Hey everyone,
I am looking to do more of a PR push for our robotics team this year. In addition to coming up with a more easily identifiable logo, we want to give away buttons this year. We’ve had some poor experiences with button makers in the past. I think this year we will probably just have them produced in mass.
Teams: how many buttons do you tend to make and give away at a regional competition? Also, are there any particularly good button making businesses online that you use?
Thanks!
We have always made the buttons ourselves it is something to make the team members have a stake in spirit (our former mechanical lead used to say “I spent hours making these buttons so I am making sure I am bringing none of them home!”) For Orlando which had 64 teams we bring 1200 buttons which is only 20 a team. For South Florida which had 46 teams we only had 800 buttons which is 18 buttons a team but many of them were repeats from Orlando
Our team purchased a button maker, like this one, every year we buy the components after deciding on which regionals we are planning to attend. Our media team is responsible for creating the button design for a given year and over the course of the season students cut out and assemble the buttons.
We always make our own buttons as well, it gives you the flexibility to make all kinds of buttons as needed, or even to make more at a competition.
We have both bade-a-minit and a umakebuttons.com press. The second one seems to be more efficient to use. Finding a way to print the buttons in color cheaply is important as well.
Traditionally we have printed buttons and other materials with the team’s laser printer, this year I’m pushing the students to find a local printing company to handle most/all of our bulk printing needs.
We make our own buttons. We have a badg-a-minit press and buy our supplies from fabutton.com. They sell the badg-a-minit parts mush cheaper than I found elsewhere.
As the build season winds down, it gives the kids something to do, since not everyone can be working on the robot during the last week. We usually buy enough to make 2500, we make a 1000 before our first regional, then make more between regionals. If we qualify for champs we make the rest. Whatever is leftover we use as giveaways at demos and fundraisers.
If you have not committed to buttons you may wish to talk to the activities department at a local high school to see who they use for promotional items, common items are bracelets or necklaces in team colors.