Should we plan a gift to FIRST or Dean?

[Jeff Waegelin]

Originally posted by whsrt_lilguppy
"There is no I in team."

But you can't spell team without "me"

[Carolyn Duncan]

The more I think about this the more I think that when we finally decide on what to do it should include or invole some of the major sponsors of FIRST, like Disney. For instance make a statue of Mickey Mouse out of parts ( just an example not an idea).
And Jeff, at least me has 2 letters.

[Caitlin]

I have to disagree with you there Carolyn. I personally think if we are going to think of some kind of gift for Dean, it should be something that shows him how much FIRST has changed our lives and influenced us in a positive way. Disney has sponsered the Nationals, but hasn't really affected me in the way that FIRST itself has. It should be personalized to some degree, but I think a statue of Mickey Mouse would be kind of inappropriate. Just my thoughts..

[Carolyn Duncan]

Originally posted by Carolyn Duncan
For instance make a statue of Mickey Mouse out of parts ( just an example not an idea).

I agree with you, like I said the Mickey thing was an example not a suggestion. But I think it would be a good gesture to incorperate something about our sponsors into the gift. See what I mean?

[Caitlin]

I think it might be a nice gesture to incorporate our sponsers into our gift..but which sponsers? team ones...general FIRST ones? My point was to make it personalized for Dean or even the FIRST community in general. Because most of the time, the corporate sponsers, like Disney, have little or nothing to do w/ the mentoring and teaching and engineering aspect that FIRST is trying to get across to the students.

In my team's case, Nypro does almost everything for our team, and is a big factor in sponsering as well as mentoring our team. But I think the sponsers you are talking about probably aren't involved on the student level. We still need their $ and participation in whatever way they want to give it..but I think any type of gift should be for Dean or actual FIRST people who would probably appreciate it more and realize the affect of their hard work more than a company just giving money and having no personal affiliation with actual teams. Therefore, it may be hard to incorporate them into the gift, depending on what the gift would be.

[Carolyn Duncan]

I think the best way to incorporate sponsors is to have team sponsors represented by the team through their contribution to the overall piece and the FIRST sponsors through the larger scale item. Does that make sense? I'm not saying that's the way it should be I just thought it might be nice if it could be done along with having things that showed how FIRST affected our lives. Make the gift multi dimentional.

[Kyle Fenton]

Keep Dean's gift simple, but yet interesting. Yeah you can buy him a statue, but he will be like, "Oh, thats nice" I mean if a lot of people are going to spend time or money, make it worth it. I mean, all of your ideas are very good ideas. But if we are going to do this, we have to find an idea that will really make Dean appreciate FIRST and all the work he put into it. That is really why I like the Mosaic idea, it is simple but he will really but wowed when it all comes together and it spells first, or maybe it would be a picture of him and Woody. But hey that is just me.

[Carolyn Duncan]

So maybe we make a mosaic out of ceramic tiles. Have different pieces that are made at each of the regionals and one made at nationals. Then we can put them all together. Maybe they can be like a story board.

[Stacy]

here's an idea: how about the rep. at each regional take for example a piece of oak tag, and have everyone who wants to participate put their signiture on it, and that's it. Then, all the reps. can get together, or whoever wants to do this, and make another piece of oak tag kinda like a cover to a book. Next we can staple them all together or make a binding, again like a book, and give it to dean. On the cover it could say something about how many people's lives he's effected in a positive way, and how we can fill up a whole book with just our names. Also, if we want to get creative, we could make the pages fancier, or through some inspirational stories in there, and a bunch of other fun stuff like that.

Does anyone like that idea??

[Lng_02]

Ok, I love the book idea... but lot of problems I think of with it. I remember at nationals all the Visteon teams tried to do a similar thing but only with Visteon. And our team just didn't have the time to do it in the short notice that was given. What we finished wasn't that great, but it was enough. If you go with just the signatures of each team signing the book. Wow, that would take a while. I know how long it took me just going around and getting a picture of each of the robots at the regionals I went to. The problems I'm noticing with any idea, and shoot me down cause that's what i'm here for, but time issues. The time to complete whatever is chosen to do, and the time to collect each item. Also, if we choose to go with pieces to make a sculpture/statue thing, think about how would you transport those pieces? I'm honestly not sure what the best thing is, but whatever chosen has to be positive that it can be completed in the few days everyone is in florida. And if there is a problem and they decide this year to make it only those who qualify go to nationals, what if the rep who has whatever it is that would be put together *gasp* doesn't qualify. I hate sounding really negative (but i'm told it's what i do best) but how is everything going to be foolproof? And when will a final decision of what we do be made?

Laurel Noel

[Brett]

http://www.fishsoft.co.uk/


If the mosaic software worked out real well and instead of making a new image file out of all the smaller images, rather it gave out the order in which you assemble your photos, it could be real feasible to do. (Just have everyone upload a picture of their robot/team/logo named as just their team number, and then drop them off for the assembly people (at nats or to a rep)(have em write their team number on the back, and file 'em in order too ) then the assemblers could go off the layout the program put out and staple/glue/secure them to a big white sheet on a frame or something or now i'm just rambling

*toddles off*

[Jeff Waegelin]

Yes, and having teams send pictures would be preferable to photographing each robot while at nationals. We tried to take pictures of all the bots for SOAP, but it didn't work too well.

[Clark Gilbert]

The program u put up is a cool program although it may be kinda hard to see the little pics unless u use a plotter printer and make it really big (which u would do anyway...hopefully)....i'm also attaching a sample mosaic of the earth made up of a bunch of technokat pictures from the 2000-2001 season.....plus anyone can get full use of the program if they know what to do....(i'm not saying cuz i dont want this post deleted )

EDIT: The example is kinda crappy qualitly but it gives u an idea.....my brother has a really big mosaic and its an alien head made up of pics from NASA, and its really cool

[Robby O]

Just thought I would toss up that I have access to a high-quality plotter/printer at my school that goes up to 3 feet wide by however long. At $2 bucks a square foot, that would make the mosaic thing rather affordable for everyone.

One more I thought I would toss in for kicks was a combination of the mosaic, a sculpture, and denim. What we would do is create a frame out of chicken wire in the shape of the triangle, circle, and square. Each team could have thier logo either embroidered or pressed into a square peice of denim. Then everyone can sew thier pieces onto the logo-sculpture. By figuring out the amount of surface area on each piece, we can figure out how big each logo can be.

That or maybe a gift certificate to the aero-toy store. It's a place down here in south florida that has big plane toys for big boys. AKA: Dean. Maybe they could outfit a plane with an all denim interior???

[Kyle Fenton]

Just thought I would toss up that I have access to a high-quality plotter/printer at my school that goes up to 3 feet wide by however long. At $2 bucks a square foot, that would make the mosaic thing rather affordable for everyone.

That ain't a plotter thats a printer. My printer (Epson Stylus 1520) can print that wide. Well not really but really close. Usually a plotter prints out images usually 5 to 10 feet wide.

For the mosiac idea, a better idea would just to be two layers in photoshop. Here is a sample of what I mean. I did it fast and it very crude, but you get the point.