Re: Robots after the competition
 

Yeah I am going to ask if we can keep it at our head mentor's house. The street cleaning idea is pretty cool too. :)

Re: Robots after the competition
 

Our team acquired an old trailer for storage and transportation of our robots and tools. If your team has the resources, you can scour the area for good deals (maybe even a donation?) and get yourselves one. It is awesome because we can take it to nearby off season events and regionals and have half a shop's worth of spares and tools sitting in the parking lot.

(Just make sure the roof doesn't leak, as we found out at PARC last year!)

Re: Robots after the competition
 

If for whatever reason the school doesn't allow you to keep your robot, make sure you get to it before they throw it out. Be sure to rescue your electronics, and, in particular, the cRio. All signs point towards teams having to reuse the cRio each year, so it'll save you a considerable amount if you can salvage that.

Re: Robots after the competition
 

If all else fails, ask the school for a compromise. Explain to them the virtues of having an extra running bot for demos, practice driving, and practice programming. Ask them if you can have a maximum of 2 on hand. Let the students (Past and Present) vote on which bots get to stick around. This will keep your alumni involved (at least until you trash their machine), and it will give you a working second bot to try stuff out on.

About 10 out of 14 Killerbee robots are still around. Most can be revived with a quick dusting, but some require a lot more. If Bungee and/or rubber bands are critical to it functioning, they seem to only have a lifespan of a couple years before that stuff needs replacing.

Billfred is right though that this seems like a symptom of a larger issue. Try to get involved at open houses and other stuff. Show the school the value of your team. Have each person write a personal letter to your Super-intendent and principle letting them know what this has meant to you. Most importantly, invite them to a competition or schedule a meeting and show them picutres. If they are not involved they won't get it. It is your job as a FRC member to get them involved enough to get their support.

Re: Robots after the competition
 

We made our robot for the 2007 game launch stress balls. We use it at basketball games and demonstrations. This year's robot is going to be modified so that it can shoot the balls and we will use it for demos also.

Re: Robots after the competition
 

Unfortunatly our school is not much in a compromising mood and the fact that our faculty avdvisor will not be coming back next year we are kind of at a standstill. I have sent our head mentor an email but she is not going to be able to keep it at her house and she is checking with the company but it is not looking good. At the moment we do not have any faculy advosors for next year and no one to vouch for the robot or the students. I am going to try and get to it efore they throw it out and take the electronics off and see if we can get the go ahead to convert it to a tee shirt launcher, they kind of liked that idea. Thanks!

Re: Robots after the competition
 

Did the school pay for all the supplies, metal, aluminum, or do you have a sponsor outside of school who donated materials, machined parts? If they did not pay for all the materials, they have no business insisting on having it disposed.

Re: Robots after the competition
 

I'm sorry but if it weren't for our 2006 ad 2005 robot we wouldn't have this years regional final robot. Every robot you keep helps your team prosper. We use our other robots for practice and demonstrations. Without them I can't imagine us as regional finalists. I say you need to get your current lead mentor to find a replacement immediaately. Then, they need to get your principle to see the importance of robotics no matter what. It is extremely valueable. Maybe a student can house the robot until this is figured out. I would love to store a robot at my house (It might even be my senior wish). Anyway, I can't stand to see a team break apart because of the administration. Are you going to nationals?

Re: Robots after the competition
 

we just stack our old ones in the back of our shop(all of them except the 2006 robot are squares now:P)and the 1 that we have(barely)running(2008) we use for demos and parades and stuff......

Re: Robots after the competition
 

For those in the Rochester, NY area we have Ruckus, a small competition at the end of the year to get excited about the new year. Also last year we realized we hadn't really done much to advertise so we had a couple demos to show off the robot and we even had some little kids drive it around. if you do let someone drive your robot at a demo remember to add your own E-Stop button no one wants to hear the headline "FIRST Robot injures toddler"

Re: Robots after the competition
 

Is there another team nearby that could help with storage?

P.S. You don't have your state listed in your location so it's hard for other teams know where you are.

P.P.S. This applies to a lot of users on CD - please put complete location information in your profile.

Re: Robots after the competition
 

I think the robot probably does belong to the school, since it's a school club....stuff that was donated now belongs to the school, so they can dispose of it how they please. It's very short-sighted to think of just throwing it away, as it can be a great teaching tool, unfortunately that requires a willing/dedicated teacher!

Definitely make sure they understand the monetary value of the parts....don't let that control system get thrown away!

Re: Robots after the competition
 

A couple years ago, we convinced our school to let us put a large steel storage container in the back parking lot at our school. It's large enough to fit our crates, large raw materials, field carpet, old field elements, game pieces and all our old robots.

All of our robots are kept in running condition, although some have been tweaked with for prototyping during build season. A couple hours of TLC, and we could have all of them running again. We have thought about suspending them from the ceilings in our shop (since we have like 15' ceilings).

We have always been against the idea of dismantling or destroying our robots.

Re: Robots after the competition
 

174 dismantles completely all robots a year after the year they competed. There was only one that stayed longer then that was our Diabolocal Dynamics robot...because it got us to division semi's at the championship. We kept it for about three years after that because it was the best robot we ever built. But there just wasn't enough space for it anymore (we have a very small work room). So we had to dismantle it.

I suggested we take the large orange gripper from that robot and put them up on the wall like trophy antlers....but they didn't go for that idea.

Re: Robots after the competition
 

Put knobby wheels on it and convert to pick up soccer balls.
Now it has a purpose and can be shown off anywhere.:)

Seriously, the advantages of a working robot as an educational tool are incalculable. Make it's final form useful enough to have a purpose.

Let admin drive it.

:D