Team Names, Marketing, and Funny Name Stuff

[Rick TYler]

When our club was founded three years ago, the students at that time named it "The Combine" after some video game (Half-Life?). Last year, the students renamed the team "Exothermic Robotics" with the slogan "It was on fire when we got there." We had three robots last year, and all did well. This year, we have seven robots (in FTC and VRC), and have gotten known in our area as the Exothermic Robotics program. I like the name well enough, and there is marketing value in keeping the name. If you change your brand every year, I think, you lose the value of the brand name.

I've been pretty adamant about NOT letting this years' students change the name of the club, but they keep grumbling. Does anyone want to share stories about changing team names? Mentors, is it a good idea to let students change the team name whenever they feel like it? Students, would you trust or respect adult leaders who won't let you change the name when you want to? Any one want to share their experiences?

Based on how our team actually behaves, I think the name of our team should be "stopSTOPSTOP!!!."