Name change

[DarkFlame145]

T-Rx is sadly losing our main sponsor next year (Proctor and Gamble Pharmaceuticals). Since our name is a with the Rx as in prescription as a pun a retuning member and team leader for next year (I will not be retuning since I'm going to a trade school 5 hours away) has been wondering if the team should be willing to change our name with the new sponsor? I think they should, it would be strange to have T-Rx with a forklift company as a sponsor. What do you guys think? Would other teams have a hard time to remember a team us if we had a different name and possibly colors.

[Branden Ghena]

Team 240 changed its name from MachV (mach-vee) mach for the speed of sound and V for Visteon after we lost our Visteon sponsorship.

We decided to change our team name to TEMPEST (To Excite More People about Engineering, Science, and Technology) because it was more neutral and non-sponsor oriented.

We initially had a few problems with teams not recognizing us, but soon we were back to normal.

[KTorak]

We kinda circumvented the problem by thinking of a neutral name when our team was created. We don't even put sponsors on our shirt because we don't want to have issues with that type of stuff.

[hipsterjr]

342 is thinking about changing from "the burning magnetos" to "the inferno penguins"

[SL8]

Originally Posted by KTorak

We kinda circumvented the problem by thinking of a neutral name when our team was created. We don't even put sponsors on our shirt because we don't want to have issues with that type of stuff.

Same here ( besides the shirt).
We are the Cyber Wolf Corps., which has more to do with our location,(military children) and our school mascot, the grey wolves.

[647techangel]

Originally Posted by KTorak

We don't even put sponsors on our shirt because we don't want to have issues with that type of stuff.

i wish we didnt have to put sponsors on our shirts because were having issues with it.(sl8 knows what im talking about)

[AndyH]

Team 1098 changed our name from "The GI's" (not sure where that originally came from) to "Rockwood Robotics" (our school district) this year to help increase PR within our district and local community. We may modify it again next year if a team member can come up with a clever way to incorporate our district mascots. We had a couple of people ask, but it wasn't a problem at all. I would just recommend keeping your team number in a visible place on everything. The change can be fun, and it's nice for current team members to have a chance to design shirts and other public relations items

[Rick TYler]

We called ourselves "LexisNexis Robotics" last year when they were our only sponsor. This year, we changed it to "Exothermic Robotics" so we didn't have to worry about supporter jealousy. We still put everyone on the back of our shirts, though. And the more money you give, the bigger your name and the closer to the top of the shirt... As it turned out, LexisNexis doesn't care what we name the team.

[ReaperGoat]

On 1735, we decided to call ourselves the "Green Reapers" due to the fact that the school's colors are green and white, and the gym is referred to as the Green Graveyard. (The school mascot is a patriot)

There are quite a few teams who know us better by the green lattice on our robot that by our reaper suits, though.

[DarkFlame145]

yeah, people know us by our T-Rex suit. Mostly because the Arctic Warrior's Mascot likes to play fight with our mascot at the FLR

[Kersten]

Originally Posted by DarkFlame145

T-Rx is sadly losing our main sponsor next year (Proctor and Gamble Pharmaceuticals). Since our name is a with the Rx as in prescription as a pun a retuning member and team leader for next year (I will not be retuning since I'm going to a trade school 5 hours away) has been wondering if the team should be willing to change our name with the new sponsor? I think they should, it would be strange to have T-Rx with a forklift company as a sponsor. What do you guys think? Would other teams have a hard time to remember a team us if we had a different name and possibly colors.

My team has gone through a similar situation this year and we did change our name and colors, It was really hard to lose our past name though, but I've noticed that a lot of people remember the teams numbers not the name for some reason, so I'm sure people will recognize your team if you do change the name and colors. Good luck!

[Cynette]

Ok, I'm biased because I love T-Rx and your current image...

Could you just come up with a more neutral meaning of T-Rx - like Team Robot X-treme? Then you can explain your name as part of your history but give if flexibility for the future.

[Matt C]

Sounds similar to what happened to my team back in 2001 (I was in high school at the time). For our first two years we were sponsored by AIL Systems Inc. (Now EDO). They made antennas primarily used in radar jamming, thus are team name was the "Red Jammers" (Red for our school color). We lost sponsorship in 2001, but kept the name because it had been firmly associated with the team. We held that name until the team disbanded in 2005. I'm currently helping a team from Sayville, NY which disbanded after the 2001 season and reformed this year as a rookie team and still kept the same team name (Mechanical Animals).

How long has your team currently had this name?
How well is it associated to your school?
Does the name change really have to be a total change?

Association of the team and their image to their name and number always seems like an important concept many people overlook.

[DarkFlame145]

We have had this name since 1997

None of the schools does much money wise, but one lets us use their shop and another provides a bus when we need one.

I would love for the team to keep the T-Rex thing, but there is already a team named T-Rex.

[Syncopation]

With all these stories of name-changing being swapped, I guess I have a story of my own.

I've been close to the team since 2005, and fairly involved with the team image since 2006. We've always pushed our theme (tied to the robot) more than the team name, but always with the number fairly prominently displayed. In 2006, our robot was Zeus, with our mascot, robot, and team colors playing into that theme. 2007, we were Team Leviathan - you might have seen our giant squid mascot and neon lime green color scheme in KC or Atlanta.

This year, we had a big team discussion on what to do with our team name. We'd been changing the name by which people knew us around so much, we felt we really weren't building a continuous image for our team. We'd always really been the Circuit Chargers, but that name had kind of been hiding behind our theme. Long story short, we decided to go back to the Circuit Chargers name for our robot name and theme this year. Not quite as eye-catching as a blindingly green squid, but we can tie our theme to our school and to FIRST values - invaluable when talking your team image up to a judge.

So I guess the moral of the story is changing your name should only be done if absolutely necessary, since it disrupts the building of your team reputation.