2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

I recently found out that our robot is being dissolved for scrap parts from 2006. It looks pretty depressing after the numerous and extensive competitions we've put it through, but it is still kind of depressing. Never the less, we still have our incredibly durable rookie year robot, which im pretty proud of....it went through a lot of school oriented showcases, and managed to draw our intermediate school into the lego league.

I'd just like to hear what other teams have chosen to do with their 2006 robots.

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

Programming, of course! It's the only one that still has gyros, accelerometers, hall effect sensors, and the camera in some sort of working order... We still have the semblance of our older robots stored somewhere around here, but they usually end up getting cannibalized for spare parts during the build season.

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

We still have the 2005 bot floating around in the lab. We use the old ones for programming and teaching rookie drivers. We would pull spare parts off of it, but its so bent up, it wouldn't be worth it.

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

In 2005 the team finally decided to start taking apart all of the old robots including the robot from our rookie year in 1997. Last year we also took apart kg-2 for parts we didn't really need in the first place, but during the 2006 season we did build 2 kg-3 robots. When the season ended we partially took apart the spare robot. But when we wanted to get it out of storage at the end of the summer too many parts were missing in order to fix it so it laid around in the team presidents garage.
In september of 2006 we had a plan to build a robotic go cart as an activity for new members to get involved in but some events happened that made us decide to just build a driving robot because our "frank bot" http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/17637 was destroyed due to it crashing into a brike wall at full speed.

We are still constructing the practice bot by the way...

Right now the team wants to keep the Kate Gleason 3 robot together as long as we possibly can. A lot of the parts we really need have accumulated over the past 9 years anyways. And the 06' season robot is perfect and fun for demonstrations.

Thats the story with us.

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

Ordinary people think shooting balls is a pretty cool thing to do compared to, say, moving around tetrahedrons. That's why, despite our 2006 robot not performing terrible well, we're going to keep it around for demos.

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

I liked your little shooter. I know it had a few issues but it is a nice little robot. What parts are you taking off of it? Will it be something you can put back together? If you really need parts you are welcome to come raid our bins of old parts. Just don't tear apart your bot. Typically once they come apart they don't go back together.

(You can tear them apart if they are really bad. Like our 2005 bot which we no longer speak of.)

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

We normally tear apart our old robots. We keep them together until they stop working then they become spare parts. We currently still have our 2003 robot because its our t-shirt shooter, and we've been told that its never being torn apart. The 2005 robot is still around but it is missing the gear boxes, and it is slowly falling apart( i don't see it together much longer, we were thinking of using it for rookies to practice on). We also still have our 2006 robot, we've done some well needed repairs to it, and it will be running better than before. I don't see it being torn apart for awhile, at least not while the people that built it are still around. And our mast from our 2004 bot is now our 2006 control board. The main reason that the robots have been torn apart is because we don't have the space to store them anywhere, I always hate taring robots apart because 6 weeks of hard work is demolished in a matter of hours.

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

Our 2004 robot is still around for some reason. We are definately going to take that apart because it doesn't work and it's taking up space.

We tie a flag to the arm on our 2005 robot, put it on our float for the 4th of July parade and run the arm up and down. Our 2006 robot is one of the best demo robots we've ever had. So we're keeping those two.

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

our robots from stack attack ('03), triple play ('05), and aim high are still together. our robot from zone zeal ('02) is in pieces, and our robot from raising the bar ('04) is no more (all that is recognizable is the controll boards)... which is ironic because we did the best with it, 2nd place at nats :( .

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

We have every robot that we used in competition, they are on the "retired shelf". We build 2 every year so we disassemble the practice robot. We also take things off of the older robots if we need them but we do have all 11 of them. :)

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

our team has our robot from '03, '05, and '06 are still around, mainly for demos and driver practice. '04 was dissembled since it was hardly functional anyways. i think our really old robots, we ended up giving them to people on the team, so they're either already taken apart, or they're sitting in someone's garage :D

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

1126 doesn't take apart the old robots. We still got the 03' bot sitting in the attic in a classroom. In fact i am going home tomorrow to pick up Bulldog (03') and bring it down here to attract some students for the Vex team. I got a time slot to showcase my vex bot and Bulldog during the lunches Tuesday and i am very excited about it.

I don't think teams should tear apart the robots unless, there is no room at all or there is little money in the off-season and you want to improve a system. other then that, be proud of your robots and display them where ever you may.

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

We're keeping our (now damaged) 2006 robot as it still is a WIP programming wise, and has been great to demo with. People love to see us turn it on, step away from the controls and have it drive forward, find the goal, and shoot the balls in.

We also have our;
2001; we use to pull people around with at demos.
2004; Has team 60's arm on it, that was never programmed. We're fixing that.
2005; Still working. The short double jointed arm has really fluid motion and amazes people in its movement.

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

Our team still has every robot since 2000 more or less intact in storage in our room. Most work to some extent or another.

The problem we have is that the FIRST controller keeps changing and the old robots are getting obsolete so we cant fix them or get new parts. I understand that the 2007 control system will be incompatible with the old ones so all the old robots will be obsolete for field use.

Old machines are great teaching tools. Some of ours look like they fought in wars but each has a legacy of great memories to share with the new team members.

WC :cool:

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

That must be one scary room...

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

For now we have all of our robots all the way back to '93 (though it has been stripped down mostly). The '92 robot is in the possession of FIRST. I don't know where we are going to store our old robots but I would certainly hope we try our best to keep them. You can learn alot from them.

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

Take a look at the NJN program on us and they show it

http://www.raiderrobotix.org/media.htm

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

Don't destroy your robot, donate it to a good cause:

• Give it to a pre-rookie team
• Offer it to rookie teams so they have something to use at demos
• Put parts of it up on CD-Swap (controllers, sensors, motors) people are always looking for something. Maybe you can make money off it, maybe they'll pay for shipping.
• Use it as a test chassis for future ideas
• Rework it to do something cooler
• Put it in a display case
• Find someone on the team that will give it a good home (and easy access for future use)

1403 is bringing our robot to Ramp Riot! After that, we'll stash it.

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

I think we're just going to put ours in to storage for a while. If it weren't for all the cool features on the robot like the Mecanum drive and the shooter, I think we would have recycled it.(RiverRage really did a number on it)

As for our 2005 robot, we still work on programing with it. It's a sturdy bot I think we'll be testing on for quite a while. All we have left of our older robots are about 3 different arms hanging around in a closet. :D

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

One of our mentors is hiding the '06 bot at one of the captains' houses to prevent its destruction. We used to scrap robots, but 05 and 06 are still intact. (although i think 05 has lost some electronics). We rebuilt a fleet of 4 or 5 bots to do some playtesting last year. For the most part, the drivetrains were intact, but we had to drop in new electronics. The end effectors on our older bots are all but non-existent.
I'd like to keep the 06 bot for practical reasons. It's a crowd pleaser. It will be great for demos and fundraisers.

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

Our 2006 bot is on display in our electronics/robotics classroom. We're keeping all our bots together and in working order for robot demonstrations for potential sponsors, robot expos, rookie teams, and other potential teams.

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

We still have our 04, 05, and our 06 in working order. Well, almost... the 04 doesn't have any electronics, and the 05 is just a drive base...

What do you do with old robots
 

here are a few threads on what other teams do with old robots
Do robots go to heaven?
What to do with old robots
What do you do with old robots?

I am going to stick with my old suggestion from 2004. If you have a robot you don't need any more, use it for demos, or let a rookie team borrow it to learn wiring, programming, and demo around their school.

Re: What do you do with old robots
 

Also don't forget about this thread. It has some good opinions in it, as well.

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

What 2005 Robot? :(

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

I was in there the other day with Big Mike while we were getting the trophies. That room was a flashback for me to all the competitions I've seen them compete in. Yes, it was scary.

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

We have all ours intact going back to 95 with the exception of 97 which needs to its arm reattached. We actually added a second level of storage in the room where we keep the old ones to make more room.

The best reason to keep them around in addition to the programing and practice items mentioned is to have a library of mechanisms to show students how things work and give ideas for how to make things for the new game each year. If you look at our robot collection you can see the evolution of several 177 trademarks through our soon to be 13 seasons.

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

We still have our '03, '04, '05, and '06 robot. The '03 and '04 have various uses including towing rolly chairs :D as well as for me to teach programming. The '05 and '06 robots we use for demos at our various sponsors and to attract new ones. Theyre also used for community demos and such.

Theres always a reason NOT to scrap a robot!!

-Q

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

We have all three of our old robots and all are working. We play with them sometimes or take them to different events in the community. We do take parts off of them to make the spare robot but always rebuild them after the season. It is kind of fun to tell new students about the different challenges that we had over the last three years and how each robot performed. Never mash a good robot.

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?
 

we use some of our old robots to show the progression of our electonics and how we lay them out. it gives a real life example of how we have learned and improved electronics and other things on our robots.

Re: 2006 Robot: Mash it or Stash it?