Hey, just kind of a question to all of the teams out there: How did you decide on your team names (and/or robot names)? Are they school mascots? allusions to literature or culture? Not really an important question, just trying to understand the rest of you out there, lol.
To answer my question, we have had two team names. Last year it was “The Titans.” We spent (surprisingly) about a week on our name, finally deciding on something that sounded strong (Titans were figures in Greek mythology who were predecessors of the Olympian Gods, i.e. Mercury, Venus, etc.). Also, our robot’s name was Vulcan (the Greek name for the Roman god Hephaestus, god of forges who pretty much created the first robots).
This year, since we wanted to change not only our appearance but be memorable (there were about 4 teams with the name “The Titans” last year), we decided in only about 2 or 3 days. We voted and came out with “The Apes of Wrath.” Since our teacher is an English teacher and since we are from California, we thought it fitting to make some reference to Californian literature (John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath). Also, our robot’s name this year is “Furious George,” named after everyone’s favorite childhood primate, Curious George.
So, if you feel like sharing, please tell the story of YOUR team or robot’s name (and, if you would, respond to our team name, I would like some feedback).
Our team was at first to be called Gilmores Geeks in recognition of a since moved vice principal who is admired by the nerd community in my school.
But it was changed to Kinetic Knights our school mascot is the Knight so it works. Only problem is our town name is Kincardine (Kincardine Kinetic Knights could perhaps be seen as wrong in acronym form)
Our robot name hasnt been decided, its however narrowed down to Sharlene or Ghost Dog
Sharlene is from Full Metal Jacket, Private Pile named his rifle sharlene
Ghost Dog is the name of a really horrible movie that alot of the people on our team saw and laughed ALOT at. That and it sounds like a great name right off the bat, where Sharlene would be harder for some people to instantly associate.
Well, The Mechanical Bulls (810) came about because the Bull is Smithtown’s mascot. There’s also a mural someone had done a few years ago of a bull that was made of like metal and stuff. One of the ideas that was outvoted was the Mechanibulls. Let me tell you how grateful I am that that lost.
As far as 417 goes though (since I feel I ought to mention them as well) I know last year they were Stangbot and I know their mascot is the mustang. Since I only became part of their team yesterday, I’m afraid that I don’t know too much about them. But, I am assuming they also based their name off their school mascot.
My former team, 495, was called The Pack and our robot was Alpha Wolf. We voted on that because the person who came up with the idea also incorped Rudyard Kipling’s “Law of the Jungle” so we al thought it was cool. This was after we were drug away from the whole Johnny 5 thing… Anyway, we all also liked the Duran Duran song “Hungry Like the Wolf.” Add all that up and it was a perfect fit.
As for Team 86, we are Team Resistance: Going against the Current. Our main sponsor is JEA, the local power company. Just kinda fits. I think one year they named the robot Ohmer or something like that. I’m not really sure about that or any other info because I’m new to the team this year. So that is about the limit of my knowledge as x-> 0.
My team has had two names… The Lions, and The Sea Dawgs. We were the Lincoln Lions because our school mascot is a lion. When we were the Lions our robots names were “Robox” (it was a plywood box), and “Alion” (Al = Aluminum and lion for the lions… it was funny at the time). We came up with The Sea Dawgs because we were frustrated with the lack of support we were getting from our school. Since they didn’t want to either give us money, give us space to work, or promote our team in any way we decided to try to cut them out of our name. We wanted to have a pirate theme. So we looked up the word ‘pirate’ in a thesauras and found sea dog. We changed the spelling a little and the rest is history.
For us, our team name always stayed “Woburn Robotics”, but each year we had a different “theme” by which our robot and public image would be modelled after. In 1998 it was Chaos, 1999-Fury (some of u guys might remember the shorts with “FURY” printed across the rear), and 2000-Blizzard. However, once we got to Blizzard we decided to stick with it.
Go posting during school!! heh
Anyway, MOE is an accronym for Miracle of Engineering. Yeah, its cheesy, but with DuPont being our major sponsor, and thier slogan being “Miracles of Science,” this was a logical continuation. And we being literary and rhetorical gods :rolleyes: our chant, as most of you know, includes the phrase ‘go moe’ - wow -
see? it rhymes! isnt that just great?..
Techno, from technology
Kats, from the school mascot, Wildkats
Kats is spelled wrong to go with Kokomo. I don’t really like the deliberate misspelling, but it has been Wildkats for a hundred years, so I’m not going to change it.
In my opinion it is pretty important to find a good team name and stick with it. Its also a good idea to have the same name for your robot and your team, or something close so people recognize the robot and relate it to the team. Whatever you do though, try not to change the team name from year to year (unless you have something to hide or you want others to forget). Very few people realize that our team (Rhode Warrior) was the producer of the legendary Aquatread. They changed the team name for no reason really and so we are not attatched to that legend anymore except with the old FIRST veterens who figured it out.
And good teams names always come from something distinctive and meaningful. Something that represents your school or your location and adds a little something to it.
Last year was our rookie year so we decided to keep our name fairly simple. Every team in our school has the name “The Friars”. So we decided to modify it to “Steel Friars” to put emphasis on the robot itself. Since our school is a catholic school (1st catholic school on long island to compete I believe) and many of the teaches and staff are Fransiscan Brothers, we came up with the name Robo-Bro for the bot itself. Although we constantly used the nickname of “Boomer” because we figured it would explode the first time we powered up at the competition.
This year we kept the team name but decided to change our robot name. We took “Boomer” our nickname from last year and made it the real name. And with all these new motors and the importance of powerful drive trains, it seems all the more fitting.
I agree with the person from the Rhode Warriors, about having a good name and keeping it, so this year team 151 finally got around to establishing a name. The student body elected to become The Wildcards. Pretty much because a joker is a really cool logo.
Well, with team 308, we’re Walled Lake schools and TRW. Trying to make a play off the Lockness monster, one of our engineers came up with the Walled Lake Monster. Don’t ask where Robostars came from… I don’t remember
121 is actually the Islanders (we live on an island, every sport team uses it), but with a lot of teams, the robot name is what sticks. So, we are commonly refered to as the Rhode Warriors. I can think of a few other teams this applies to as well.
I guess as long as a crowd remembers your name, it really doesn’t matter.
Our team (#201) is called the FEDS. Our original sponsor was EDS, so we took the F from Falcons (our school mascot) and put EDS at the end.
When we lost EDS and picked up Visteon as our sponsor, we now had a name derived from a former sponsor that we didn’t particularly like at that point. The name, however, was what we were known as, so we developed a clever acronym for FEDS:
Falcon Engineering and Design Solutions
So there you have it, the clever backronym for our team name.
As for our robot, only one of them, our 2001 robot, has a name. It was called Tippy in honor of its apparent lack of balance when on the floor (not on the bridge, it was fine there :D).
My team is called the “Cheesy Poofs” from South Park. It was chosen when South Park first came out, and we’ve stuck with it. Like SharkBite said, it is important to stick with the team name you have so people recognize your team from year to year.
Genuis is 1% inspiration and 99% persperation.-Thomas Edison
