What does your school think of robotics?

[StephLee]

Originally Posted by Jill1022

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?

I talk about it all the time, and eventually the amount of fun it is seems to sink in. One of my friends, the least technical person I know, is considering joining just because I make it seem like so much fun. I guess that would be considered word-of-mouth, and I don't think it impacts more than a few people at a time.

[Julia Magoolia]

Originally Posted by Jill1022

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?

Actually BUILDING the robot gets a lot of people on our team. "Power tools? NICE!" When my friend and I originally said, "I can't join that... I break everything!" Our team advisor told us, "Good... We'll give the robot to you guys for 10 minutes, and then we'll know what we need to work on!"

[Ethulin]

I believe that my school has a pretty unique perspective on FIRST robotics.

You see, we only have 450 students, and only about 200 of them are high schoolers!
I think we have about 30 registered members from our school, so 15% of our school is on the team!

We are a district wide school, who use a lottery to tell who they admit, so we keep our numbers consistently low. FIRST robotics is the only high school sport we have! For anything else (soccer, football, tennis, etc) you have too go too your local high school.

After we won the PAC NW regionals for the second time in a row school spirit in support of the team has really sky rocketed. We sell t-shirts almost every day. The astounding support has even amazed me, it was "cool (read: popular)" to support the robotics club!

[av11d]

I'll talk briefly about our school specifically and then hopefully provide you with some useful advice on changing the attitude your school exhibits towards your robotics team. "School" is kind of general so I'll break it up into individual categories.

Administration
Our administration is very supportive of the roboraiders. Both our principal and superintendent visit us at the NJ Mid-Atlantic Regional. Every year they are very impressed and make an effort to congratulate everyone on our team at the competition. The school board also recognizes us at a local board meeting by congratulating each one of us individually. The board meetings are aired on a local channel. While they don't provide significant monetary aid, they help out where they can. For instance, this year they are purchasing us our own trophy case. They've allocated us space along a wall at the high school This should go a long way in showing the school how successful the robotics team is.

If your administration is not particularly helpful, I recommend inviting them to your closest regional competition. Have them see how exciting and powerful a regional competition is! Maybe even give them a presentation on your team so that they see how cool a FIRST team is.

Faculty
I'm positive every teacher at our school knows about the robotics team. Teachers always ask me how the season is going, etc. Many teachers ask for demonstrations during their classes. The only advice I can give you on spreading the spirit of FIRST to the teachers is to give a presentation on the team at a faculty meeting.

Students
Peers are absolutely the most difficult group to convince that a FIRST team is cool. At our school, it's hard to pinpoint a general feeling. Some people see us an elite group of science students who do amazing things with engineering. Others see us leaders and college-bound students. Of course there is the group who see us as geeky, but not in a bad way.

I think the key ingredient in exhibiting an image of "coolness" is to show the school how successful you are. No matter what team it is, students want THEIR school to perform well. Also show them the non-robotic parts of your team. We've shown our 3D animation to the entire school.. and everyone is always so impressed. Give demonstrations during lunch periods; if anything, they will at least respect you for your amazing achievements in building the robot. Try to get a group of diverse students involved in robotics. This goes a long way in spreading the message of FIRST to the different cliques in the school.

In the end, don't worry about it too much! Just have fun!

[Jill1022]

This was from an article in the school newspaper about us getting letters:

“The Robotics Team is smart,” asserts Joseph Slaughterbeck, a junior involved in various athletic teams, “However; they don’t break a sweat like the football and track teams.”
This perception is refuted by most Archer GEeks members, Paul Verdeyen, a third year member, claims that mental work can outweigh physicality. “Whereas we don’t physically put in as much work as the sports teams, we put in as many hours, and sometimes more.”

For the full article go to High Tech Tic-Tac-Toe

[Mike]

I don't think the whole school will think your a geek if your on the robotics team, it all matters on who you are and who you ask. If you're the most popular kid in school and you join the robotics team, all of a sudden its the best, most popular thing ever.

[StephLee]

Originally Posted by MikeWasHere05

I don't think the whole school will think your a geek if your on the robotics team, it all matters on who you are and who you ask. If you're the most popular kid in school and you join the robotics team, all of a sudden its the best, most popular thing ever.

That's very true. Since I was a geek before, I still am. I wonder if that makes the rest of the team geeks by association?

[Billfred]

My school digs FIRST. Heck, they even gave it a subdomain: http://palmettofirst.engr.sc.edu/

(Now if only that correlated with a reduction in schoolwork this week! )

As for Irmo, back in the dark ages when I was there (irony alert!), I think there was a perception among students that robotics tended to draw the Honors/AP/IB (now) kids. And there is some truth to the statement--there's lots of them there--but it's by no means a prerequisite.

On the administration side, I'm yet to hear a bad thing about FIRST. (I recall my graduation day, I was speaking with the district superintendent on my way into the Coliseum. He's definitely pro-FIRST.)

[[527]phil]

In my schools everyone makes fun of us and calls us nerds. But then again the jocks may have muscle, but we have extruded aluminum

[katiyeh07]

Our team is known in the school, mostly from the science teachers, and a few other teachers, but most of the student body considers the team "geeky" or "nerdy". We do better than our football team who seems to only win one game a year, yet, the football team gets more respect from beating our town rival, than when we beat 10 or 20 other teams. We work really hard, but the only people we really get recognition from out of the school is the janitors that we've made great friends with, and the teachers. After each competition, we'll put something on the announcements that'll say that we went and competed at such and such a place, and how we placed, but that's about. We've altered our very narrow display case so there's pictures of all 10 robots, and some of our trophies, and its in front of the library, so its hard not to miss it (plus its pretty bright, yellow sticks out). But the main feeling about it is either wow, how can I join, or wow, that's real lame. It's a hard thing to explain to someone (and not have them look at you like you've just spoke in a foreign language to them) and have them completely understand it, and get excited about.

[Sam Lipscomb]

our team gets a lot of support from our school, even if we do have a slightly geeky reputation. we aren't a club, with officers and dues - we're a team, with captains, the ability to letter, and any other privileges any sports team in our school receives. even though our board of education can't afford to support us budget-wise, it still recognizes us as an asset to the school.

students are a bit different. i know my friends have no problem with me being on the robotics team - they know it's what i love to do, and they don't consider it uncool or anything of the sort. some people think you have to be smart to be on the team, and all you have to do is work on the robot, but that's untrue. when we recruit members in october every year, we try to attract artists, writers, builders, video game players, the works. there's something on our team for everyone, and we try to attract a diverse crowd. even if we have some certified geeks on our team (haha, love you guys ), we aren't labelled as a nerd group.

i don't think, however, that a popular person joining a team would make the team more popular. maybe that person just wants to be on the team - his decision wouldn't really make others truly want to join as well. they might have a higher opinion of the team, but it wouldn't change what FIRST and robotics stands for.

[servo175]

I personally could care less about what the rest of the school thinks about it. Our team (like katiyeh07 said) really gets no recognition from even the faculty. I don't understand the lack of interest from the teachers perspective, we are the most successful team in the school not to mention the fact that it is one of the only one's with a future after high-school. When you think about it the only real people who complain or make fun of it are the ones who are involved in nothing. So when they get out of high-school and have no direction or promising future they can look back and realize what they missed out on

[Mike]

Originally Posted by innovativechic

our team gets a lot of support from our school, even if we do have a slightly geeky reputation. we aren't a club, with officers and dues - we're a team, with captains, the ability to letter, and any other privileges any sports team in our school receives. even though our board of education can't afford to support us budget-wise, it still recognizes us as an asset to the school.

Sadly, our school still considers us a club. But I have yet to see one of our sports teams be the #8 seed in an international competition.

[Chino 237]

basically to sum up what mike said, our school hates us. they are convinced we take all their funds and thats how we earn our money.

[BaldwinNYRookie]

We are considered nerds but since when is that a problem? Robotics is the one place at school where it's okay to be a nerd. I say be proud of your nerdom, I wish I had a badge that said "ROBOTICS NERD". To tell you the truth, more than half the students at our school wouldn't be able to do this. Build a robot in six weeks? Forget about it, they'd tell you. Don't try to get the whole school involved, get those that want to do this, the brightest minds in the school will do. Seek out the willing, the able, and assemble your schools' elite nerds. Put a small army of nerds, in a room, give them a computer and some metal, and you will have a fully functional robot. Can I get an amen?