School Regcognition

[Ari423]

Originally Posted by Trevor1523

So something that may be looking into would be reaching out to other schools, trying to recruit more members. If we were only one school we'd be in the same boat as you guys.

We actually used to be a combined team of three nearby schools, but two of the three schools have left the joint team (one completely quit and one moved to FTC). I think the fact that we were from more than one school from '99 until last year may be part of the reason why we aren't as well known in our current school. We only had 2 kids from the other school in the past 4 years, but we couldn't "market" ourselves as our school's team. Now that we are only one school, we are debating changing the team name/symbol/colors to better reflect our school mascot and colors (Simple Machines have nothing to do with Panthers), which will hopefully make it a little more obvious that the team is a part of the school.

I started this thread not as much for recruitment advice (although we could use some of that too) but more for what teams do in their school community to create awareness of their team. I have heard that some teams go to every science class and give a short demo or that some teams are considered varsity sports in their school. I would like to know what other kind of things teams do and whether or not they worked, especially teams that are in the same boat as us and have overcome it to be recognized by their school and community.

We are currently planning an exhibition event (yet to be named) in the fall for nearby teams to come to our high school and show off their robots. If we get enough teams and field pieces we will be playing matches of Recycle Rush (I know it's not the most entertaining game but its the only fully functional robot we have). The goal is to get kids to realize FIRST isn't just a few nerds in the basements of far away schools, but it is fun and very much in their community. We are lucky enough to be in a densely populated area as far as FRC teams go, so we are hoping to have a number of teams attend. Any advice on this event (or if you want to attend) or advice on outreach to the school in general is greatly appreciated.