Demo Ideas
 

So I was wondering if anyone could tell me what your team does at demos to entertain the kids. We currently let them drive the robot and are looking for some more ideas. We also are thinking about setting up 5th Gear for one demo.

Re: Demo Ideas
 

Aside from the main robot, we will bring a smaller, more kid appealing robot.

His name is ZEDD, and he's equipped with an LED cube, music system, voice synthesis, a chat program (so the kids can talk to him), and he used to have a program that would allow children to program him (touchscreen interface with drag and drop blocks of code coupled with a meccanum drive).

Kids love to talk to him, and the really little kids love to watch the LED cube.

Re: Demo Ideas
 

Do you have a picture? It sounds awesome and I'd like to see it.

Re: Demo Ideas
 

I'll see what I can find. We'll be looking for a way to take him down to St. Louis and hopefully have him up in top shape (had to take his banebot transmissions as we tore up the ones on our comp robot).

Re: Demo Ideas
 

Here you go!

Re: Demo Ideas
 

This might be a better one...

Re: Demo Ideas
 

At 461 we usually, along with an FRC bot, bring lego bots and Vex bots for the kids to control. One thing kids seem to like a whole lot is a scorpion made from legos that senses people using the sonar sensor then "stings" them.

Re: Demo Ideas
 

Also if you keep your old competition bots, some games' robots are particularly conducive to demos. '09 with the brightly colored balls, '06 if your bot shoots the balls in an interesting manner, etc. Sometimes we let kids play "catch" with our '06 bot, as the balls are pretty soft and harmless.

Re: Demo Ideas
 

'09 was probably the safest and most fun robot to demo. During a Memorial Day parade, we attached a small flatbed trailer to an suv. In the trunk of the suv sat our driver, and I sat next to the robot, refilling it. We'd shoot the moon rocks into the crowd, and all the kids would chase them and throw them back to us.

Re: Demo Ideas
 

Thanks for the pictures! That looks pretty sweet. What's the black wire tied on the bot? A tether? Weird color for a tether...

When we were strapped for cash last year, our '09 bot was stripped of all electronics. We've restored everything on the robot to original working condition, sans pesky bumpers that just take up space. :D

Tank drive and a four button lift/dump mechanism makes it really easy for anyone to drive, and it just functions with such majesty. Probably should swap out the regolith wheels for some standard wheels soon.

Our '11 robot was tons of fun to demo at our Rising Freshmen Night because it's almost as simple: tank drive, five-button grabber and joystick lift, with two button minibot deployment.

'10 was a glorified pizza box on mecanum wheels, and therefore, hard to show off.

Re: Demo Ideas
 

The pictures posted were before its completion. Still looking for some better ones.

Re: Demo Ideas
 

We bring vexbots for kids to drive (and then we play the "go hit that guy in the brown shirt" game). Our demo-bot is our '07 bot. At our last demo (with 1732), we had kids feed tubes to the robot and put them on part of this year's rack. Kids really liked "feeding" the robots.

If you have/sell hexbugs, we sometimes have those running around too.

Also: BUTTON MAKING STATION! Get some extra button supplies and have kids make buttons. :D

Re: Demo Ideas
 

we demo whatever robot we have, hopefully we will be able to keep more robots as i think we have freed up a lot of space. currently we have 2010 and 2011 robots to demo. this years robot is impressive as gets a lot taller than the 2010 robot.

Re: Demo Ideas
 

Is there enough room for driving a robot in a 10x10 area do you think?

Re: Demo Ideas
 

I doubt it. HIGHLY doubt it. 10' by 10' is the size of an FRC pit. You won't be able to do much in terms of driving. Arm movement, sure. Spinning, probably. Doing much else, probably not.

Now, if you can bring a minibot pole, you put the robot facing the wrong way to deploy, spin around, and deploy. That ought to be doable in a 10' square area.

Re: Demo Ideas
 

Prizes, prizes, prizes!

As if a kid wasn't already thrilled to be driving a robot, the opportunity to win prizes while doing so will have them lining up.

One of the ideas that we have been kicking around is creating a mini-game with FTC parts. Possibly something that would shoot ping pong balls through a hoop, or something along those lines.

Let the kids come up and touch the robot and see the inner workings. You probably can't explain the intricate details (depending on the age group), but its always nice to try and find someway for them to come away with a bit of new knowledge.

It's also pretty easy to do a little bit of FLL recruitment. Bring some legos and give some of the kids a shot to see what they can build in a small amount of time. Get the creativity flowing.

Re: Demo Ideas
 

It depends on the age of the audience and the venue (and the venue's size limitations). Here's what our team has done at smaller venues.

At Elementary school demos (eg. during a Science Fair), our students will set up a simple 'knock em over' game and let the kids drive a VEXbot.
Pictures here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/saintsr...57626507422496
http://www.flickr.com/photos/saintsr...57626507422496


One of our mentors has provided his Parallax Scribblers, Boe-Bots, and "walkers" for entertainment.
Pictures here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/saintsr...57626122938315
http://www.flickr.com/photos/saintsr...57626122938315
http://www.flickr.com/photos/saintsr...57625707617879
http://www.flickr.com/photos/saintsr...57625707617879
http://www.flickr.com/photos/saintsr...57625707617879
http://www.flickr.com/photos/saintsr...57625707617879

Scribbler S2 in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk_wa...eature=related


NXT is great for kids whether or not they've had any prior FLL exposure. Bring a laptop for programming!
Pictures here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/saintsr...57626122938315
http://www.flickr.com/photos/saintsr...57625707617879
http://www.flickr.com/photos/saintsr...57625707617879

Re: Demo Ideas
 

Here are some close ups of our 8x8x8 LED Cube!

It has 512 Tri-Color LED's total with 8 cathode and 1 anode board controlling it

Let us know what you think!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?p...&id=1248860247

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?p...&id=1248860247

PS: If your team wants to build one, let us know and we can help you out with the schematics

Re: Demo Ideas
 

We give out last year's buttons, and always have a big board where kids can think up and write down a name for next year's robot (which has to have MOE in the name). Don't know if we have ever used one, but we've gotten some interesting names.

Re: Demo Ideas
 

In that small a space with an FRC robot we usually play a game of catch with the elementary aged kids.
An arm robot of some type holds a bucket and the kids try to throw orbit or poof balls into it while the drivers bob and weave.
The reward is candy, give aways, or buttons.

We did play golf (putting) with the 2010 soccer robot where the kids could putt against the robot.

In a small space the bigger robots are too dangerous for the kids to drive safely.