Teams Wasting Money

[Jordan A.]

Ok, this may be a bit contraversial but It needs to be said.

FIRST (in theory) is about changing our community, its about changing the world we live in for the better.

Now can someone explain to me how the THOUSANDS of dollars worth of crap that was handed out at the championships worked towards this goal?

Dont get me wrong I kept a frizbee but seriously. It just seems like a huge waste of cash.

/me waits for wall of flames to engulf me...

Now I guess I sort of see the point in hindsight because we were not picked for the tounament, probably because people didnt know about us, but still cant we find cheaper ways to get our names out at the tournament?

[Melissa Nute]

Our team isn't one with a lot of money but we still got our name out there from just talking with the other teams...our green hair and body art...buttons with the pac-man...and the can crusher we made from the spare parts in the kit....
It doesn't necessarily take much money to get your name out there...

[Jeff Waegelin]

The only thing we give out at competitions is buttons. We thought about giving out handcuffs to go along with the FEDS name, but we decided they were too expensive for our limited budget. We might do something else next year, but buttons have always been our main promotional materials. Also, we prefer to let our robot's performance be our publicity, not a bunch of junk that we hand out (not that all of it's junk- some is really cool).

[Brian Savitt]

We made our buttons.

We had bandanas, floppy orange frisbees. foam balls, and mardi gras beads to hand out. All of which we through into the crowd from our seats on saturday afternoon since we had nothing better todo.

Brian

[PsychoPhil]

Originally posted by Jordan A.
Now can someone explain to me how the THOUSANDS of dollars worth of crap that was handed out at the championships worked towards this goal?

Well, I kept nearly everyhitng i got at the nats. It just nice to show off all your trophees that you got and decorate your room with tem nicely....

[Joe Matt]

I have to admit that some of it is over done. We don't need 14 CDs, 12 water bottles, 4 bandana's, and 16 balloons. The most creative stuff is the good things.

[Amy Beth]

We don't have a large budget, but we have always made it a priority to have something to give away, just as a means to get name recognition. Actually, i think this year we spent the least money on giveaways, less than we ever have because we didn't do buttons. Contrary to popular belief, our beach bot puzzles cost us nothing but time. Our machinist lent us his shop for a day and we just took in some scrap aluminum and ended up with some really cool giveaways.

[Da_Sma]

I understand where everyone is coming from with the whole too much money issue, but you have to admit the giveaways are also a part of what makes FIRST, FIRST. You're able to leave there with stuff from your favorite teams. They're more of a "remember us" gifts that will always bring back memories of nationals.

Also, nationals wouldn't have been the same without the balls, frizbees, beads, etc. flying through the air.

One thing that i do want to know about is all that money that FIRST made with the segway auctions. Where does all that money go to? ALso, with all that money, don't you think they would be able to get shirts in different sizes instead of having the 1 size thing? If would be nice to have a shirt that fit.