a happy way.

We've made some poor choices, too. The years that we decide to use gray for our main tee shirt color never works. There are those of us who shall remain anonymous *cough* who love to use the gray. It doesn't work because we are known for our purple branding. In the end, the gray shirts usually become travel shirts or Throw Back shirts and we stick with purple and with our logo. One last thought - we get busy so early in the school year that we ask/tell our new team members to wear a plain purple shirt to the events until they can borrow or purchase a team shirt. That works, too.

I like this topic. It's fun.
Jane

[Peyton Yeung]

My team (team 45) has been around for a while and to my knowledge each year the shirts have differed. We typically have 3 themed shirts, one for each day of competition. My freshman year (2010) we had a red shirt with a batman-like technokat symbol, a navy shirt with a green lantern-like FIRST symbol and a light blue button up (the theme was superheroes that year). We generally change up the designs and colors each year to fit the game and the large group of fashion minded people on our team. Recently we have been discussing getting a set shirt to use for each season though.

For the sake of image it would probably be wise to keep a standard shirt style/design.

[rachelholladay]

Last year we finally got a logo and are trying hard to build a brand. While the basic shirt with our logo and sponsors will be our standard shirt, we want to have a new one every year that is fun and personalized for that year.

[hat_ios]

For the past 4 year, 610 has had a different form of team clothing, whether it be a "rugby shirt", polos or sweatshirts. It is really cool to have a variety of team clothing from all your different years on a team. I do agree with having a more consistant look when team clothing is being created. I know an idea that we are throwing around is creating a set color palette for all team clothing and that the clothes all need to have certain features to them (team number, logo, sponsors, etc...). Clothing is always one of the hardest thing to decide upon amongst team members.

[Peyton Yeung]

Originally Posted by hat_ios

Clothing is always one of the hardest thing to decide upon amongst team members.

I know that. Our team typically has a hard time agreeing on designs and colors.

[KevinGoneNuts]

Well Tech High Robotics is known for changing their theme every year and having different T-shirts. It's kind of fun each year to have a new t-shirt and not bound to the same theme every year.