What kind of welcome home do you get?

[Vin211]

Hey everyone,

Good job and congratulations on all of those who attended the FIRST Robotics Competition in Atlanta over the weekend. Good work for anyone who has particpated in the program this year. I know for some of us the season is not over yet!

Anyways, when I was in high school and I always remember returning to classes the next available school day and feeling some sort of achievement. I knew I had did something the couple of other hundred people in my school will never do.
1) Because they're too lazy.
2) They just do not have the time.

I know a couple of times, some folks in high school have said "oh the nerds are back" lol. That one always use to make me chuckle. Fools, someday they'll be working for us, am I right?

But anywho, what kind of atmosphere have the rest of you returned to?

[Manoel]

But that, of course, is only when we win the competition.
Back when I was a student, reception by the other school peers was usually a mix of amazement/jealousy (at least a week off in USA )/Haha you're waaay behind in assignments! sort of thing.

[KTorak]

I got 30 degree weather and 6 inches of snow (AND ITS STILL SNOWING) when I got off my plane at 3 PM. I don't know what we will get at school, I'm a rookie so this is my first time going to NATs and such.

[RudimentaryPeni]

we got into LA at 12:30 last night and was greeted by poor service and smog, then traffic. Then a party got out in Santa Clarita and all the kids with nice mouths decided to go to In-and-Out. Then i got home to a shut down house at 2:00 finally. It really does feel great to be back home (thats not even sarcastic)!!

[Quatitos]

We get a very much appreciated day off of school to rest from nationals. Very good time to finish(coughstartcough) all the homework that you missed.

[PURPLE!]

"... you mean we have a robotics team?...."
YES WE KEEP TELLING YOU!
-_-; they don't care about us as long as we are in school on monday.

[Joe Ross]

We were met at the airport by balloons and flowers, and about twice as many people as I expected. From their we went straight to the school where there was a TV cameraman (from the ABC affiliate) and a local newspaper and reporter.

In the past, it's been much more low key

[KarenH]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

From there we went straight to the school where there was a TV cameraman (from the ABC affiliate) and a local newspaper and reporter.

Here's a link to the Daily Breeze article. I hope the link works OK. It does not include the picture that came with the print version. The Breeze people seemed pretty nice, and spent a lot of time interviewing the students and taking pictures. There were only a couple errors that I noticed; my mom pointed out that they even spelled my son's name correctly. The only real problem I can see is that our alliance partners aren't mentioned at all.

Article

The Eyewitness News report, though brief, was pretty good, too.

Both groups of media people got this right: they interviewed the students rather than the mentors.

BTW, it's still hard to believe we won.

[Koko Ed]

Parents showed up and took their kids home. The usual greeting we get. We'll be lucky if we get mentioned in the local paper (we got a one paragraph side story fro winning FLR and a big ad from the regional commitee a week later).
FIRST has a long way to go to get into the public's short attention span.

Nothing really, hahah. Everyone that basically was involved in robotics was there. Since were still in vacation it wasnt like our school was just going to throw us a party or anything like that. But well, ya know, obviously the parents were really proud of us and stuff.

[DUCKIE]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Parents showed up and took their kids home. The usual greeting we get. We'll be lucky if we get mentioned in the local paper (we got a one paragraph side story fro winning FLR and a big ad from the regional commitee a week later).
FIRST has a long way to go to get into the public's short attention span.

I know this might be pretty rough for some people but hey... It's the truth...

Sometimes you cannot expect FIRST to do everything!

[Sure they are amazing for pulling off what they do... but they have a full time staff of what... 30 people?]

It's hard to get "positive" events [like the complete and utter awsomeness of FIRST] into todays news between the stuff they see as "good" news... you know... shootings, murder, accidental death, the MJ trial... If you want your team to have better publicity, You/Your team needs to start making the connections with the local paper, radio, & news stations before the events... Make it your goal to get them excited about the program.
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Back to the topic...

It was a rather quiet return this year for MOE as everyone was exhausted... especially since we took a bus down this year instead of flying. We left at 10:00pm from Atlanta and got back to Wilmington ~1:00pm. I ended up lying down ~2:00 on Sunday and slept straight through till 6:00 monday morning... almost missing getting to school on time because my alarm clock was still in my luggage.

[Carol]

We have had problems getting publicity because the paper always says "We have done articles on you in the past and we don't like to repeat". That may be why CNN had such minimum coverage and focused on FLL this year.

[Beth Sweet]

Just because I'm still on HOT's listserv, here's how they got welcomed home this year.

[MOEmaniac]

Seeing as how my team is made up of multiple schools and how I am 1 of 3 from my particular school. Since I was the only one of the three to dye my hair, and I go to an all boys private school that doesn't allow the students to dye their hair. You can imagine the welcome back hazing that I got. Honestly it doesn't bother me, I mean it used to but now it's just like "yeah so what I have green hair, thanks for pointing out the obvious." But I did get a positive welcome home greeting from my close circle of friends who all were asking how we did and how was it.

[Bill Moore]

Originally Posted by Beth Sweet

Just because I'm still on HOT's listserv, here's how they got welcomed home this year.

Sweeeeeet!!!!!!
Every team should be welcomed home this way, whether they got an award or not. They all participated and took risks, those are the important points on the road to success.