Re: Tips to make your robot look good.
 

All kidding aside, I've seen too many robots that are very pleasing to the eye but their wiring is atrocious. Spend some time routing your wires in straight lines and use some type of bundling to hold them together (zip ties, string etc...)

Re: Tips to make your robot look good.
 

With only knowledge from California, I'd say 254/968 and 1717 always have very clean, professional looking robots. They look great.

254:
http://www.team254.com/media/photos?func=detail&id=1608
http://www.team254.com/media/photos?func=detail&id=701
http://www.team254.com/media/photos?func=detail&id=3084

1717:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/31533
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/33969
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/35361

Re: Tips to make your robot look good.
 

Good driving and an awesome autonomous mode makes any robot look good on the field.

Re: Tips to make your robot look good.
 

This is my 5th year of mentoring, but when me and my fellow mentor started with the new team we were on, we recognized that a consistent image and a painted robot really does make a huge difference in your perceived competency.

There's something about taking the time to make your robot look good that also says you took the time to make sure your robot performed good. Granted the design you chose may not have been optimum, but at least you do what you set out to do.

We went with a consistent color scheme and a consistent mascot or feature that you will see on 2992's robots, we hope, for years to come.

2009 Robot "Dante"


2010 Robot "Chester"



It was as simple as a coat of paint and a plastic panel that makes all the difference in the world. Oh and of course we always put our hat on the robot somewhere. :-)

Re: Tips to make your robot look good.
 

Powder coating is great if you can get it, but a decent spray paint job can also do wonders. It's great for us amateur welders and really works if got a decent paintable vertical surface area. The last factor was an issue for many teams I saw this year, with the tunnel height (if they opted for the capability) and regulated bumper colors. This can take some forethought, and I certainly wouldn't recommend sacrificing functionality (hence the issue this season). It's worth consideration though, if not for your image than for sponsor logo visibility.

Another trick is to look durable, in both designed form and fabrication. Rack 'n Roll sticks in my head for this one. As a drive team, we'd rather not go up ramps that looked like they couldn't hold our operator console, much less our robot. It applies to every season, though. If you look durable and effective (hopefully at least in part because you are ;)), people will remember it.

The other tactic that comes to mind is consistency--over your robot/team/pit/logo/mascot/etc and over the years. We changed our shirts pretty drastically basically every year until last season trying to find something we liked and that was decently unique. I think we found it, and I'm glad we kept going until we did, but I did see the impact on scouting/name recognition during the earlier years.

And label them! ;)