National FIRST Shirt Day

[Trashed20]

I already met 3 different random people that were associated with robotics. Its neat. Im sure there are hundred more too.

[Amanda Aldridge]

tee hee. i saw someone at the pizza hut in purdue west wearing a 2003 Championship T-shirt. unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to ask her where she was from before she left. i also met a kid whose mom's best friend is someone special related to FIRST, but that's an entirely different story, for an entirely different topic.

[Tytus Gerrish]

September 6

Im gonna be wearing my SwampThing Gear

[kmcclary]

Is the goal to meet others elsewhere, or help your own team recruit? The optimum for the first would be during a global school break time, whereas the second would be near the start of the school year while most schools are session. Much different goals. (I'll discuss the latter here, as IMHO it could help the team more...)

I'd avoid a particular day of the month (e.g. "the 13th") because 2/7 of the time it would fall on a weekend, and no one at school would see it. Similarly, I feel we should avoid Mondays, as a lot of holidays fall on it.

If monthly, how about the "Last Friday of each Month"? Friday is the "casual day" at a lot of companies.

If you want it once a year, I'd suggest "the last Friday in September". Several reasons:
- It's coming up soon (we can do it this year);
- Most schools are in session that day every year;
- It helps team recruiting by advertising their presence near the START of the school year yet AFTER the "start of year confusion" settles down; and
- It gives you an excuse to "encourage" your industry supporters at "Casual Friday" companies to wear theirs as well to drum up more support for mentoring.

What is the goal of the Shirt Day?

- Keith

[Jferrante]

Id have to disagree with the idea of keeping it to weekdays only. First, yes we do want the shirts seen in schools and offices where they can attract attention from people who may want to support the team or become a member themselves. However, we also want to have the entire local communities seeing the shirts where you can get more diversified interest and maybe even a bit of news coverage (not that the news will notice, but you never know).
Second, some schools (my old high school and my college due to the program i'm in) require uniforms. It would be impossible for people in those situations to wear there shirts on weekdays while in school.
I like the idea of the FIRST saturday, or the FIRST of the month, or something along those lines.. the FIRST of the month would probably be better so that it does rotate between weekends and weekdays and ill be able to participate 2 out of 7 times.

[Nick Seidl]

I was wearing a 2002 Nationals FIRST shirt around Purdue earlier this week. Went fountain running with it. Most of the 461 staff was wearing their shirts at the FIRST callout last night too.

[kmcclary]

Originally posted by Jferrante
[...]some schools (my old high school and my college due to the program I'm in) require uniforms. It would be impossible for people in those situations to wear [their] shirts on weekdays while in school.

I like the idea of the FIRST Saturday, or the FIRST of the month, or something along those lines.. the FIRST of the month would probably be better so that it does rotate between weekends and weekdays and ill be able to participate 2 out of 7 times.

Excellent points. I forgot all about "uniformed schools". I really like the concept of "FIRST on the First"... It's a lot easier to remember that way!

- Keith

[Jillian B.]

Wouldn't weekends make more sense. At school, you're all on the same team anyway, so there's no surprise. However, the weekends, who knows where you'll go and who you see. So, I'm all for the FIRST Saturday of each month. And yay! RiverRage is soon, and a FIRST Saturday.

Now I just gotta get a team shirt (I'm on a different team, attending a different school, such fun)....

Woohoo! Look for me wearing some type of FIRST shirt!

Jill

[BandChick]

This is a GREAT idea, but i have a feeling it would be really hard to promote such a thing. True, many FIRSTers do read chiefdelphi, but what about those that don't? it would be next to impossible to have EVERY team advertise FIRST t-shirt day on their websites. If you could find a way to have FIRST promote it on the official site, then maybe it would actually be possible. The other concern is what about those students/advisors/etc. that DONT have internet access? by word of mouth there is no way that everyone would be able to be involved. I think it's awesome, and we should do it, but i think a little bit more planning may be necessary.

As well, everyone here wants to meet more FIRST people, but my question is, if we're advertising FIRST shirt day on chiefdelphi, who wouldn't you already know from chiefdelphi? just a thought as i know more than half of the cd community.

[Aignam]

Maybe a few people can get together and search around for contact information for the team leaders of as many teams as possible and contact them, asking for support. The season will be in full swing soon, so whoever would do this had better get started soon.

[ebmonon36]

We will go ahead and do it on this Saturday and hopefully it will spread around and everyone will get the word for later months when we do this. I think most teams have at least one person that reads CD so they can tell their teammates who don't. I don't know if CD could send an e-mail like they did that other one last week. I think that would help for those who registered but don't really keep current with the forums.
Eric

[Aignam]

Ask Brandon.

[danielkitchener]

How bout this: Kickoff is FIRST shirt day. Combine it with national prayer bead day for us programmers (I really hope they dont give us something hard to do, like synchronizing motors which dont go the same speed (as happened with the Team 408 Roboticks last year)).

[kmcclary]

It's sounding like consensus is leaning toward "FIRST Saturday" each month, right?

Originally posted by danielkitchener How bout this: Kickoff is FIRST shirt day.

Oooooh, that's right! That nicely dovetails in with a "FIRST Saturday" campaign, as Kickoff normally is the first Saturday in January. Even more reason to have it that day!

I still like the idea presented here to have it monthly instead of only annually. That way, students on vacation have several chances each summer to run into FIRST students elsewhere, also wearing their team shirts! The first Saturday often coincides with a lot of American holiday weekends, like 5/7ths of all Memorial Day weekends.

Yes, IMHO the best weekday candidates are either Fridays due to Casual Days, or Mondays to hit a lot of the American holiday time off long weekends. However, I agree with others here. Since the Kickoff is a first Satuday, that makes "FIRST Saturday" a more obvious choice...

WRT advertising it: You don't have to "collect contact names". FIRST has the "Email Blast" List set up for broadcasting messages to all Team Contacts at the same time. All you need to do is get FIRST to approve the idea. They'll then send it out to everyone at once.

Originally posted by danielkitchener Combine it with national prayer bead day for us programmers (I really hope they don't give us something hard to do [...)]

LOL! Here's mine...

The FIRST Programmer's Prayer: "Oh Lord, THIS year, please tear the robot away from the tinkering, 'robot mutating hands' of the other groups a little bit sooner than Week Six Saturday. Amen."

We don't wish to EVER pull a 72 hour Continuous Shifts Marathon Autonomous Mode Redesign and Debug Session ever again. Not only do we need more time for normal testing, no more new code for last second design changes!!!

- Keith

[Elgin Clock]

Here's my thought on this thread and the subject.

First, if you want to stay with the original title of the thread and have a National First shirt DAY, then it can only be one day.

But in this post I am going to present three specific days to have it on.

One of the most logical days for this is Kickoff. This is the day that EVERY first team has their ears and eyes to Manchester, NH.
While this would not be the best day to wear your shirt to advertise FIRST, it is the ONLY day that all teams are pretty much doing the same exact thing.

The second day would be, Dean's Birthday for obvious reasons but I have no idea when that is... All I can find is he was born in 1951. (Any one know this one?)

The third day would be Woody's Birthday. (Also unknown)

But, for maximum FIRST exposure, wear a FIRST shirt everyday!!!