What kind of spirit does your team have?

[ksafin]

Hi everyone.

As a rookie team we were way more focused on getting a robot done and didn't even think for a second about our spirit preparations for the competition until it was too late.

Anyways, our spirit gear was limited to team shirts, buttons, a mascot suit, and a big flag.

My question for all of you, is what kind of spirit does your team invest in? Including, but not limited to:

1) Shirts/Uniforms/Outfits
2) Headgear
3) Accessories
4) Buttons/Other Handouts
5) Pit design, from tents to banners to TV's/monitors w/ slideshows.

I'd like to know because our Spirit Committee is trying to grind out a winning combination of spirit gear this season!

Thanks, and pictures would be really appreciated!

[PVCpirate]

Originally Posted by ksafin

Anyways, our spirit gear was limited to team shirts, buttons, a mascot suit, and a big flag.

I'd say you're already doing fairly well compared to other teams, the average team has shirts and buttons and that's about it. If you're looking to add, boards with individual letters and numbers(like this) on them are a crowd pleaser. Also, something like a hat or necklace is cool for everyone to wear and maybe to give to teams on your alliance.

[jwallace15]

Hello!

I'll go in the order of your list:

1) Shirts/Uniforms/Outfits
Our team has seperate uniforms for competitions; the pit crew has pit shirts, that have a chest pocket and button over our regular uniforms, and the spectating team members wear their regular team uniform (a T-Shirt). We don't have a mascot... But for our homecoming parade, we have an electric go-cart that pulls our robot cart... I don't know if you'd consider that a mascot or not (we don't bring it to competitions).

2) Headgear
Our team has had hats in the past... But a team we were allianced with in an off-season event had silver sequin fedoras with blinking LED's! They also had silver wigs.

3) Accessories
We have a rah-rah box, which contains pom-pons in our team colours, hair spray that sticks your hair in a specific way, along with other cheering materials.

4) Buttons/Other Handouts
We have buttons. We also have pamphlets containing information about our team (I'd like to say that I love when teams have buttons; I'm trying to cover my team uniform with them by the end of 2013).

5) Pit Design
We have a dry-erase board that we write the times of our matches on, along with the teams that are in our alliance. We also have an LED marquee that we put "Good luck to everyone" on.

I hope this helps you. I love super-spirited teams, because they're fun to mingle with!

[Steven Donow]

1) Shirts/Uniforms/Outfits
We (usually) design a new shirt every year, often trying to fit the theme of the game (ie. being Xtreme Heat last year we had T-Shirts modeled after a Miami Heat jersey...only two people ever seemed to get the reference...), as well as our signature flame pants that everyone wears. We also make polos with our logo on the chest for mentors, as well as sweatshirts.

2) Headgear
As mentioned above, hairspray is a great 'headgear'. Team colors spiked looks good for just about any team.

3) Accessories
As mentioned above, we have 'flame pants', and in the past have used pom-poms. We also have number signs(one sign saying '2', another '2', and a '3') as well as "red alliance" and "blue alliance" signs. Also, if it's within your means, a flag, or something for the emcee to use for your team, is a must. We had sewed(is that the right tense?) by ourselves.

4) Buttons/Other Handouts
Buttons are almost a must, you can get the supplies from millions of sites on Google. In regards to handouts, one for judges isn't a terrible idea, and its always great to hand out an info sheet on your robot. They mostly have the same data people give out during pit scouting, but it makes your team much more noticeable if you hand out a colorful flyer with robot info on it.

5) Pit design, from tents to banners to TV's/monitors w/ slideshows.
We usually don't have a nice pit, but ours consists of two shelving units with monitors mounted on them, usually one displays sponsor logos and the other displays a slideshow or scouting data. Our design that we've yet to actually pit into place is basically a PVC gateway that mounts on top of the storage units, displays a team banner, and also hides cables for the monitors. We also use a rolling storage box and a toolbox, which we use to basically wall-in our pit(though not totally, for obvious reasons).

[ksafin]

Thanks for the replies guys! This is all really helpful.

Do you happen to have any pictures of the things you posted? (just an additional aid, if you don't it's totally fine!)

[CKane]

Originally Posted by jwallace15

Hello!

I'll go in the order of your list:

1) Shirts/Uniforms/Outfits
Our team has seperate uniforms for competitions; the pit crew has pit shirts, that have a chest pocket and button over our regular uniforms, and the spectating team members wear their regular team uniform (a T-Shirt). We don't have a mascot... But for our homecoming parade, we have an electric go-cart that pulls our robot cart... I don't know if you'd consider that a mascot or not (we don't bring it to competitions).

2) Headgear
Our team has had hats in the past... But a team we were allianced with in an off-season event had silver sequin fedoras with blinking LED's! They also had silver wigs.

3) Accessories
We have a rah-rah box, which contains pom-pons in our team colours, hair spray that sticks your hair in a specific way, along with other cheering materials.

4) Buttons/Other Handouts
We have buttons. We also have pamphlets containing information about our team (I'd like to say that I love when teams have buttons; I'm trying to cover my team uniform with them by the end of 2013).

5) Pit Design
We have a dry-erase board that we write the times of our matches on, along with the teams that are in our alliance. We also have an LED marquee that we put "Good luck to everyone" on.

I hope this helps you. I love super-spirited teams, because they're fun to mingle with!

Our team actually has our regular t shirt that we wear thursday and friday for competition. Then saturday we have our mechanics shirt, that everyone wears, which looks like a bowling shirt and has our name on it. we usually wear our t shirts under this.

We also have team hats and fyi i wouldnt get hats with LEDs if you plan on wearing them to competitions/on the field because they will have to be turned off during matches.

We also have makeup and orange and blue hair spray stuff for competitions.

[MrBydlon]

Hi! I became head coach of our team during Logomotion two years ago and our team spirit was also pretty low on our checklist. Last year, we really upped our game and had a great time. So I can totally relate to your spirit committee's goals. Anyway, here are Team 3313 from Alexandria, MN answers. The links are photos.

1) Shirts/Uniforms/Outfits
Our t-shirts for Logomotion were pretty pitiful. We didn't have a team logo or identity at all. They just said our team name and number. Right after the 2011 competition, we decided on a "Transformers" theme. We love it. We made t-shirts with the Autobots symbol and basketball jerseys (because of Rebound Rumble) with the Decepticon symbol. Both clothing items have all of our sponsors listed on the back.

T-shirts
Jerseys

This year, we are getting polo shirts, sweatshirts, and possibly a game related t-shirt. We do not and will not have sub team specific uniforms this year.

2) Headgear
No head gear for us. But I love the hair spray or hair color idea. Maybe next year!

3) Accessories
We have a mascot we call Mechatron. It's made out of cardboard, duct tape, and hot glue. At events, people go nuts for it.

Mechatron

We also have a banner with our team name, number, logo, and major sponsors on it.
Team Banner

And a hand sewn flag with our team name, number, and logo.
Team Flag

4) Buttons/Other Handouts
We do not have buttons but I think we will do that this year. We have team wristbands. They are blue, with our team name and number on it. They glow in the dark. We had them out at events and at our Regionals.

For public events, we made a half sheet of paper with all of our team information on it. For the Regional, we had the half sheets as well as a handout with Robot Information and Team Outreach Information. We handed them out to judges and anyone else who wanted them. The judges liked them. I can email those to you if you want. Just shoot an email to 3313coach@gmail.com

5) Pit design, from tents to banners to TV's/monitors w/ slideshows.
We did a test run of our pit before our Regionals. You can it here.

We are going to upgrade our pit again this year (no ideas on that yet). But last year, we had a tent without a top to designate our space. We had tool boxes, shelving, sponsor advertisements, our flag, our banner, team information, and other stuff.

Any other questions, let me know! I hope this helps. The second year is so much fun!! You can broaden your horizons so much. Good luck!

[jwallace15]

Hello again.

Just a quick correction on our uniform: Thursday and Friday we wear our orange shirts, and on Saturday we wear the mechanic shirts I was talking about.

And we do have a mascot: Lady Lightning.

Also: Here's a pic of the silver sequin hats.

(And by the way, the sweatshirt my teammate is wearing is not our mechanic shirt)

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by ksafin

Hi everyone.

As a rookie team we were way more focused on getting a robot done and didn't even think for a second about our spirit preparations for the competition until it was too late.

Anyways, our spirit gear was limited to team shirts, buttons, a mascot suit, and a big flag.

My question for all of you, is what kind of spirit does your team invest in? Including, but not limited to:

1) Shirts/Uniforms/Outfits
2) Headgear
3) Accessories
4) Buttons/Other Handouts
5) Pit design, from tents to banners to TV's/monitors w/ slideshows.

I'd like to know because our Spirit Committee is trying to grind out a winning combination of spirit gear this season!

Thanks, and pictures would be really appreciated!

Shirts are probably 2815's calling card the past couple of years. (It should be noted that we build on the campus of the University of South Carolina, home of the Gamecocks.)

We've had a couple of stabs at headgear over the years, but nothing that's stuck. In the stands, we added some signage to wave (the other side had 2815 on it, except the ones we gave to the WiredCats). That appears to have worked nicely, enough so that we'll print some up for 2013. The year before, one of our college students had a connection for yo-yos printed with our team number. Those were a hit at Championship.

Pit design...well, yeah. Working on that.

[SarahBeth]

Oooh fun topic! I'll play!

1) Shirts/Uniforms/Outfits
We (the Aztechs) generally just have team t-shirts that change with the game. They're sapphire and have our team name and number on them, sponsors on the back and the design tends to change. This year however, we're ordering sweatshirts and sweatpants because lets face it - its cold in the arena sometimes! Those will have our generic Aztechs 157 logo on them.

2) Headgear
We don't really do headgear, but last year our old spirit leader made braided yarn headbands in blue and gold.

3) Accessories
We have a mascot that our kids created - its a big robot head with a helmet in it with eyes that light up. One of the parents also made us a cool blue and gold cape that we gave to the MC's and it got worn it every time he announced our team. We've talked about doing a flag too, but haven't gotten that far. Oh we also have signs for the stands. One of our students created an Aztech headdress, spear, and shield as well.

4) Buttons/Other Handouts
We give out buttons every year, and have talked about some other kind of swag. Last year we also gave out beads and bubbles. I think we'd love to get to the point where we can get extra game t-shirts, bring them to the competitions and do a t-shirt swap with some other teams. We also have a brochure about our team that we put together for our festivals and outreach events.

5) Pit design, from tents to banners to TV's/monitors w/ slideshows.
We're in the process of revamping our pit design a little bit - we'd like to be able to showcase some of the things that we do with our kids over the course of the year and we haven't figured out how to do that yet. Its probably just a case of using the space efficiently.

Photos you say? Ok.

Our Aztech Head & T-shirts. Oh and bonus face paint.


The Headdress, modeled by one of our 2012 seniors.



You know how I said that we didn't have headgear? One of our students decided to use one of the poms as a wig in Boston.



Signs in the stands



I don't have any photos of the cape handy though. I'll try to track a couple down, because that thing is cool.

Good luck!

[MARS_James]

Originally Posted by ksafin

1) Shirts/Uniforms/Outfits

Shrits are by far the most important thing in defining your teams image and spirit (as well as a good way of securing sponsorship). On thursday we used to have "funny" shirts paid for by Sikorsky (I'm a Keeper in 2007 and No Left Turns in 2008) for Thursday competitions. Now we just use our team shirt Link Here

2) Headgear

For unfun members: Link
For fun members: LinK
For Rookies: Link

3) Accessories

We have these for boys: Link
And because of our team mom (read team as my) our girls have robot necklaces, earings, and bracelets mostly from Forever 21

4) Buttons/Other Handouts

Oh boy if you have been to a competition with us you know this is one of our specialties:
We have a new button every year as it relates to the game and have begun to have a new button for every day of every competition we go to.
Inflatable Aliens: Link
Hackysacks: Link
Paddle balls: Link
Gooey Alien Eggs: Link
Splat Aliens: Link
Mars Mud: Link
Plus we make a FIRST Activity book to give out every year which includes a safety coloring section, word searches of team names, and crosswords.

5) Pit design, from tents to banners to TV's/monitors w/ slideshows.

This I have felt is our biggest weakness among those listed all we have is a team banner and our Chairman's banner since we are more about using it for mechanical needs

[Steven Donow]

Here are some pictures of the various things I mentioned:

Crowd session at Rutgers, various signs

T-shirt as well as sweatshirt and pants and hair. As you can see, the everything is color-coordinated and you can see our robot cart.

Other cheering picture

Flag

If I were a post-rookie team I'd start spending my time and resources on learning how to make a bot that my team can cheer about instead of getting things for my team to cheer with.

Just my .02¢.

[ptkunapuli478]

I am on team 341 Miss Daisy, and we have a relatively big team. We have a team polo shirt (blue polo with checkered collar), a practice day shirt, and a travel shirt. But really, you only need one of those three. A normal t-shirt is perfectly fine, especially for a rookie team. In terms of banners, we dont' actually have one. Instead, our team members wear daisy headbands and we have little daisies that we use to decorate our pit or our area of the stands. Hope this helps

[MARS_James]

Originally Posted by SuperNerd256

If I were a post-rookie team I'd start spending my time and resources on learning how to make a bot that my team can cheer about instead of getting things for my team to cheer with.

Just my .02¢.

3992 was ranked 17th in South Florida, had a winning qualification record, was selected for an alliance, and was eliminated by the winning alliance of the regional containing World Champion Team 180, and Team 1592 who won both the Florida Regionals and our only off season event this year.

So I think they already have the bot thing handled and can start expanding into the other aspects of FIRST since like Dean says we are more than just a robotics competition