My robotics team won the Amaze Award as well as the Programming Skills Finalist Award at the World Championships for Gateway last year, and I was wondering if you could tell me who the Awards are meant to go to. After we came back from the World Championships we were all extremely excited, and wanted to have the Awards displayed in our school trophy case, and they have been there for over a year now, but since we are now seniors who are leaving the school we wanted to have the trophies back to keep for the sentimental value. When we went in to get the trophies back our school administration told us that they belonged to the school as we were a team competing for our school and that we were not allowed to take the trophies from the trophy case. What I came here to ask is who do the trophies belong to technically speaking? I was personally given the Awards at the World Championships, and I assumed that the trophies were meant to go to the members of the team, but I was wondering if there is some Vex policy that states that they belong to the school from which the team competes. Thank you very much.
Iāve moved this thread to the general forum, so all teams can weigh in on this issue. Iāve also sent this message to the RECF so they can give an official answer.
IMO the school purchased the equipment and materials, paid the teachers salary, and paid your entry feeās (assuming since most schools do). You have memories, pictures, and something to put on a college application.
With that being said we have invited a couple of local students to join our team, and having had nearly every dime come out of my pocket I would gladly part with sportsmanship and judges trophies, but Excellence, Design, Championship, and ANYTHING won at worlds would stay on our shelf with the preexisting team trophies.
This is common, if you go by many schools you will see trophies dating back decades in the trophy shelf. By being on the team you represented the school, but the trophy represents the schools robotics programs achievements.
Alright thanks a lot. Iām interested in seeing what other people think about the issue.
Ya I would agree with that, but in our case we received no funding from our school. All of the costs for registration and the materials were paid out of pocket or through fund raising that we did.
What do your teachers/mentors think? I get the feeling that this would be like fighting city hall. The administrator is kind of like a referee in the VRC matches, he will have the final word unless you take it to the school board which I think is a futile effort.
Leaving the trophy with the school will help promote the program and inspire future students, and perhaps that would be a lasting legacy that in the long run is more valuable than any trophy you could put on your own shelf!
Bingo. Itās not about you, itās about the pursuit of knowledge. Put them up to inspire everyone who comes after.
Perhaps vex could make the worlds trophies available for sale upon some sort of identification? That would solve this issue for hopefully minimal cost.
The REC Foundation, organizers of the VEX Robotics Competition, and its Event Partners present teams, organizations, and programs with awards to recognize their accomplishments throughout the competition season. Once an award is given it is up to each team, organization, or program to decide how to manage the award. The REC Foundation makes no statement and has no policy regarding ownership of these awards once they are given.
Tarek Shraibati
REC Foundation
Not necessarily. If the school gave no help or funding to the team, then why does it deserve to keep the trophies? Every few years, old trophies seem to disappear from our schoolās shelves, I have no idea where they go. It would be a shame for the symbol and souvenir of a teamās accomplishments to sit in a storage closet, or be thrown away, several years after the team graduated and those accomplishments were forgotten.
Issues like this are one reason that it is cool that they give out personal participation trophies/medals and World Champion medals for individuals to keep.
That would be so cool.
I like this solution.
Ok thank you very much for taking your time to reply.
Ya I think the best approach for me now is to just talk to my principal and basically say that Iām ok with them keeping the awards, but I want to make sure that they donāt just end up getting tossed away in some bin somewhere. If they ever take them off display I would want them to contact me so I could pick them up.
Our school made us disassemble all of our trophies and put the little plates on a plaque for āinsurance reasonsā in an earthquake. They let us keep all the worlds trophies alive at least. I kept all the parts and plan on resurrecting them later. Anyways, be glad that all of your trophies are still intact. 
Thatās crazy. I guess I know nothing about earthquake preparation, though. So it might not be too insane.
We have a shelf in the front office with the awards weāve won on it. Itās getting full, though. After this next season, Iām not sure what weāre going to do. Any suggestions? We could build a set of shelves in our robotics lab, but that sort of defeats their purpose of inspiring more students to join the team.
I donāt know if anyone has seen the wall āoā trophies at Gladstone Secondary, but teams 2_ have accumulated almost enough VEX trophies that they could use them as earthquake reinforcement if they bolted them all together!
Seriously, though, if you choose to represent your school, then you are a school team. School team trophies stay at the school. If you want a personal momento, Iād suggest a photo of you and your teammates being awarded the trophy, signed by all your teammates and mentor(s), and put in a nice frame.
Jason
Any pics of there trophies?
The team webpage has a fewā¦ but not of them mounted to the wall where they are regularly.
Jason
Editā¦ I guess thatās why you leave them at the schoolā¦ they donāt accumulate very fast otherwise!
Our team has a window that shows into our shop, so we leave all our trophies in the window for the school to see. Actually, at our last meeting I used some vex bolts and metal to attach all of our vex trophies together so it is easier to store them in the window.
Weāve got a portion of our engineering wing trophy case dedicated to our trophy storage. Its a bit tucked out of the way, but easy to show off to anyone interested in engineering.