Hello,
My 8th grade team is moving on to VRC next year and will be in the high school with a new number. They’ve requested that I retire their IQ number. I’m just wondering if that’s common practice for teams to do and if it is, how would I offically retire their number.
Thanks!
My school has a team of seniors that has had a profound impact on our school. One of the people started our entire robotics program, got us money for programs, and completely worked our VRC teams. The other did similar things for our vex iq program. They both met up for 2 years in VRC and were very successful.
Dumped a lot of information there but yes I would say that if you believe that the team has done enough for your school, than go for it!
I don’t think there is a way to officially retire the number, but you’re the coach so you can just prevent your kids from using the number anyway. And yes, this seems like a reasonable practice and a good way to honor a team!
Something similar happened in our organization, but funnily enough, it’s because that team was the only team in our organization to ever use the letter Q, and then after they graduated, Q was banned. But yes, definitely consider doing so if they’ve had a great impact on the program!
I honestly don’t really like the practice of retiring numbers, so I would recommend not, but if the team requested it, then you should probably do it.
Thanks for the response. Is there a reason why you don’t like the practice of retiring numbers?
I do feel like this team deserves to be honored, but I’m also afraid that this will be an expecation for teams in the future. I’m afraid it might make team numbers more complicated than they need to be.
If their team had alot of acconplishments or new school recorss i wpuld retire their letter. If not i wpuldnet.
I don’t like the practice because I think new teams should be able to pick what letter they want and not be affected by teams in the past. I have experience being a new team, and choosing the right letter for the team can be difficult. I do think it is important to honor good teams, but maybe not in that way.
In my organization, we reuse the same letters in every season ever since we first competed (in Turning Point, I think, possibly even earlier). Keeping the same letters allows teams to understand some of the legacy behind the organization and their specific team.
Then it comes down to which is more important:
At the end of the day it’s just a letter, Your not gonna get denied worlds because of a letter. I think it’s best to honor the team.
It depends, if that team has made a major impact on your program then you should do it, we had a team (65292C) that made worlds division champs during change up and our teacher retired it to honor the team, if they haven’t made a impact then there is no need to retire it.(Your might need to unretire the number if there are too many people in an org tho)
This team was the first IQ team in our program. They also were the first to qualify for our state competition and qualified two years in a row. They also were invited to worlds for two years. They didn’t win anything at state or worlds, but I do feel they did well considering they didn’t have as much experience as the other teams they were up against. They didn’t have a robotics program at the elementary level, so when they started, everything was brand new. I also had no idea what I was doing as their coach.
Yes, I do feel they earned the honor, but I’m hesitant to retire their number. As my program grows and teams become more competitive, I’m not sure if other teams will expect their team number to be retired if they also qualify for state and worlds.
I’m considering maybe retiring numbers until the students graduate high school and then if I need their number, I will use it then.
I would retire it because they were the first team. The didn’t do anything extraordinary but considering they were the first team I think it’s enough to retire the number.
I would say retire the number. Assuming they’ve been a hard-working team and had some success it makes sense.
Yeah. I think I will. They actually exceeded my expectations when I started the program. I didn’t expect them to win any awards and much less qualify for state two years in a row.
I think moving forward teams will need to do more than just qualify for state for their number to be retired. Perhaps winning an award at state will be for the next team number I retire.