How to change a team name?

[DessertDuel319]

Our team doesn't currently have any actual plans to officially change our team name, but we have looked into it from time to time. Our current name was suggested four years ago by people who left the team quickly and we've never quite been able to go with it ever since.

The word in our team is that the name can be changed but we have to pay all the rookie fees again (I'm pretty sure that equates to starting over entirely). But I couldn't find anything about that on the internet. According to the FIRST website it should be editable in TIMS.

If anyone can tell me anything about this it would be helpful. Thanks.

[Brian Maher]

I'd imagine it can easily be changed in TIMS. I'm not a lead mentor or anything so I'm no expert, but I know TIMS is the place for that kind of thing.

[EricH]

Your team has two names. I believe the one you're asking about is the nickname.

Official name: Sponsor1/Sponsor2/Sponsor3/.../SponsorN & SchoolA & SchoolB & SchoolC & ... & OrganizationA

This name is "assigned by FIRST" when you register and list your sponsors. Some teams have a lot, some have none, some just have the school or organization.


Nickname: What you'd rather be known as, because the official name is just too long. (Examples: Cyber Blue, Bionic Bulldogs, C.R.U.S.H.)


I believe all you need to do for the nickname is to check with the team as to whether you like the one you've got or not, and if not what to change it to, and then you go into TIMS and change the "Nickname" slot.

[Christopher149]

Originally Posted by EricH

Your team has two names. I believe the one you're asking about is the nickname.

Official name: Sponsor1/Sponsor2/Sponsor3/.../SponsorN & SchoolA & SchoolB & SchoolC & ... & OrganizationA

This name is "assigned by FIRST" when you register and list your sponsors. Some teams have a lot, some have none, some just have the school or organization.


Nickname: What you'd rather be known as, because the official name is just too long. (Examples: Cyber Blue, Bionic Bulldogs, C.R.U.S.H.)


I believe all you need to do for the nickname is to check with the team as to whether you like the one you've got or not, and if not what to change it to, and then you go into TIMS and change the "Nickname" slot.

What EricH said. Nickname is easily changeable in TIMS by the Main or Alternate Contact. Team number is not easily changed.

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by EricH

Official name: Sponsor1/Sponsor2/Sponsor3/.../SponsorN & SchoolA & SchoolB & SchoolC & ... & OrganizationA

This name is "assigned by FIRST" when you register and list your sponsors. Some teams have a lot, some have none, some just have the school or organization.

I don't set the names myself on our team, but I believe that even this is entered in manually during each season.

And to answer OP, if you want the name that you put on your pit and said by announcers to be different, it is a trivial matter of your mentors just changing it in TIMS.

[FrankJ]

The primary name stays year to year if you don't change it. Primary and secondary lead contacts can change it in TIMS.

[Chief Hedgehog]

Nickname can be change by lead mentors (2) through TIMS.

[Mark McLeod]

Attached is a screen shot of the TIMS Team Information page where we change the team nickname.
The official team name is automatically generated from the student organization and sponsors we choose to list.

From TIMS:

TIMS automatically generates your official team name based on the Partners you list and the type of organization they are. To review information on your partners, click on "View Details" on the "View Team Partners" Page.

• To make changes/corrections, click on "Edit Details" for the partner(s) in question.
• To delete a partner, click on "Delete Partner."
• To change the order of your team name, click on the "Update Sort" button and renumber them. This changes the order when possible. TIMS is purposely configured to maintain a certain order, so some changes are not possible.

[RoboChair]

Citrus Circuits changed our name from EnGen about 6.5 years ago for the same reasons you are mentioning. No regrets.

[Abhishek R]

Originally Posted by RoboChair

Citrus Circuits changed our name from EnGen about 6.5 years ago for the same reasons you are mentioning. No regrets.

What did EnGen mean?

[RoboChair]

Originally Posted by Abhishek R

What did EnGen mean?

Engineering Generation...

[DessertDuel319]

Thanks for all the responses. I'm pretty sure the locked-in team name is some kind of local myth.

However... my Coach has never seen the option to change it and nobody else has access to TIMS. Could somebody give me a step-by-step of how to do it so we know how and that it's definitely possible? Thanks.

EDIT: The image posted above was pretty much what I needed. Thanks.

[Clem1640]

Originally Posted by RoboChair

Citrus Circuits changed our name from EnGen about 6.5 years ago for the same reasons you are mentioning. No regrets.

Good call. Citrus Circuits is a great name.

So, changing a team name (nickname in TIMS) is really easy and cost-free. It is simply a team marketing/image issue. With a relatively new team, name changing has very limited negative impact (unless you decide on a bad name, of course) because the old name is generally not well known in the community.

It's a tougher decision for established teams with name recognition. Team 303 did this a few years back (from Panther Robotics to Test Team) and I think the end result of this change in name/image has worked very well for them.

Done right, changing a team (nick)name is more than just a name change, but ought to impact the image that a team presents as well. A glance at Citrus Circuits or Test Team's logo/uniform/robot provides great examples.

[Abhishek R]

Yeah, we also changed our name to CRyptonite from C.R.E.W. (Cinco Ranch Engineering Wizards) a while back. It definitely helped our image be a bit more cohesive.