What to do with old robots? [Archive]

Lisa Perez

08-06-2004, 20:03

On 1, we store them in a room with all other random parts that can be used for the next season's robot.

On 573, we take them apart and use the good, unbeaten-to-a-pulp pieces (such as angle aluminum, motor mounts, and PVC tubing) for next year's robot. We do keep the well designed parts of those robots though, parts such as pneumatic powered clamps and ball roller systems, just in case we do not have their designs on CAD and would like to use a similar design later.

Greg Needel

08-06-2004, 20:06

i work with team 73 who has needless to say a few robots sitting arround.....and that is what they mostly do, sit arround. we have used them in the past for idea building using old concepts...we have also retro-fitted them with the new control system for driver practice and auto programing....besides it is always good to have more bots on the feild when practicing even if they are only just causeing road blocks

Alex Pelan

08-06-2004, 20:51

We have our now 10 robots sitting in a room somewhere in the school, in various levels of construction. For example, we had to take apart one part a couple years back because we used latex and latex isn't allowed in our school. I really think we ought to do something with them, though.

Madison

08-06-2004, 21:05

Donate them to science!

I'm in the extremely early stages of trying to develop a program for teams that coordinates FIRST Robotics Competition exhibits at science, history and industry museums throughout the country.

I'll start another thread with more details soon, I think, but it seems like something that has wide appeal and reach, allows teams opportunities for off-season education and projects, and stands a good chance of succeeding because there's very little burden upon the museums to contribute time or resources.

If you're interested in learning more before I finalize the details of what I plan to do with this, my latest zany idea, PM me and I'll fill you a bit more.

Jay H 237

08-06-2004, 21:19

Our first robot (1999) was donated to the local community college and they "reversed engineered" it. Last I heard it was still there and being used for thier CAD classes. This robot no longer had any controls since we use to have to return them back to FIRST after the last competition. Due to lack of storage space all the other robots were dismantled and destroyed. We saved the controls, motors, pneumatics and such. The ones that had TIG welded frames were cut up and the ones constructed with profile were unbolted. All the aluminum and steel pieces were sold for scrap.

I will say destroying your robots for scrap value isn't a "fundraiser" I'm proud of.

Billfred

08-06-2004, 21:27

Uhm, ours is still in the crate, untouched since Palmetto.

Hopefully, nobody gets any bright ideas over summer.

Astronouth7303

08-06-2004, 21:37

We only have 2. This year's we're going to save until we build the other one. Last year's is for tinkering.

My suggestion: Make a drivable cart out of it.

KenWittlief

08-06-2004, 21:56

Tie a long rope to it and you can use it for a lobster trap

or a boat anchor

next year you will look at last years robot, about 4 weeks after the kickoff, and think, 'what are we going to do with this old thing now?'

theres nothing quite as sad as an old robot that has no purpose anymore :c(

"Its better to burn out
than to rust away!
My my Hey hey!" -Neil Young

someone should bring one of those giant pumpkin-chunker catapults to the nationals, and after the last matches our bots can go out in a 20 second flame of glory

all the way out
to the far side of the parking lot
would save a lot on shipping that way :ahh:

tkwetzel

08-06-2004, 22:20

Some great ideas indeed:

someone should bring one of those giant pumpkin-chunker catapults to the nationals, and after the last matches our bots can go out in a 20 second flame of glory

A few of us on our team were actually planning on building one of them contraptions this summer. Along with a few other fun things to do. If only there wasn't so much value in the robots.

We have a few robots still around for design review and teaching freshman about the systems. But most of the robots have been disassembled for the use of the parts and lack of storage space.

Me really wants to go robo-throwing with a pumpkin-chunker.

scottconnery

08-06-2004, 22:29

well we have as many old bots as any team out there. Our 92 machine is on display, most of the others are used for parts/ideas on new bots and a few are rolling around to let students practice driving skills. Everyone will actully get a chance to see the 92 in action if they make it to Battle Cry. It's one of the few we still have in one piece.

Bcahn836

09-06-2004, 06:01

I think one of our mentors is going to take this years robot and use it around the house. He is going to use the plow to shovel snow off his driveway, and use the 7ft arms to take out the trash, and the robot itself is the new head of security. Would you wanna break into a house protected by one mean looking robot????

Mike Ciance

09-06-2004, 09:54

our 97,98, and 99 robots are no longer together, but from what i'm told they "didn't really need to be" by the ends of the seasons :p

we have 2000, 01, 02, and 03 sitting in a closet in the school (our 04 bot is in Big Mike's trunk). we take them out for demonstrations or just for people to try driving. sometimes we have 2 or 3 robots running at the same time. all of our robots since 2000 are still active every once in a while. we plan on keeping them for as long as they still work.

tkwetzel

09-06-2004, 10:24

It might be a lot of fun to bring out the old bots to play this years game...at an off-season cometition. Maybe someone will start an off-season competition where you have to use an old robot to compete. It would be really interesting to see how well those bots could play the new games, cause there would be robots from several different years, so they would all be designed to do different things. The best would be if a previous robot could hang on this years bar (without any modifications).

Jeff Waegelin

09-06-2004, 10:54

We disassembled our 1998 and 1999 robots at the end of the 2001 season, when we had to pack up all our stuff and move out of our shop for a year. They were non-functional, and just taking up space that we didn't really have available. It would have been nice to keep them for old time's sake, but we really had nowhere to put them. Amusingly, we saved all the parts, and ended up using quite a few of them on our 2002 OCCRA robot, and a couple on our 2003 FIRST robot.

All our robots from 2000 and later are in storage in our shop. We still pull them out for demos and testing a couple times a year. It's a really nice thing to have 5 functional and very different robots available for testing. And, we've found that some of our older robots make better demo machines than others. I think our 2002 'bot has done more demos than any other robot in our team's history. It's small, sleek, and just looks cool :p Plus, it doesn't have the tendency to attempt to kill people like our 2001 'bot... not that that's ever happened or anything...

spears312

09-06-2004, 20:21

we keep ours at our school in our resource class room. I know this last season we found an old bot that we wanted to use as a model and refrence for our new robot and took it out to where we build.

OneAngryDaisy

09-06-2004, 20:47

All of our robots' (tom, hephty, daisy I, daisy II, daisy III) drivetrains are intact and working, we use them for demonstrations and mini competitions, but most of their extremities are either non functioning, taken off, or programmed out so that people dont whack eachother in their noggins.

As a matter of fact, we used our first robot as a reference for this years' bot (transferred its ladder mechanism to our 12' telescoping arm), so its topless. Most of our robots are female tho, so I wouldn't advise calling them topless, but...

Koko Ed

09-06-2004, 20:55

Put them in what was once known as the PAW room and call it the X-Cat's museum.

Barry Bonzack

09-06-2004, 21:21

I don't want to make this sound like I want another school's bot donated to my team, but if other teams have no use for other bots, and are dismantling them, taking them apart, and selling them for scrap anyway (or chunking them with a pumpkin launcher) what about finding a rookie team in the near-by area that does not have any old robots of their own to practice with? They most likely will have extra space, and would love to see what a great bot would look like after the 6 weeks. At least the donating team will know their robot they worked so hard on is still in one piece, and they can have the satisfaction of helping a rookie team...Just an idea.

Bcahn836

10-06-2004, 06:22

Great Idea!!!

KenWittlief

10-06-2004, 09:14

FusionDude364

10-06-2004, 09:39

We have five robots, or have made 5, a few havent quite made it. We have taken 2 completely apart, used the parts for prototypes and other stuff. We've won regionals with 2 of them, so they wont be taken apart. They sit in our technology classroom and we use them for when we go places to show what we do, and we use them for practice and testing during build time. All 3 of the old robots we have still work fine and we dont ever have a problem with them breaking on us.

Jeff Waegelin

10-06-2004, 10:00

Ive found its really hard to get any meaningfull pratice with last years, or a previous years robot

for one thing, they often have a very short 'mean-time between failure' rate - you drive it for 10 minutes then spend an hour fixing something

it would be better to take the RC and build a simple practice bot - something with a basic 2 wheel drivetrain and simple frame, that will run on one battery for an hour or more, and wont load up the motors so they cook in 4 minutes.

search on 'practice' and maybe 'frank' and the one we made this year should show up in here somewhere, with photos

That's interesting. We still run our 2002 robot for practice, and we've only had one problem (old firmware on the controller that didn't like autonomous mode) in all the time we've used it for testing. That robot just doesn't quit. We've run it through 4 competitions in 2002, several weeks of autonomous testing in 2003, and countless demos at local schools all without a hitch. It's probably the most solid, reliable machine we've ever built. I guess it all depends on the robot, and how reliable and robustly it was built.

Joe J.

10-06-2004, 10:06

Out of the five robots our team has had (2 from 465 3 from 862) we only have two that still run. Both the 2000 robot and 2001 robot have been stripped down to their welded frames and those are sitting on top of our storage unit at Visteon. The 2002 robot is basicly a driving frame and is sitting in our teacher class room so we drive it around the hallways.The 2003 robot is completly dissasembled. And the 2004 bot is on display at Visteon.

Joe Matt

10-06-2004, 10:10

We have 1.0-5.0 sitting on the 2003 king of the hill parts in our lab. All of them run to a degree, expect 3.0. The frame of 3.0 has warped too much. Also, we are trying to get 1.0 up and running better. We used 2.0 this year for practace for the arm/driver cordanation. 4.0 made quite a few appearences, such as with Gov. Warner & at a local Chick-fil-a. 5.0 has made an appearence at a local elementary school, and mabey a hospital soon.

Bernie

10-06-2004, 12:26

at MOE we use three of our bots, including this year's, for demonstrations to promote FIRST, we take them to the several schools that we have students in and at events we hold. we also visit various science or academic events to show them. two of the older bots have been dissembled though, they were too big for demonstration.

we do use them for driving practice and for ideas, but their main purpose for being around is to expand FIRST.

Bcahn836

10-06-2004, 16:18

Today I started taking apart our first robot from 2002. I am putting the componets from the robot and putting them into one of those blue rubber maid containers from the 2003 game. And labeling the box "SPARE PARTS". And all scrap metal is being recycled. This years robot is going to be used for demo, and off season competitions.
One robot down two to go. LOL

nparikh

10-06-2004, 17:48

Well, our team, 25, has been involved with F.I.R.S.T. for many years. We have a lot of old robots and we keep them in a store-room in our school, that is dedicated for the use of our team. We still take out the robots every so often to play with them, practice driving, and keep them in shape...
;)

Bcahn836

10-06-2004, 18:47

crazyone

10-06-2004, 23:56

Well, our 1999 bot ended up as a star in local play and the other bots remian in semi-tac with peices missing like motors, but they mostly stay together for training and design referencing ie "like we did on the 2002 robot".

biffy96

11-06-2004, 08:22

this is are 2 year,list year bot is this year cart. we paint it and tako out the old thing and put new thing :ahh:

Bernie

11-06-2004, 14:06

ahhhhhhhhhh, the confusing-ness. SO MUCH ANTI-GRAMMAR"anti-grammar is now a word". so someone made something using something, somewhere while you painted it, eh? that was rhetorical.

Bcahn836

14-06-2004, 15:50

Today I completely finished taking apart the 2002 robot "bee bot". All of the, motors, electronics,pnuematics were kept although a few wires were sacrificed. All of the aluminum in good condition was kept.

Also I finished putting together the 2004 robot. One of the senors took the chips, gears and the bearing blocks off of it for a project and left before he could put it back on. It only took 3 of us 45 min to put it all back together. LOL

Alex Golec

14-06-2004, 19:26

find a box for them and put them somewhere, and take them out when they have another use (field testing, opponent to your 04 bot, display of past marvels, etc.) Its always fun to look over the old bots from time to time and get ideas from them. And, for the battle-worn veterans, the scrap box is the usual place for them.

Goobergunch

14-06-2004, 19:36

Given that our 2003 robot was just barely functional, we scavenged what we could (which wasn't much, especially after we explained to our mentor that it was against the rules to re-use parts) and then put the remains of the frame in the small room behind the physics room in which we store everything Friarbot-related.

We'll probably (and hopefully) keep our 2004 robot in better shape. For one thing, it still works.

tiffany34990

14-06-2004, 20:06

old bots-- for us goes in the a back store room we just cleaned up our pit so we used the old field parts stuff from 2003's game to make shelves to support the bots--

and always simply fix them up and show them and then use parts to make pro-types--and some are simply taken apart--

i think slowly everyone with small spaces is losing room to put their bots--

actually u can give new forming team old bots so they can mess around

enjoy y'all

ElfMaster

15-06-2004, 01:51

Last years robot is lying, sadly, in my garage half dismantled and unrecognizable. We basically turned it into a badly done version of this years 'bot. It worked for testing and practicing.

Matt_Kaplan1902

15-06-2004, 02:18

Next year will be the 10th anniversary of Team 108. The '03 bot was used for testing autonomous, the '02 and '01 bots are sitting in our shop missing their gearboxes and some electronics. One of our mentors want us to restore all 9 of our old robots and set them up around the Motorola Plant. That means the rest of them are sitting in storage somewhere.

-formerly sigmakid108

Gene F

17-06-2004, 13:12

I hesitate to post. It may sound like bragging. But in the hopes that other teams can find a way to do the same here it goes. Our team represents four schools from Oconee County SC. The team is run from the county wide career center (The Hamilton Career Center). The Career Center has built a set of display cases specifically for our robots and awards in one of the main halls. There is room for six robots. In addition the county historical society has asked us for the robots when they cycle out of the display case. So HCC-Up, Silver Bullet, Manuel Overdrive, Blitz and D. R. (Doug Robert) all have homes in the display cases. That isn't to say they are always there. We use the most recent ones for demos at all kinds of events. We also use the recent ones for developing autonomous.

Maybe if someone from the Career Center sees this post they will post a picture of the display cases!

Bcahn836

22-04-2005, 16:03

Revival of an old thread...

Today I started to take apart our 2004 robot :( :( . I am about half way done putting its remains in a stack attack container. We will salvage everything still useful, for next years development and shop projects. Now we are down to our 2003 robot and our 2005 robot. The 03 bot is still together because that is the team favorite, and the 2005 well isn't quite done yet.

CraigHickman

22-04-2005, 16:14

Team 114 only has one old robot still semi-functional. That would be last years. Though currently it can't drive or move, as we had to use 2 of its victors for this year's robot.

(edit) It seems we still have a large hunk (hunk being the rusted steel frame) of one of our bots out back.. This must've been from when the team still used steel.

Poseidon, our bot this year, is never going to be scrapped or taken apart. We plan to keep it as a demonstration bot and to show others how crazy of a drive train our team captain designed.

Scott Chambliss

22-04-2005, 21:59

It's sad to hear these stories of disassembled robots. While it may be necessary, I hope my team never has to do that. We gave taken a vow to leave the robot as it is. It is as "cute" as a robot can be, and we think that we should keep our team's first robot.

Jack Jones

23-04-2005, 05:56

You can make some cash by putting the electronics on eBay.

the_undefined

24-04-2005, 16:51

I think old robot's are great for autonmous programing. Our team didn't have any "old" bot's since we were rookies and you guys have just no idea how often I was thinking: "Oh I wish I could test that code on a real bot". I finally ended up putting 20 hours of work into a program that simulates parts of a robot (wheels, buttons, gyroscope, etc.) to compensate for that (and to have a nice monitoring program) but I think I will definitly test some more things with this years bot. I want to play with the camera and also see what kind of sensors we can put on and stuff like that : ) ...

Vin211

24-04-2005, 22:42

You know those birthday cards or greeting cards that are the size of a small dog? Yeah perhaps a robot can be used as a paper weight. That's what I would use mine for.

Anywho, I have seen some teams use them as practicing devices for the next season. Just something that a team can use to experience what it would possibly be like to go against another machine during build/tinker season.

danield710

24-04-2005, 23:05

we usually save the bot from the year before to practice with and give demonstrations at school with, but with the older robots we usually tear them apart and take what parts we can and we usually keep the frames

sebas2mil

24-04-2005, 23:17

well last years robot that we used to grab the multiplier ball was in one week take apart the arm and an end efector was put on and was grabbing tetras of the ground

the freshmen were pretty good

sebas

Barry Bonzack

25-04-2005, 01:44

I'm glad to see this thread back. this year I was a rookie again, and had no previous bot to work with. team 233 brought their 2004 bot to my school last December and ran it around to help us recruit new members. any old bot that still runs makes a good promo bot.

I hear my old 2004 bot on 1390... parts from it had to be taken out to be used on their 2005 bot. They broke their IFI and are now using the 2004 one to demo their 2005 bot. although it has never ran before, I hope to get the 2004 robot at the very least into a condition where it can go in a display case, however I have bigger plans for it in the future. I will be mentoring next year ::grins::

Stay tuned.

the_short1

25-04-2005, 12:20

i mentioned to our team mentors taht we should leave our ROOKIE years bots (we made two < one practice) intact 100% so we can have that for our achive.. but after that use them for practice..

it kinda helped having two 2002 canadian first robotics robots at korah to practice driving etc b4 the kickoff started.

Andrew Y.

25-04-2005, 23:10

they sit at school, go to outreach events, demo events, and promotional events, also drive them arounbd school when we borred

unapiedra

25-04-2005, 23:54

My team nearly killed me for suggesting to sell the robot.

Make an auction, and invite some media, your sponsors, and such.

Some one try this. I believe that you can make at least $5,000 with it (Maybe even more), but I can't put it up to a test. So someone else do it.

mtaman02

26-04-2005, 00:56

What does your team do with the old robots? My team has been participating in FIRST for three years now, and we are running out of space in the shop. What does your team do with the old robots?

My Old HS (McKee HS) well thankfully they have a big area just dedicated to the robotics team / class - so all their robots are still active but retired and in one piece and they all do all sorts of sponsorship type demos and orientations and what not - there was only one instance but do not quote me in which they had to take one of thier pride and joys apart for schematics for a part. Thus far though each of their girls are still in one piece and most if not all their innerds are in still prime working condition with a few exceptions - (motors - pneumatics etc - the stuff that can barely be replaced with the more modern KOP that have been recently given out)

As long as you have the space you can still keep them in one piece, previous years robots come in handy for training the rookie kids on how to drive different robots (both dimensions and programming) and even if you don't have the space you should really fight to get more space for the team, a team could start out as small as a rookie team and end up as big as Chief Delphi - Moe or TJ2 within just a few months espicially if you merge with another school or something.

AJL930

26-04-2005, 10:19

Our First robot was in several pieces before last season even began, during the build we ripped those pieces apart for the robot. Our second robot from two seasons ago is still in operating condition, we use that one for demonstrations at schools and companies. Last years robots frame is still intact but all the motors and electronics have been taken out. The owner of the shop were we built the robot wants to hang it on his wall of his office. I dont know what will happen to this years robot, I guess we will have to wait until next season to find out.