I am a senior at my high school, so that means the last year of being a student of FIRST. We’ve had a lot of mentor problems this year, and we were too distracted to think about our school yearbook photo. We never received information on how to send in a picture, when the pictures were due etc. I asked today, and found out it was too late. My head is spinning that a club devoted to making sure kids and clubs are in the yearbook, and they made no attempt to contact our mentor or any kids. This really has nothing to do with robotics, but I am outraged that the school that has been supporting us would simply forget to ask for a club photo, now I, a senior, has to get a yearbook with no picture of my life and passion for the last 5-6 years in school (Our team accepts kids in 7th grade). Any help would be great!
Not really relevant, but we have to actively reach out to our yearbook committee in order to be featured.
I would understand that, but because of our mentor troubles, ultimately we had to get a new mentor, who though (like us) that the yearbook committee would ask
I think that if we didn’t bug them with how massive our team is every year, the yearbook kids would be forgetting about us too. As far as I can tell, this is true of any “nontraditional” activity-- I was part of my school’s literary arts magazine for a couple of years and if we hadn’t pushed we wouldn’t have been in the yearbook. It’s a shame, but unfortunately you just have to roll with it… Remember that the yearbook group is also dealing with all the other clubs, organizing pictures of all the students and teachers, as well as trying to track down rogue senior photos and quotes. They have a pretty difficult time of it, especially the larger the school is.
To give you an idea of most yearbook committies, I’ll tell you about ours.
At my school, it is entirely student run + a supervising teacher, so the turn over rate is high (just like First, except every 2 years instead of 4). To be in the yearbook, each club must submit an application to the school (this is the same one they submit when they apply to become a club each year). Then it becomes a student affair. Each student gets assigned about 8 spreads to complete before the end of March. Because of this, they don’t go actively seeking clubs or other activities that are missing from the yearbook because of the workload. The administration isn’t really involved, except when approving the project to print.
What the above ultimately comes down to, is that the yearbook crew doesn’t search for missing clubs because they don’t exist under the traditional framework. It might not be the same at your school, but if this happened to us, it would be our fault and no one else.
Real bummer.
Water under the bridge for this year, but get the information and deadlines now for next year’s students.
How about designing your own yearbook page just for the robotics team and insert it into your yearbooks for this year?
Leave space for everyone to sign it, too.
That’s one solution I was thinking of… one thing I am trying tomorrow is seeing with the publisher if they started being printed… and for that small chance that they weren’t then that’s good, but not I may have to go with that.
Actually at our school, it is a class in which any and all kids may apply and take a course within our school day. They have an entire day when they just call out each and every single group/club/sport/activity under the blue sky. Some are “weird” and others are unique to be called upon. They brought in a professional photographer and just did mass pictures in the same background with whatever props that they wanted. This ensures that the entire face of the school can be preserved for decades later. I would truly recommend if not a class but asking the principal to get something so that everyone can be done in basically one fell swoop.
I just want to say thank you to everyone… even if the picture doesn’t get it, I feel how the FIRST community is trying to help a fellow FIRST student… where in any other organization would interactions between teams be like this… not sports ill tell you that
Brian,
I was a yearbook adviser for two years. It is an enormous undertaking, and quite frankly there are many things going on each year that are usually missed. I understand your frustration, and have another suggestion. Most yearbooks also do a supplement. The supplement usually consists of spring activities that take place after the book must go to production. It would be cutting it close, but respectfully ask the yearbook adviser or club if they do a supplement and whether a team photo could be placed in it. Typically these are distributed with the yearbook or in the early fall (sometimes they are developed over the summer as a training for the following year’s staff).
As others have indicated, the other option is to create your own yearbook page, and insert it in your book and your friends.
Hope this is of some help,
Zygmont
I know that at Bay Shore, they send out a supplemental insert for the yearbook some time in the summer with al of the spring sports and other activities that happen after the yearbook begins printing in the late winter. I don’t know if Smithtown does anything similar but yo could try and see if you could get into that part of the yearbook, so that everyone could get it. You could use a homemade custom page as a filler until it arrives if you want too.
Why not work with some of the kids on your team and make your own yearbooks just featuring the team? WildStang did this and then we would each buy one for like $10. They’re great little keepsakes. I actually prefer them to my real yearbooks.
Its just then the club I’m in isn’t featured for my friends who aren’t on the team to look as see and say “wow look at smithtown robotics” and stuff like that.
After talking to the yearbook committee, they will not spend the money or time to put our team in the yearbook. All they did was say sorry and ask if we wanted to be put into a slide show, amungst other groups and “memories”… nothing for nothing, but I have seen my aunt and uncles yearbook from the 60’s… and I do believe people will save the book instead of the link to watch this, also the domaine eventually not being paid anymore and shutting down.
I am really sorry to hear about this 
Unfortunately if you missed the deadline for when they submitted the yearbooks to be printed there isn’t much you can do. I know our yearbook team in the past as printed out inserts for things they have messed up/or needed to add. You can see about getting some of those.
Our school’s yearbook actually goes though and contacts each school club/sports since there is a master list with contact information (which we are on).
This may not answer your question, but we suffer a similar situation. Next season our team may not even exists as most of us are quitting FRC.
Our school/teachers do not recognize our dedication and commitment to FRC and have no clue on how much time we spend. Yes we have tried to get them involved but no success. Students who participate in teachers’ run clubs are recognized, even though their GPA is lower than many of us and they spend not as much time was we do in club activities. They don’t even qualify for advance level competitions in their activities. So most of will not return to FRC and our team not even exists going forward. We don’t even know if our recommendation letters even contain reference to FRC participation.
it may be a pain, but you have to make them love FRC. Breath FRC, But don’t let them eat it… its too chewy…Jokes aside, we have similar problems, but you have to find a way to show them that its not like another club out there. Put on a demo and have a projector showing all the work you did over the season.
Well thats what i believe you should do. I feel like most teams have school/team relationship problems, that simply can’t be fixed with “Well we do this, and we do that.”
Thats what our school really needs to do. They will be adding us to the contact list starting next year, which doesn’t help me, but it does help the next year seniors.
Thanks for the kind words. Unfortunately we are running out of patience not just at school, not happy with some of the things that happen during competitions too. As a young team we are at the receiving end of short stick, either due to favoritism or nepotism (in the name of strategy). The only consolation is we have received praise from some judges and awards.
What if you guys made the inserts yourselves and offered them to the yearbook people to just stuff inside yearbooks? If they don’t have to break their deadline or process to do it, and you do the leg work, they don’t really have a reason to say no.