What does your school think of robotics?

[mastermind12]

Most of my friends think I am a geek for being in robotics. Those same people think I am crazy for spending most of my time at school. A couple of my friends think its cool and want to give it a try which are the friends I met this year. Our principal as far as I know has never come down to see what we do. Its like they don't even know we exist.

[ttldomination]

My school doesn't think that robotics is the coolest thing in the world. But usually we get props from the administrators.

[Nin_estarSaerah]

we have finnally gotten over the "we have a robotics team?" response, but we seem to be in much the same categorey as the math team and the science club, the nerds. even some of our own team members consider it negatively as a nerdy activity. one of the freshmen admitted he doesnt tell anyone he is in robotics because it is for geeks. that makes me sad. FIRST is my life.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Nin_estarSaerah

one of the freshmen admitted he doesnt tell anyone he is in robotics because it is for geeks.

Does your teammate read ChiefDelphi?
If he doesn't, pick out some of your favorite posts or threads and share them with him. Give him some names of FIRSTers that post here, like Andy Baker, and have him search some of their posts and see the world of robotics and FIRST through their eyes. CD is a great place for geeks to get their footing and figure out just how cool they really are.

Being smart and wanting to make a difference in this world is something to be very proud of. It's also something to have fun with.

[Laura_587]

Our school has never been very supportive, and we normally get the "robotics" response (especially some of my friends). But we got a new principle this year, and he's more supportive. He even came to VCU. And my soccer team is stilll reeling over the fact that I skipped prom to go to Atlanta, but they're respose is "okay, have fun" (which I did). And anyways, I've always been weird in a nerdy sort of way.

[Shmee]

Our school is sort-of supportive. Like the principal and admin and people like us, but the team itself is considered rather nerdy and we literally lose people because of our captains.

Sadly, we haven't done much to actually get anyone to like the Robotics Team, even though this was our rookie year...we only had an assembly before the high school (800-ish people) and then everyone hated us because we took so long. We get a little money, but we have to fix our colours, from black and neon green to white and green (official colours) if we want to keep on getting money for next year.

[SEA]

Our school is very supportive of robotics. Each year, we do a school wide presentation to show off the robot, and everyone loves that. When we present, our message isn't "I know this is nerdy and weird, but see how cool it can be..." but is "This is super awesome, I love it!" and the enthusiasm spreads. Since we share a classroom with the video productions class, we get a lot of coverage from them on the school's video bulletin.

Also, we brought two school buses of people from our school and our feeder junior high to the Los Angeles Competition this year, and they all had a blast and it gave them a sense of how big the competition and FIRST actually is.

Our principle wasn't really supportive until we began doing well, but now he is really into it and came to watch us put the finishing touches on the robot the morning before shipping.

[notaPINKtruck]

They don't.

[ttldomination]

Our school allows us plenty of space to show off our robot and demos and event nights and stuff...but reputation wise...pfft...forget it.

Come on PINK...someone's gotta care....

[thefro526]

Our school doesn't really know much about our robotics team. We have a bulletin board and stuff but no one's ever really made an effort to reach out to anyone except incoming freshman. Then again our schools not too accepting towards anyone that's smart either...

[usbcd36]

We do get some support from the school, but not nearly as much as we'd like. Our advisor is very enthusiastic, and gave up coaching basketball to spend more time with us. If it were not for him, we wouldn't have had much of anything this year, especially since his van was our main means of transporting the robot to working locations. Also, the principal and a few of the math teachers don't have as much time to donate, but they do what they can (including loan money to the team to pay for the kit). The rest of the school doesn't care nearly as much. The robot does turn heads when we roll it down the halls on our cart, but people who aren't members of the team rarely show a lasting interest. One of my friends (who also happens to be the captain of the robotics team) noted the fact that the school puts more of an emphasis on liberal arts than math and science, and that might be a reason for the lack of general interest in the robotics team. I think the school would care more about robotics if there were more students who were more involved.

Personally, I'm frustrated that the school was able to spend a few million dollars on remodeling our media center (which could have ended up a full order of magnitude better, had they put a little more thought into it), yet they haven't officially given us any money.

[BT987]

ha i was just talking to my buddy on the team about this

at our school we get alot of support we do demos at lunch and drive at the assembleys.


and for anyone who thinks its nerdy i just tell them we had our schools cheerleaders at the vegas competition ....and they loved it

[lingomaniac88]

Unfortunately, our team isn't too well-known around the school.

My school's teachers aren't too thrilled about kids taking field trips (a.k.a. going to a regional event) because it "disrupts learning time." Then again, I don't think they know what FIRST is really about, nor do they know we even have a robotics team. I think that if people really knew what we do and what FIRST is, we would get a lot of support.

[hoorayforpink]

Originally Posted by notaPINKtruck

They don't.

Well thats only partially true. At Cocoa Beach where Ryan goes the kids get in trouble for having the pink hair and are from what i hear given a tough time about robotics from the administration.

At Rockledge (where I go) the administration loves it when we dye our hair pink and they had a special pink day at school when we got back form Atlanta. Not that any of the kids really took any notice but still it was pretty nice. The principal is always letting us go do demos and such during school which is pretty awesome. In fact I'm missing 4th period tomorrow so I can demo 2k6 during all the lunches. The kids themselves don't really look down on us as nerds or geeks, if only because we've been doing pretty good lately, and we have such a large and diverse team as far as who people hang out with. Our team is pretty well networked in Rockledge at least.

[Ctrl Alt Delete]

Our school doesn't do much. I think besides our National Championship run and the three banners hanging in our "pendulum area" (which has no actual pendulum, just the space for one), they don't really acknowledge us. A little bit of money would be nice, but the school basically just give us a room and that's it.