Re: Robots in hometown parades
 

3193 runs our robot in our hometown's 4th of July parade the last 2 years. It's a 2.5 mile parade, and both years only needed one battery change. We have a pickup truck lead the way with signs, batteries, the drive controls and drive team. We pass out candy to the kids and informational flyers to the high school kids and adults. It's a great time, and the huge crowd really loves it!

Re: Robots in hometown parades
 

1089 Has for the last few years run one or more Robots in our local parades.
We do this as one of several community outreaches we do every year.

This way the local residents know us, and we get to inspire the young child watching the parade. We usually let the young kids toss the game piece(s) so we can demonstrate.

We also talk with the parents/adults along the parade route about FIRST as well as FLL, FTC and FRC. We even hand out buttons/pins to the kids to wear when we have extras.

It's a great way to get yourselves out there.

Re: Robots in hometown parades
 

We are in our local Homecoming Parade and Fourth of July Parade. We usually just put our current robot on a trailer that we decorate and drive it through the parade while team members hold banners and hand out candy and flyers. We are usually a big hit with the crowd, even without a running robot.

Re: Robots in hometown parades
 

Team 1477 - Texas Torque participated in our hometown parade. We just attached a trailer to the back of a van and put a scoring rack and the robot on the trailer. Somehow the rack was the exact width of the trailer and it ended up taking up half the space on the trailer. Part of the trailer wasn't very sturdy, so we could only demo on half of the trailer, leaving us with about 16 sq feet of space to move our robot, meaning that we only had enough space to put up tubes on 2/3 of the rack. We had to put our driver station and everything all behind the rack in an extremely cramped space with 2 people trying to drive the robot. The trailer didn't have a rear end either, so we had to tie a rope across the back to try to keep the robot from accidently driving off the rear end of the trailer (it actually worked considering we rammed the rope with the robot about 3 times while driving).

Re: Robots in hometown parades
 

We're getting ready for our parade this weekend, as a matter of fact. The five local teams [all in about a 20-mile radius from three towns] traditionally have one big float + robot-driving display in the Philomath Frolic and Rodeo parade. The local team provides the float, well decorated with robot caution tape, team flags, etc, we stick our drivers and driver stations on that, the rest of us walk alongside or behind with the robots. Of course it's a great new-student involvement activity [we stuck a team flag into the hands of a robotics-minded 8th grader last year]. Last year the whole display got Judges' Choice, I believe.

Re: Robots in hometown parades
 

MOE 365 just participated in it's first parade:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/36966

You can't really see the robot in this picture, but it was on back of a flat bed truck, moving it's arm and running a minibot. The Spirit Catcher mascot is just out of the picture on the right, which drew a lot of attention. Green mints were thrown to the crowd along the path which drew even more attention!

One nice benefit was that several politicians who were in the parade stopped by to look at the robot, including the governor of Delaware. (It's a small state; the local parades almost always has the governor, senators, and lone representative marching in them - especially in an election year).

Re: Robots in hometown parades
 

The firebirds (Team 433) have participated in the Fourth of July parade in Whitemarsh for the last four years.

We have at least one robot drive in it (usually there's two, but one had to ride on a cart this year - technical difficulties).

We've modified our 2008 competition robot to shoot candy at kids and judges. :)