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FIRST Robotics Competition pins @ Epcot — any information beyond what's online?

FIRST Robotics Competition pins @ Epcot — any information beyond what's online?
rubyroboking

rubyroboking

Robot Enthusiast | THE FIRST MUSEUM
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Massachusetts
Hi! I'm currently opening up a museum about the FIRST Robotics Competition in my home state. From 1995-2002, our national/world championships were held at Disney/Epcot. There are two photos of enamel pins from 2000 and 2001 (see photos to this thread). One of these (2001) is not in disneypinforum's database. This makes me think there could be more out there. Thoughts?
(Also not the point of this thread: If you participated or have FIRST pins up for sale, please let me know. I would like to preserve them!)
1000023591.png1000023593.png
 
I’m pretty sure I remember seeing three designs? I don’t remember coming across any others but there could be more. The one you don’t have here is this one from 2002 on pinpics: Epcot - FIRST Robotics Competition 2002

I’ll dig through my old FIRST stuff and see what I have, I think I may have a few from regionals in more recent years if you’re interested?

I’ve been looking for the FIRST Epcot pins and they’re really hard to come by, so if by any chance you have extras of those I’d definitely be interested in buying them from you or trading.
 
Character Robots - Robot 6 Pack Booster Set | PIN 122151
Pin & Pop ID: 122151
Pin Character Robots - Robot 6 Pack Booster Set | PIN 122151
Release Date 2026
View on Pin & Pop
 
Uuum...I think she might be real? Username matches her topic of interest and while DPF isn't a database I think she might be referring to Pin&Pop?
I might be biased though because I have met several people who had started their own personal small museums and obtained the legal nonprofit status etc for them as well as insured them.

More importantly she isn't trying to sell us anything or link anywhere shady lol
I guess we'll find out? (So sad we have to play the is it a bot or is it a person game.)
 
@ViciousLady @Pidge @Nursteve @hopemax (sorry for pinging, I'm unable to figure out how to quote reply on this). I couldn't tell if being called a robot was a joke (since I am asking about robotics pins...) but rest assured I am not a bot! I'm looking to run a homegrown museum for the FIRST program, not for Disney pins! ViciousLady is on the mark, I have nonprofit status for a Makerspace that is sponsoring the space and we already have insurance. Sorry if that wasn't clear before.
I'm trying to do enamel pin / photo display of the 1995-2002 years when my program was at Epcot for their nationals/world championships. I'm not sure how to prove my humanness, but I'll attach my personal pin collection for now 🙂 1000023184.jpg
They're hard to see but my program does pins every year in accordance to the new game they make. Rebuilt, 2026's game, is in the bottom right. You can see the others in order. To the left there are safety pins, volunteer pins, and more. We have a smaller trading community than Disney Pins, we mostly trade shirts actually!
You guys can also look up my username in most major social media platforms and find my real face! Would it help to have a profile picture? I'll submit a drawing I got commissioned on VGEN.
Sorry for responding super late, I was making displays for the enamel pins.
 
If it also helps people, I also love ITA bags! Here's an ITA bag with some of the pins in the above photo. 1000023608.jpg
My program also does hand-pressed badge/buttons from each team, here's some of my favorite designs:
1000023609.jpg
And here's two instances of patches that will be preserved at my grass roots Makerspace:
1000023611.jpg
1000023610.jpg

Sorry I can't really contribute anything to this website beyond my personal stuff and the pins I'm searching (thank you to whoever mentioned 2002!). I've always wanted to get into the pin scene but I've never been to Disney in my life, let alone watch the movies. My favorite film is The Emperor's New Groove.
 
Pidge said:
I think @ViciousLady wins the prize. Good luck with your museum. Sorry we called you a bot. We have had a few unusual new members lately. I hope you can get the help you are looking for. And there are LOTS of cute ENG pins. I love the Yzma as a cat and Bucky pins myself.
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Thank you! Not offended at all, I totally get it. Hopefully I can get to Disney and start my pin collection soon 😁
 
@rubyroboking - I always love seeing designs from other pin communities, and trading shirts sounds interesting.
Usually I don't recommend ebay because I hate to encourage pin scalpers, but I will say I think there is currently a FIRST robotics Disney pin for sale if you wanted to check it out.

Sorry for being uncertain of your human status, it's this awful post AI world we live in now. Wish you luck in the pin hunt and with the museum, passion projects are wonderful!
 
I am glad to see you return with more information. Your post unfortunately hit at the wrong time. If you review the last couple of posts in the DPF Information Center, it's not just the AI posts, which your post had a few similarities in format to our non-human visitors, but we also had a weird donation email. I just want to make sure we haven't ended up on some scam radar via the forum software or something. Several years ago now, we did have a major hack that really messed the site up, so I'd rather be safe than sorry with so much *waves hand* in tech / AI world.

FIRST Robotics is not usually a theme pin people have questions about, beyond. "I got this pin, what is it?" I recently asked how people found our forum because usually newer pin people seem to head over to the myriad of Facebook groups, Reddit and newer forms of social media, so I am curious as to how you found us? The original and oldest Disney pin information website is PinPics.com. You do have to be a registered member to read the Descriptions, but if you sign up you can see, those aren't very descriptive either, even with being released contemporaneously with the listings being added. Official Disney Pin Trading started in October 1999, and while some conventions did have pins associated with them before pin trading was an official thing, it wasn't a widespread thing. So I don't think there is likely to be older pins. I am fairly confident that someone would have at least added other FIRST pins in the early years of PInPics, when people were eager to track down pins not in their database. After 25+ years, though, your knowledge of the event is probably more than any of ours.

Pins

The original FREE online database for Disney Pin Trading. Trade and catalog your collection in a safe and secure community of Disney Pin Traders.
pinpics.com pinpics.com

I'll also tag @Chusaurus as Robotics is an interest of theirs.
 
hopemax said:
I am glad to see you return with more information. Your post unfortunately hit at the wrong time. If you review the last couple of posts in the DPF Information Center, it's not just the AI posts, which your post had a few similarities in format to our non-human visitors, but we also had a weird donation email. I just want to make sure we haven't ended up on some scam radar via the forum software or something. Several years ago now, we did have a major hack that really messed the site up, so I'd rather be safe than sorry with so much *waves hand* in tech / AI world.
Click to expand...
I figured out how to quote reply! It's all good, I reviewed it after we cleared things up. I totally understand and I'm not offended at all. Similar robotics threads have been hit as well. All in all we are good, thanks for welcoming me with open arms once I proved my humanness!

hopemax said:
I recently asked how people found our forum because usually newer pin people seem to head over to the myriad of Facebook groups, Reddit and newer forms of social media, so I am curious as to how you found us?
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Long story short: Google + my knowledge about Disney pin collecting. The last year I've stumbled 20+ content creators who pin collect at the parks. I'm a fellow niche collector myself so this content is very welcome (and I want to get into it!). So when I discovered these pins this year, I knew there would be a Disney/Epcot collecting website somewhere. From there I Googled it. Somewhere on the sixth page of Google I found a database/photo gallery that had a photo of a 2001 pin I hadn't seen before. It linked me back to here. This was the only website I found with moderately active discussions where I could post a "Help me!" question. Sorry if this was a long answer!

hopemax said:
After 25+ years, though, your knowledge of the event is probably more than any of ours.
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That would be correct. Our nationals was held in the parking lot at Epcot 🤣 it was originally outside the American Gardens Theatre but I guess we grew too fast! The first FIRST pin is actually the 1999 Nationals pin at Epcot, so yes it does pre-date Disney pin trading! We actually have more photos than what's publicly available on PinPics and other alike sites. When I get back to my desktop I'd be more than happy to upload them 😁
Sorry for the long post. Thank you again! You guys are nice (to humans at least!)
 
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