VEX Robotics World Championship Webcast

[bellpride]

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

To some extent, this is already true in FRC. You might know about 254, 233, 111, and 1809, but I bet you think Poofs, Pink, Wildstang, and Exploding Bacon. I'd go the other way -- deemphasize numbers and celebrate team names.

But what about 1114? On our scouting team, we know every team by their number, not name (except PINK). We were pretty ticked when we couldn't get 254 as our FTC number, and 1114 actually named themselves Team 339: 1114 Simbotics.

I think people just know teams by their names if their names are exotic (Exploding Bacon, Pink, Cheesy Poofs). Hardly anybody knows 968's name though (RAWC - Robotics Alliance of West Covina).

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

My point exactly. Deemphasize numbers and make it so they don't matter so much.

Well to take the quote entirely out of context, there is a joke in there somewhere about deemphasizing numbers in a program that promotes math and science! And yeah, I know that isn't what you meant.

However it is entirely possible to have two teams with the same names. For instance we are 1346, "Trobotics"... but which could easily be mistaken for 1386, the "Trobots". I wouldn't be surprised if there were 2 or more teams out there with even more similar names. What is interesting is that by using the team numbers I can tell that both Trobotics and The Trobots registered with FIRST within weeks of each other and have been around for five seasons.

The team number also provides a fixed format for displaying team results at competitions. This makes it much more efficient to display match results, perform alliance selections, and print match schedules.

Finally keeping the team number the same allows students to recreate the team "brand" at appropriate intervals, while keeping their FRC/FTC history consistant. For instance our school started out as "Thompson Robotics Development", but that was in our first season where we had no marketing/communications team. Once we learned more about FRC we shortened the team name, changed the team colours, and created a new logo and mascot. Each of those elements is reviewed every year and updated to ensure they maintain relevance, but our team history is tied to our team number.

So I'm a strong supporter of the permanent team numbering system not simply because that "is the way it has always been done" but rather because it offers several practical advantages over a team naming system.

Jason