Listen to the episode: [musicsingle file=”https://www.thevillargroup.com/ftcteam6024/wp-content/uploads/entry-02-kickoff-extravaganza.mp3″]
Tip #1 would be to start brainstorming ideas for a theme at the very beginning of the season and incorporating it into all your work. Why? The main reason that I see is that it makes the entire experience that much more fun and easy to retain a sense of interest throughout the season.
Tip #2, is have fun with it! The point of having a theme is to give your team a unique twist, so you stand out. It really gives me a sense of purpose, finding a cool way to incorporate the theme into what I do. A couple years ago my team didn’t have themes, and at tournaments it was kinda like “woo, go team!”… that wasn’t bad, but now it’s like “YEAH, THEME MUSIC! BEAM ME UP TO THE LAND OF AWESOME, SCOTTY!! WOOOO, GO TEAM!!” Yeah! But remember not to let it get ridiculously out of hand: tip #3 is to try to find a theme that’s practical, but still fun. You don’t want to have to devote huge amounts of time and money to make incredibly complex costumes, and you also don’t want to be making obscure references all the time that no one will understand. So make sure that your theme is something that a lot of people will recognize. Last year my team considered doing Team Fortress 2, but we decided that wasn’t well known enough and the costumes would be too hard to make. This year we chose Star Trek, because firstly it’s awesome, but also even people who haven’t actually watched the show will know who we are.
Tip #3 is to take care when choosing a theme, and find something that is easily recognizable, not too hard to incorporate, and cool. Anyone can have a theme, this goes for FLL, FTC, and FRC teams. Having a good theme is awesome, fun, and gives you references to shout at tournaments and slip in in your engineering journals and website. It really makes you stick out!
To summarize:
1: Start thinking of themes at the beginning so you can include them in what you do throughout the season
2: Enjoy doing it, and allow it to make your experience that much better and make your team that much more unique.
3: Take care when choosing a theme, and find something that is easily recognizable, not too hard to incorporate, and cool.
For more tips & tricks, listen to our radio show, Captain’s Log, every other Sunday at 7:00 PM.
http://mixlr.com/captains-log–2/