[Billfred]

1293 ran their 2005 robot in some parades that year. Some advice:

1) If your robot is done with competitions, consider pneumatic tires. Converting to them saved us a bit of wear and tear on the rest of the robot.
2) If you're still competing, a trick Don Rotolo mentioned involved wrapping your wheels in painter's tape, then duct tape. Similar effect, but it saves your wheels from the damage of the road.
3) Think of how you're going to handle batteries. 1293 modified their robot to add a tray to hold an extra three or four--just disconnect the dead one, plug in the new one, and roll on. (This was in the days of the IFI controller, where connections were made in seconds rather than minutes.)
4) Think of how you're going to drive it. Do you have a trailer to operate your driver station on? Hard to juggle joysticks and a classmate if you're just walking.
5) Think of how you're going to handle the robot if it dies mid-route. This happened to 1293 in the Irmo Okra Strut parade when a set screw backed out, and led to me pushing probably close to 175 pounds of robot and extra batteries a good half-mile to the finish. Be able to load it on a trailer if it fails, or draft a linebacker from your school's football team for the parade just in case.

I think they've done a couple of parades since, but I don't know the specifics (I stopped working with them full-time after the following FRC season, but still keep in touch).