Team T-shirts and sweatshirts are important way to build team recognition and solidarity at competitions, community outreach and recruiting events. We also use the team wear to acknowledge and promote our sponsors, and thank them for their generosity. Every year in mid January, students design a shirt and sweatshirt from Custom Ink https://www.customink.com/. The only design requirements are:
Custom Ink works such that the design is created directly on the website. A student should be solicited to lead this effort and coordinate input from other students. To set up the order, Custom Ink will require an estimate of the number of orders to be placed to generate a price quote. For reference, the final order quantities for 2018 were:
When the order is set up by the team swag coordinator, a link to Custom Ink is generated that can be shared with the team. Each team member, including mentors and parents, use the link to place and pay for their own items. All items are sent to the one address (usually the team swag coordinators home) specified at the order set up for distribution at a team meeting later. The customer support at Custom Ink is very helpful, if needed.
To ensure team wear is available by bag day, start the process no later than the third week of January. Allow at least one week for design and order set up. Allow another week for team members to place their orders, and another 2-3 weeks for delivery and distribution. It’s a good idea to alert the team once every day or two with an email, so that they will not miss the deadline.
Literature about the team, such as brochures, flyers, letters, blurbs for emails, and the bear logo can be found in the fundraising folder: https://tinyurl.com/Team766Fundraise. The team website (http://www.team766.com/) should be kept up to date and consistent with the other promotional materials.
Items for distribution at events can include buttons/pins with the team logo and number. These can be ordered in bulk from any number of online vendors. Plan on distributing about 200 pins per event, so an order of 1000 pins will cover the two in-season competitions, an off-season competition, championships, and outreach/recruiting events. At non-FIRST events, food items such as gummy bears can be handed out, but FIRST asks that food not be distributed at competitions.
The team banner is frequently hung up at the team’s location in the pit. It can be printed at Kinkos/FedEx and should include the sponsors logos alongside the Team 766 Bear. To acknowledge sponsors on the robot, a plastic panel can be printed.
Examples of the team pins, banner and robot panel can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/Team766Fundraise.