Should FRC Team name = HS athletic team name?

[dtengineering]

We combined our school mascot, the "Trojan" with "Robotics" and got "Trobotics".

And while we proudly stuck with the name, my advice would be that every possible combination of "....botics" and "Robo....." has been done to death.

However it is only people in FRC that know that... in your community linking the school mascot to something robotical will help people make connections with both the school and what you are doing.

But what I would suggest is that whatever name, colours and logos you choose... STICK WITH THEM. Your team will develop a reputation based on the character of the students, the quality of your robot, your presence in the pits and stands and your presentations to the judging panels.

Many judges and volunteers come back year after year... we get to know teams, probably better than you might expect, and that is almost always a positive. If you are going to change your image than make sure you have a good reason, follow a logical process, document the process and explain it to the judges.

Finally, whatever your team name is... find something that makes you unique. Our first ever FRC award was for our innovative use of plywood... so we built on that angle using plywood as key structural components of our robot every year. We won at least two more awards that cited our use of plywood, and when I retired from the team and joined the judging panel, I discovered that not just other teams... but many judges... would make a point of coming by our pit area to see what we had done with plywood this year.

As a Canadian team competing primarily in the states, we made hockey sticks a key component of our design. When I introduced myself to the other judges, they didn't all know who Trobotics was, or who 1346 was... but they sure knew who the team in the red shirts and black pants with plywood and hockey sticks on their robot was. (It was the Canadians, eh?)

Choose whatever name you want... but don't count on your name to make you stand out. It is the overall package that will establish your reputation.

Jason

[Chadfrom308]

Our team is not associated with a single school. And the name is nothing like our schools. Monsters != Vikings, Warriors, or Knights

I know 548 (Robostangs) are associated with their mascot/school (Mustangs)

Waterford Mott Destroyers (WMD) is associated with their school

I can think of more that are not associated

[mrnoble]

Originally Posted by dtengineering

And while we proudly stuck with the name, my advice would be that every possible combination of "....botics" and "Robo....." has been done to death.

However it is only people in FRC that know that... in your community linking the school mascot to something robotical will help people make connections with both the school and what you are doing.

Agree with your full post. I'm pretty sure we are the only AngelBots around, though. We chose to adapt our team name to our school mascot in 2009 so that we could help our students feel like they were part of the larger community, and help our school support our team. We have continued to "theme" each year differently, though, because we have so many artistic and theatrical students. We may eventually settle into our school colors and team uniforms when I get tired of the annual process.

[Abhishek R]

Personally, I like having a distinct theme apart from the other organizations at our school. Cinco Ranch is pretty big, fielding a little under 4000 students, so there are a ridiculous amount of student clubs and organizations. Our colors are maroon and white with the cougar for mascot, so it seems like band, orchestra, choir, academic decathlon, all the athletics - they all have maroon and white shirts.

So when you see a black/neon green shirt in the crowd, it's almost instantly recognizable

[philso]

Originally Posted by Abhishek R

So when you see a black/neon green shirt in the crowd, it's almost instantly recognizable

That's if you missed the neon green hair...

[Al Skierkiewicz]

John,
WildStang is a combination of the original two schools that began our long history. The Wheeling Wildcats and the Rolling Meadows MuStangs. We now accept students from any district 214 school and home schoolers in our district. Long live the tie dye!

[JohnSchneider]

Originally Posted by Abhishek R

Personally, I like having a distinct theme apart from the other organizations at our school. Cinco Ranch is pretty big, fielding a little under 4000 students, so there are a ridiculous amount of student clubs and organizations. Our colors are maroon and white with the cougar for mascot, so it seems like band, orchestra, choir, academic decathlon, all the athletics - they all have maroon and white shirts.

So when you see a black/neon green shirt in the crowd, it's almost instantly recognizable

Gonna go the whole thread without mentioning 624's original team name?

[Abhishek R]

Originally Posted by JohnSchneider

Gonna go the whole thread without mentioning 624's original team name?

Ok ok, you got me. Time for a story, though this is before my time so everything may not be perfect.

So a long time ago, we were originally the C.R.E.W. The Cinco Ranch Engineering Wizards. Oh boy. That didn't stick around too long, so after a trip to championships one year I think someone decided it was time for a change. I believe we were inspired by Team 180, SPAM, and their superman theme. We thought that would be cool, so we ended up with a superman theme as well, except based around his weakness, Kryptonite, in which we substitued the K with a CR, for Cinco Ranch, to make CRyptonite. Now we go around with this punk superhero style with the spiked hair and radioactive green on everything, from our clothing to our hair to the lights on our robot. That's all I know of our imagery history sadly : /

[cbale2000]

Since our school is a half day career center that students from many schools attend, the school itself doesn't have a mascot...

However, after redoing the display/trophy case in the front of the school (and sticking our logo prominently in the middle), we have started discussions in regards to making our team name the school mascot.

[Amy33Amy33]

Our team, the FireBears, has nothing to do with our school's athletics department, which is the Roseville Raiders. In hind sight, it might have been useful to be the Raiders so that we could reasonably claim to be a sports team, and get the perks of that, but the Raiders isn't a name that stands out at all. FireBears? That stands out. Also, fun fact, the name was voted on, so if FireBears hadn't won the election, we would have been the Electric Bananas.

[rebelreyek]

Originally our team was run out of Case Western Reserve University, even though all of its members came from our school (HB). At that point we were called TeamHB (super creative, I know. Not sure about mascot or colors back then though...).

Fast forward to the fall of 2010 and we lose the space at CWRU, which is when we moved back into our school. However, that same year we ended up changing our name to have no relation to our school whatsoever and we've been The Fighting Unicorns ever since, with blue and pink as our colors.

[JackN]

The town of Goodrich likes to tout that we are the only school in the country to use our school's mascot: The Martians. We are named after the soldiers of Mars, the Roman God of War and Agriculture. The school's choice dates back to the early history of the 1900s when Goodrich was a school in a farming community and wanted to recognize the Mars.

The team name was chosen long before I was on the team, but the reason it was chosen was because of the relationship the school has to the name. The logo with the grinning Martian head that we have used since our beginning and the green color is unique to the robotics team and were chosen and created to give the team a strong brand and a unique color that stands out among all of the teams in our competitions. The school's mascot is a helmet with the word Goodrich incorporated into the helmet and has recently became a constant fixture on the team's robots.

[GeeTwo]

I posted a few days back, but there was a new development today, almost certainly NOT prompted by this thread...
During our penultimate pre-reveal build session this evening, the mentors were seriously discussing the possibility of team JERSEYS, in addition to the t-shirts. We went so far as to suggest that each team member be given a large natural number for his/her jersey. An offline discussion I was in even suggested giving coaches and mentors fractional, irrational and/or complex numbers. I doubt that we'll actually follow through with any of this, but we really are intent on branding ourselves as a "real team" of our high school.