Button Making

[Aignam]

Originally Posted by Blocker-9

What is a team required to do (not counting the robot)?
How are other teams getting people to join FIRST Robotics?
What advise would other teams give to a Rookie team?

Stephanie Blocker
Team #1415

This might be a conversation best left for 'Team Organization'. But, I'll give it a shot...

Teams aren't really required to do much more than play a robot. You can choose to be as active or helpful as you'd like. It all depends on your view of FIRST and your goals as a FIRST team.

Team 25 approaches schools within our region with students, demonstration robots, demo videos, and just an overall impressive array of interesting and captivating information. We try to get the students and teachers as excited as possible, showing them different ways that they can be on the road to FIRST in no time, and helping them get past difficult problems, such as sponsorship and school participation. Team 25 also demos in public areas and at conventions as much as possible. Just get the word out, be interesting, be fun, be sincere. Let them known the immense dedication required for a FIRST team, but also let them know how incredibly rewarding of an experience it can be.

Advice to a rookie team:
Keep your head up. Play the game to your best ability. Learn from your mistakes, learn from others. Take in as much as you can this year. Utilize local mentorship possibilities to their fullest extent. Mentorship is the key to FIRST.

[Pin Man]

I Love Buttons!!!

[Beth Sweet]

Our button making is left up to our group, the Chairman's Group. It's probably our secondary function but anyways...

We have everyone who has them submit design ideas and then we vote on the ones that we like. This year we have buttons for each group of our team (Animation, Chairman's and Engineering), a "game button," and a surprise design.

Then, we have button parties. And button parties are rather amusing... We all come over to my house, eat popcorn, watch chick flicks (yes, there are guys that we force this upon too!) and use the button makers to make mountains of buttons in the middle of the table. Just have fun with it!

[Jen Peters]

Buttons are awesome! This is our 5th season and we bought a new button maker this year. It's so much better than our old one and we make them twice as fast with little to no error!

In the past we have only had one main button, may two per year. Last year we started our "underground buttons" that were made in very limited quantities. This year we've gone button crazy! There are at least 5 designs and there will probably be more before Great Lakes.