What does your team give away at regionals to other teams as a souvenir (buttons, bracelets, etc)?
On top of that, what other “spirit gear” do your teams get? (shirts, banners, posters, etc)
Well, in the past we have given out little screwdrivers or sunglasses printed with our team’s logo. We also give out buttons (we have a small button-making machine). I am head of support and this year I found some decent yo-yo’s that aren’t too expensive and can be printed with our logo, though I don’t know if these are what we will go with in the end. As for our own “team spirit” gear, we design a t-shirt each year, and I believe a banner as well. We also have a tradition of wearing yellow bandanas (our school colors are black and gold/yellow).
First team 647 gives away button and last year we gave away glasses. We also made our team numbers and name in wood and hola hoop which we use to make noise and stand out. We find it very effective because no matter how many teams are there we will stand out. When you see us we are always cheering even i n last place.
Our team gives away buttons (two designs as of last year, I believe we are making more for this year) and shell leis (necklaces). I know last year we also gave some awards out. Those were little metal trophies of sorts, cut and engraved in CAD, with a new design for each award, and a plaque describing the award, on a wooden base. The awards were rather expensive and took a while to make, though. This year, we’re also giving out mardi gras beads with a team tag on them, as those are rather popular due to their cost and availability.
We traditionally give out buttons, as well, with a new design each year. One year a sponsor machined key chains for us. They were aluminum anodized with black and red camo, then our team logo printed on. However, they weren’t really a crowd favorite, and it would be extremely expensive to repeat without the sponsorship.
When I was still on 1432 there was a year we had a box of retractable Ethernet cables donated. We put a team sticker over the already printed logo and called it good. Everyone loved those.
For spirit gear we have had several banners printed (with sponsor logos around the edges in addition to the team name and number). Our team shirts have traditionally been red polos with the team logo embroidered on the front, this year we switched to black-with-red instead.
We have been discussing sewing a team flag this year, and also doing miniature team awards as well. Depends on how much time/funds/initiative everyone has after ship day.
My favorite give away from a different team was in 2010 at Champs, when a team in the division next to ours (don’t remember who) was giving out flash drives with scouting data on them. Those were pretty sweet!
down below are some of our giveaways, we make pins (the picture is for this years design) hand out squishy pigs and make peer awards (these are from 2010). other than that we give away other pig/bacon things that have been collected.
We give out Chapstick with our logo and 2861 printed on the label. It’s what we give out every year.
Due to a machining error this year, we will be giving out misaligned bearing blocks, might engrave them, but probably not.
Inspiration. Our goal is to teach any youngsters who come over about science an technology.
Not quite what was asked, but the correct answer regardless.
Fine. We also give buttons. 
Emphasis mine.
You might want to be careful with yo-yo’s. In 2010 at Philadelphia, Drexel University (the host school) gave out some as a recruiting promotion. The FIRST staff weren’t too happy and banned them (the yo-yo’s) from the pit areas.
I have a little machining project I made, and Im thinking of making about a dozen more.
This sounds interesting. Do go on. Or is it secret?
Last year we give out a dry erase board of the playing field and markers to every team. And like every team we hand buttons out.
Not really a secret, but I think it’ll be a little more fun at SVR when we show them off if they haven’t been posted to CD (we might even bring some to Baltimore depending on how much time I have to make them). A couple members from another local team have seen it already.
I don’t think it’ll be too hard to guess what it is, and I might end up just posting the final product soon, but here’s something to chew on.
Glad you asked. Being a rookie team we are in the process of getting buttons made and trying to decide what else we should/could give. How do we find out what is banned and not allowed?
Also, do you just set out a big bowl of items and go with the first come, first serve idea, then when you run out that’s it?
Our team has always struggled with getting enough money for a robot, let along extra stuff to hand out… But this year we have the money, so it’ll be our first year handing stuff out.
We’re thinking of laser cutting some dog tags or something out of plexi… I suggested monocles… But that got shot down pretty fast. 
seeing all these suggestions might help our team get creative, glad someone brought up the topic.
EDIT: (had to add this for clarity… See how awesome monocles would be?)
http://troll.me/images/monocle-guy/thank-you-kind-sir-thumb.jpg
2 years ago, we gave away “ball-in-a-trident”; last year, we gave away little aluminium "robots?
The only thing I know for sure that is banned is food items and noise makers.
Only your team can decide how they want to give things out. Most of the time it depends on cost. We NEVER just give our stuff away. Our pins are hand made out of foam core and take a lot of time to make so in order to get one, you have to do something. Some people sing or dance, some tell jokes or recite poems. Its a fun way to get to know people.
Our squeezy pigs cost about 4.50 per pig so we only give out one per team, and one to each judge. Each of our students gets 3 to hand out at each regional. They get to decide who gets them. We encourage them to give at least one to a volunteer. (I think they may use them to start conversations with girls however.) Many of our pigs have ended up on other teams robots. I think a few of them may have even ended up on Einstein.