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Do Androids Dream of Custom Shirts?

Posted By Miellyn Barrows —

Since 1999, robots have been systematically coming to life at a suburban Maryland high school. This group of students and their mentors at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring call themselves FRC Team 449: The Blair Robot Project and are dedicated to learning engineering through building robots and competing with other robotics teams at a world level. The social and mental skills they develop are just as important as the STEM, and they take all that they learn and push it out into the community by teaching and coaching others. They hope that the work they do will help encourage kids to go into careers in STEM. And they strengthen those connections by doing it all in custom t-shirts and hoodies.

“We like to have custom gear for our competitions,” says a representative of the team. “We attend around 4-6 competitions a year, along with a ton of outreach events, and we want to have a unified presence at these events.”

Make customized shirts
for your school team
  1. Find your school colors.
  2. Upload your logo or design an image.
  3. Add your team name.
  4. Make a group order.
  5. Share it with everyone.

The team took their inspiration for the name from The Blair Witch Project, a 1999 indie horror movie that became a cultural phenomenon the same year the team was formed. It seemed to fit well with the fact that the school’s nickname is Blair, and it’s stuck for the last twenty years. The logo was inspired by the movie as well, and they’re still using it. “Our team’s logo was made years ago, and we’ve just refined it as needed over the years.” It connects the current members to all those who have come before.

In addition to wearing matching gear, having funny team names and interesting t-shirt designs can help them or any other school club stand out from the crowd. Custom hoodies and custom t-shirts help them feel more like a team.

Each team member is able to personalize their own gear by adding their name to the back. “One of our team members made the shirt design. We placed student names on the back and our own logo on the front.”

The team recently ordered new custom hoodies to wear to compete in this year’s World Championships in Detroit. “Everyone really liked having new jackets, and a lot of people ordered extras for their family and friends.”

It can be really special to share your school event with friends and loved ones and let them show their support. “Custom items give us a cohesive appearance and a good brand and image to rally around. They also allow our students to feel a sense of pride in being part of a team.”

 

Design your own shirt and make customized shirts for your school team using these five easy steps.

1. Find your school colors. Custom Ink’s broad selection of ink colors and shirts make it easy to represent your school with just the right hue.

2. Upload your logo or design an image. Easily upload, place, and resize your design or find school mascots and all sorts of clip art in the Design Lab to make something great.

3. Add your team name. There are hundreds of fonts to make it your own so you can include your team’s name, a slogan, hashtag, social or anything else you like.

4. Make a group order form. Everyone can place their own orders, find and enter their sizes, pay for their items, and even have them shipped directly to their doors.

5. Share it with everyone. Everyone on (and off) the team can rally for your group in their own custom gear. Just share a link and make it happen.

Miellyn is the Director of Marketing Content at Custom Ink. Her work has spanned marketing for television networks like TLC and Travel, educational content for Smithsonian and National Geographic, marketing and story for indie video games, essays for publishers including Random House, The Telegraph, and Smart Pop Books, and stories for press outlets like VICE and VH1.

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