How much does your school's general population care about your team?

[BX HANNAH]

First off-it is WONDERFUL that you guys have that much support! I am soooooo happy for your team and proud of your school/student body for realizing how awesome this program is!

For 1023:
Our principal is very supportive of 1023. This year we got an old science storage room to use for our robotics team storage room. We also receive varsity letters, get a page in the yearbook, story in the newspaper, pictures on the school website, time in the pep rallies and announcements. Our school also allows us to use the CAD room and machine shop for our meetings and is one of our biggest financial sponsors. So we are VERY thankful for that, the principal before this one didn't really know about the team it seemed like.

However, the student body is not very supportive at all. We won our Detroit District event, came back to school and with the exception of very close friends and only 2 of my teachers, congratulated me on the team's win even though it had been announced. I'd say maybe 60% of the high school knows there's a robotics team, even though we are always wearing team shirts and doing the above activities. Of the 60% about 10% actually know what we are doing (the 6-week build season, different parts of the team, the competition, etc) the others have no idea and leave it up to their imagination. We are really trying to change this, we're trying to mount another recruitment campaign as well as have presentations to explain what the robotics team is to anyone that wants to come. There is no commitment requirement for this meeting, if they have no interest and just want to understand why they lose their friend for 6 weeks, they're welcomed and encouraged to attend this meeting. We are going to continue and get more announcements made, flyers put up, and other ways to get our team noticed, but it is very hard. Our team has been around since 2003 and we still only have this much support.

To everyone out there trying to get support-keep trying! it'll come! I know we've made HUGE steps in the last 2 years, we have a long way to go, but we've come far. so keep trying!