Marketing

We are constantly in contact with media of all kinds. Last year we were interviewed and given a live feed for the early morning news on ABC (local channel 13). The reporter stayed for two hours to cover our robots. We were also featured in multiple newspapers including the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle and Messenger Post papers. Last year, NYS AssemblyWoman Susan John toured our Math, Science and Technology wing and visited with the team.  This season Churchville Mayor Nancy Steedman and Deputy Mayor Don Suter came to learn more about the team and see us at work.

This year we have already posted the regional event on local TV stations’ calendar pages, wrote to ESPN and requested that they cover a regional event as a sporting event, and submitted more than 50 photos online to the Democrat and Chronicle. A Suburban News reporter attended one of our meetings and our story appeared on the front page above the fold. We asked Her Magazine of the Democrat and Chronicle to do a story on a female student or mentor. The Gates-Chili Post reporter and photographer also did a front page story on our team. Many of our photos appear in the gallery of town pages of the Democrat and Chronicle and have also appeared in the Our Towns section of the newspaper. We submitted a press release with information about the regional to the Genesee Valley Parent magazine calendar feature to reach a younger audience.

Our team does more with our marketing than just what we're asked to do by FIRST. Some of the other things we've done are invite local FLL teams to the Finger Lakes Regional, requested that General Mills consider a FIRST Robotics Competition student for the cover of the Wheaties box and requested that Lamar donate a billboard to FIRST. We asked Josten's to consider the FIRST logo for the yearbook icon selection.

Because we have two teams at our school, a varsity and a junior varsity, we've asked our district Athletic Director to award our students with a varsity or a junior varsity letter in FIRST's sport of the mind competition.

We’re also being recognized with a President's Volunteer Service Award by the President of the United States for giving more than 200 hours of community service in 2007 as a team.  Six students will receive individual hours for their outstanding  volunteer service to the community.

Next year we will learn if our request for a FIRST stamp with the United States Post Office is approved. As a non-profit organization all we had to do is submit a proposal, so we did! It takes three years to receive a response.

We held an open house on January 31 and had more than 40 people come through in two hours.  We created an open house flyer, post cards, bookmarks, and posters to inform the community about the FRC competition.

We are currently working on a "baseball"  style card featuring a photo of our robot and important facts to give out at a demo at Chili Library on May 10th. In addition to the demo we are working with the Chili Library to do pre-publicity for this event. We've supplied them with all our print materials -postcards, bookmarks and poster to advertise the March Regional and to promote our demo. All our print pieces feature our branded image with an orange and black stripe.

We live FIRST 52 weeks a year!