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I don't get upset by the BB questions at demos. That's a good entre into telling them what FIRST is and making the major distinction that FIRST is about positive things and the robots are more sophisticated and that BB is about negative things (destroying a competitors creation).
What bugs me is when we start the season and I have to uneducate the new team members. EG. No, we cannot put a chainsaw on the front of the robot. No, we cannot make a Van de graf generator and a leydon jar and vaporize our "opponent's" electronics.
One reason that we made a ball shooter this year, even though we knew there were better ways to get balls in the goals was that it would be a much cooler demo bot that what we have done in the past.
We did a demo in a gymnasium and the kids were floored by our ability to pick up balls and shoot them. The BB questions vanished but interest was kept. The only problem, they wanted us to shoot basketballs into the little goal.
We did demos with 2001's robot and 2002's goal. We put people in the goal and pushed it around. This also kept their interest but in a positive way.
Battle bots and Robot Wars accomplish one positive thing, they get people to come up and ask questions. It's up to us to keep their interest.
Andrew, Team 356
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