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

[kjolana1124]

Let's start by setting the scene, shall we?

Avon is a small suburb outside of Hartford, Connecticut. A nice, fairly conservative town where most parents work for the big insurance firms in Hartford or other like companies. 60%+ students take part in athletics, and they always make the front page of local papers.

Great start so far.

Avon High School and 1124 often times have...differences. We get the old shop from back when we had wood shop. This contains a drill press, a band saw, a chop saw, some tables, and a white board. That's all the school gave us. Everything and anything else in there, we had to get (except for maybe some other tools). Even so, the drama department shares the space with us, and many a times ends up going through our tools and misplacing them. We also use the adjacent CAD room, but the teacher really doesn't like us in there as much as we need to be. Lastly, we get a trophy case in the main hallway in between these two rooms. It's actually a really nice display- enough for three banners, two monitor screens and a slew of trophies on a nice little table we built. The problem is, the school's always trying to take it from us. We really have to fight for it. What's more, when we win anything, we only get a mention on the announcements if we write it ourselves. They don't take note to keep track of how we did. And it's read by a student who doesn't really understand the program, so it doesn't always make sense when they announce it. Also, may of the administrators have some issues with some our mentors and the way we organize events.

Now, the students. I think we can all guess where I'm going with this one. It's "that robotics thing." No, we don't kill each other with robots and no, it's not a science fair. It's even gotten to a point where most of our own students don't wear our team shirt to school unless they have to, and in most cases they stuff it in their bag to change into. They claim it's weird or stupid and they don't like getting picked on by others.

Here's an example. A few months back our town had this HUGE rally to support to school budge. I along with a few other team members decided to wear my team shirt, seeing as it's an Avon High School team. Other team members said they were gonna wear them, but once again didn't want to stand out. It started with a march from the middle school to the high school (same street). When I finally got to the high school after marching, I had to fight my way through the crowd to get inside quick because the jazz band was playing. But, to the others, it just kind of looked like I wanted to be in front, yeah I can see that. That's not what got to me. What got to me were the kids yelling "Oh don't worry if they cut sports we'll still have UberBots!" "Okay our nerd club is safe!" I was aware that, because we're fully funded by outside sources, we weren't in danger with the budget. But I mean...really? Really guys? Many, if not all of our members, have other connections with programs that were getting cut. I myself am involved in music and my sister does sports. Was I asked this? No, I was in the nerd club.

And when we win something, any kind of competition, we normally wear our shirts the following Monday. But even then many of our members don't feel comfortable wearing it...even our president this year. It's easier to blend in than to show your smart, I suppose. So when we do win, I often times find myself explaining what we won to my friends or classmates. That's fine, I don't expect them to understand. But, even if they ask, you can tell that they think it's stupid.

It starts young around here too. We do demos every year for the 8th graders so they can get an idea of what we're about. Many of them just see a robot and go "oh...nerds." Yes, I am well aware that middle schoolers are a lot less mature than high school kids (except any middle schoolers that may be on CD. You're in FIRST...consider yourself above and beyond what's normal), but still. It's the culture around here.

Now, I know I sound really cynical here, and maybe that's because it's also 1 AM, but it really annoys me. So many kids in Avon dream of becoming sports stars, or just go to parties and not even think about their future, or just brush FIRST off as stupid and don't bother to look more into it. It's so angering.

However, I am not really really upset about this. I can't say I'm surprised. FIRST is about changing cultures. My culture may appear hard to change, but I think it can be done. I feel it's gonna have to start with our school staff getting along better with the team, and then afterwards it'll be easier for the student body to follow.

FIRST works to inspire others, and I work for FIRST. Therefore, I want to show my school just what FIRST can really do. I think we'll start with a clear presentation outlining the differences between us and Battle Bots...

[rotolomi]

The Pioneers are composed of two sister schools in the same district (Pascack Valley and Pascack Hills High School) and we get moderate support. Our principals and superintendent come to the closest regional we attend, the New Jersey Regional, and they provide us with a great amount of financial support (as a reward for this year's success they helped us pay for plane tickets to Atlanta rather than a bus). The Board of Ed also allows us to demonstrate our robot every year and congratulate us at one meeting a year. Whenever we come back from a regional, they make an announcement congratulating us on our accomplishments and teachers show enthusiasm for the team, too. As for the students, we generally get a few questions about the trip or the robot (and the battle bots questions) and some congrats from friends who know we did well but don't really understand what we did.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Carolyn_Grace

It's interesting how big the range of support is for individual teams.

As for the Killer Bees:

Because our shop is not located in the school, for a long time (back in 2000-2005ish) I don't think many people even really knew about our team. When I was a student, and was looking for a 2003 extracurricular activity to do, someone suggested the robotics team, and I had no clue what it is (and they had just come in second place at the Championship in Orlando in 2001!)

Now we're doing better to spread the word around the school. Some of the ways that we have done this are by:

• Bringing the robot to math and science classes
• Demonstrating at freshman orientation
• Demonstrating at freshman cornroast
• Participating in Pep rallies
• Having a booth at the school's Open house
• Providing fan buses to local cometition (FiM has greatly helped with this, by having district events that are located closer to the school)
• Awarding a Varsity letter to students who have made a large contribution to the team
• Wearing our bright yellow team shirts to some sports team's events, like a varsity basketball home game
• Bringing the robot to show off at lunchtimes in the cafetorium
• Winning awards at competitions. The school faculty especially enjoys receiving Chairman's trophies.
• Writing letters to all faculty and administration inviting them to attend our closest event (we had two people show up)
• Having two of our very own trophy cases in the main hallway of the school.
• Updating a bulletin board, also located in the main hallway, in the school every season
• Linking from the school's website directly to our team's website (killerbees33.com go check it out )

All this aside, we are still not as visible in the school as we want to be. There are still many students who think it's a geek club or too nerdy for them. And the administration at the school often tells our students that we should change our name to "The Fighting Irish" (as our school is Notre Dame Preparatory, The Fighting Irish), because they don't comprehend the real life marketing that has gone into our image as The Killer Bees.

Does anyone have any other suggestions to gather more school support?

Get more involved in the FLL program at Marist! Of course, my experiences there are nearly a decade old but I know Marist used to run 2 FLL teams. Having been on one of those teams I am surprised, looking back, that there was not much involvement with the FRC team. Has this changed? I know they are drawing a lot of imagery from 33 now but can't tell much more than that.


For those of you who don't know Marist and Notre Dame Prep are a Middle School and High School that are located in the same building (unless something major has changed in the 7 yrs since I was last there).

[davidthefat]

No one cares... Football doesnt even get to a lot of people, they don't know the scores from friday night (In fact I tend to forget the actual scores my self... Even if I am on the team...) My school is more of an academic school. But our Football team is also great, Varsity was 9 - 3 and JV (I was on JV) was 8 - 2... Freshmen just suck... So if Football doesnt get 100% of the people's attention, robot does not even get 1%...


edit: Football is a big part of my school, the 25% that don't care are like the people that don't care about school, just grades

[Bmcdonnell]

Our team, 2062 is composed of three different schools, so I can only talk about the one I go to. Ever since we got a new administration, attention to the robotics team has gone way up. The principle knows me and the rest of the team members that go there by name and the majority of the teachers know us as well, even if we haven't had them. We use to have to write our own announcements about our regionals, but not anymore. We have had people come to our closest regional and help cheer us on, even a few *very few* kids. We are able to give presentations to the school board, and put videos about our team on the local broadcasting station and video announcements. Honestly, I have never been called a nerd or anything, just a congrats at whatever we did from people I don't even know. The administration places our trophies next to all the sport ones, and we have some of the biggest ones At the beginning of our team, it was very hard to get recognized, but now we are forced to be in pep rallies and what not. Again, I'm not sure about the other schools, but I can't imagine the at least one of the other ones to be much different.

[J-Blondie]

At my school, Rufus King in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, our general student body doesn't know much about us. We (Team 1675) won the Midwest Regional in 2009 and we ended up getting a pep-rally for that. It was also a pep-rally for other things, amongst which was the chess team, so I think it was definitely the most nerdiest pep-rallies in our school's history.

Surprisingly, the other school that is affiliated with our team, Bradley Tech, does not have as much involvement or interest even though they are a technical school and many of their graduates go on to be engineers. I guess it just all depends on the school as well as the community and area that you live in. Since we are from a large city, we aren't as locally famous but we are trying to get FIRST out a lot more.

[nskerven]

I'm also on 2062 and go to another of the three high schools that makes up the team. For the most part, the student body either doesn't know about it or thinks its largely a group for nerds. I showed a handful of regional matches to a couple of my classes and put a pair of announcements regarding our 10,000 Lakes victory and success in Atlanta. The announcement led to acalades for the handful of team members from our school but still, few have any notable regard for it. I am going to talk to our Athletic Director though and see if he'd be willing to put up a banner for winning the 2008 Wisconsin Regional or the 2010 10000 Lakes regional.

[xxjgdancexx]

My school, in gereral, does not really care except for the people on the team or who are fellow nerds with similar intrests. We were not even in the yearbook >__> But that is, in a way, a good thing since most of the people at my school do not care about education whatsoever and we do not want those irresponible students on the team.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by xxjgdancexx

My school, in gereral, does not really care except for the people on the team or who are fellow nerds with similar intrests. We were not even in the yearbook >__> But that is, in a way, a good thing since most of the people at my school do not care about education whatsoever and we do not want those irresponible students on the team.

I'm sorry this is among the most incorrect statements I have ever heard.

You want those students, or you should. You should want those students so you can show them how to be responsible. How to care about education. FIRST is not about building the machines it is about changing the culture. How are you going to do that without going outside the stereotype?

Remember:

Originally Posted by Bruce the Shark

I am a nice shark. Not a mindless eatin' machine. If I want to change this image, I must first change myself. Fish are friends. Not food.

[gorrilla]

The kids at my school know about our team, they just dont care.....

It's really frustrating, my school dosent seem to have "robotics" type people.

[Karibou]

Originally Posted by gorrilla

The kids at my school know about our team, they just dont care.....

It's really frustrating, my school dosent seem to have "robotics" type people.

Then find the people you think would be willing to hang out around for 6 weeks of the year, at the least. As I finished 8th grade, I wasn't one of those "robotics" type people either.

[gorrilla]

Originally Posted by Karibou

Then find the people you think would be willing to hang out around for 6 weeks of the year, at the least. As I finished 8th grade, I wasn't one of those "robotics" type people either.

What I meant was that,
The school dosn't have a lot of people that are willing to actually work for something, weather or not they are "Robotics" types.

[Wildcat]

sounds like this discussion is leaning towards a campaign to get FIRST robotics recognized in schools

[xxjgdancexx]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

I'm sorry this is among the most incorrect statements I have ever heard.

You want those students, or you should. You should want those students so you can show them how to be responsible. How to care about education. FIRST is not about building the machines it is about changing the culture. How are you going to do that without going outside the stereotype?

They are given the opportunity but they do not take it. I wish they did care but we do not need people forced on the team because this would only slow down our progress as a team. We have slowly branched out over the years though to cover the three schools in the district. Next year we hope to have lots of new people do to our advertising for FIRST.

[fireyoshi]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

sounds like this discussion is leaning towards a campaign to get FIRST robotics recognized in schools

My prediction for next year's Dean's homework.