What does your school think of robotics?

[Jill1022]

Does anyone else have the problem of being considered the "Geeky" or "Nerdy" team at school? A lot of the teams I've seen at competitions seem to have a lot of support from their school.

[Beth Sweet]

Interestingly enough, my kids were talking about this just the other night. They were talking about how it's more the cool kids who are on our team this year, the swim team, the wrestlers and I think George said he played polo? But anyways, while I was afraid of this happening, this year, it didn't. I'm very pleased by that.

[Lisa Perez]

At the girls' school, we're considered the "geeky but cool" club, somewhat like the drama club (which is pretty intense here). It seems that pretty much everyone knows of what we do, and many are interested to hear stories from the regionals. People are especially hyped about the team participating in Championships... We get A LOT of support from peers, teachers, and administration - which is completely awesome compared to the first year, when the team was just considered a "shadow" of the Science Olympiad club.

My point being - it takes time, but every team will eventually find its way toward establishing school support.

[techtiger1]

haha! I wish my school was like that. The other students have no idea what it is and they make fun of us for it. Were are defintely the nerds but hey we like it and we have gotten used to it so it's all good. It makes us tighter as a group. The administration and teachers love us though so thats a plus.

[Rafi A]

pretty much our whole school knows of the robotics team, and it seems that a lot of the people with whom I have spoken know, appreciate, and support what we do.
We get a lot of support from our peers, teaching staff, and administrators

- Rafi Ahmadullah, nerd and proud

[David Guzman]

Originally Posted by techtiger1

haha! I wish my school was like that. The other students have no idea what it is and they make fun of us for it. Were are defintely the nerds but hey we like it and we have gotten used to it so it's all good. It makes us tighter as a group. The administration and teachers love us though so thats a plus.

Funny Drew, we are in the same team and I dont feel that way.
In my opinion people in schoo people l aren't aware of what goes on with our team. However they dont make fun of us, they are actually pretty good friends and most of them understand that rootics is something that we like. Also some peple that are not relly interested in robotics have joined our team because of the artistic part of it. I will agree in one thing with you Andrew the staff and teachers love us. So Drew next time someone makes fun of you, let me know. lol

Dave

[geeknerd99]

Hmm... I usually get something like, "Cool! You guys build battlebots or something?" from the general public, "Robotics is eating you alive!" from my friends, and "How's the autonomous code coming along?" from teammates.

[nobrakes8]

Depends on who you talk to.. Some people think it's awsome others think we're losers... But hey, it's their loss not ours, not one night goes by when we don't have 1 really good practical joke or stupid comment that you need to stop working for about 5 minutes just to laugh at somebody. (we don't take offense because everybody has their night to get picked on, just some have more nights than others.)

[Meredith343MiM]

Teachers- Ask about it ALL the time and are proud of us for making an effort that is academic-based
General Public- "Battlebots? COOL!" Me- "No actually (_____ insert nerdy and factual content based on that years game here" General Public- "ooh... I guess I'll... check that out sometime"
Fellow students- "Oh, so you're in robotics? interesting..." Some ask what it's like, some consider you a geek and laugh, others think it's great and become team members!!!
Fellow Team Members- Well... we just love being "geeks" despite the fact that we're really cool!

[Dorienne]

We don't have too much of that kind of problem at our school. Our school is for nerdy and geeky kids. ;-) (it's a magnet school).
Our school never really was too involved until 2003. We incorporate teachers to come "babysit" one night in the build season so that our head advisor doesn't have to stay each night. This year, we had 15 teachers step forward (some for more than one day!) and help us out. It was great!
Also, our administrators weren't too into the robotics thing until January 25th, which was Thank Your Mentor Day. We had a little "Tea With The Robot" thing, celebrating our mentors and sponsors, inviting the community, parents, school advisors and teachers, political figures, sponsors, possible sponsors, and, of course, our mentors. Our administrators came to the TWTR, and they were so amazed at what we do. They said it was a shame they found out about what we were really doing now, than earlier. All of them were supposed to come to our regional, but unfortunately things came up and they were unable to attend, but they will be watching Nationals! =)
I'm very excited about their involvement. They really will be a big help to us next season, once they get even more involved (since they found out so late this season).
You see, this is why FIRST is so amazing. Anyone and everyone gets psyched about it. No matter who they are.

[DeepBluSomethin]

We're pretty unknown to most of the student body, but we're respected by the people that know about us.

[Julia Magoolia]

We try REALLY HARD to emerge our team into school life. Sure, we may get the geek comments occasionally- but for every "your such a geek!" we get, there are ten more, "That's so cool! How do I join?"
That means more to me then getting everyone in the school to not label us as geeks- it's the people we've actually impacted that count.

[bradleym1559]

Being our first year, our school hardly knows we exist, and if they do they think it is some geeky club. But that is about to change. The shadow claw can not be ignored! Plus, they don't realize how much fun it is...and addicting too.

[StephLee]

Our team has members from two schools. At my school, the teachers love it, and my friends think it's pretty cool, although I think they get tired of hearing about it after awhile. The yearbook editor loves it, and she's finding space for a ton of pictures. Most people think it's something like battlebots, and they just go "Oh" when I try to explain, though some of them ask how to join. They apparently announced our team at the winter sports assembly, but we were at Chesapeake that week.

From what I hear, members from the other school get pretty much the same reaction from students and teachers, altough the yearbook isn't as into it.

Our school board absolutely loves us. They've promised $10,000 from the budget next year for us, and we had the Superintendant and Assisstant Superintendant at our regional. Some of our mentors are from the board, too.

People already thought I was a geek before I joined robotics, so there's really no difference, there.

[Jill1022]

Originally Posted by geeknerd99

Hmm... I usually get something like, "Cool! You guys build battlebots or something?" from the general public, "Robotics is eating you alive!" from my friends, and "How's the autonomous code coming along?" from teammates.

Haha, I get the same exact thing, minus the autonomous thing, we leave that to Kyle O and Mike K.


Our team is considered the lesser known geeky team at school...I actually dont think more than 55% of the school knows we have a robotics team...and this is our third year of being a team!

We dont really get made fun of too much I guess, I mean, occasionally, but mostly we just get playful or not too serious jokes made by friends.

But does anyone have any ideas on how to make the team more well known, accepted, and liked? That sounded kinda wierd, I meant to say, how do we get more students interested? Everyone I ask to join says, "Oh I can't do that, i'm not smart." How do you guys get the word out that Robotics is fun, no matter if you can progam a robot or not?