[lukevanoort]

Our robot is named Occam VIII: Yottabott. We name every one of our robots Occam <number> starting with Occam 1 back in 2001. The name is in honor of William of Ockham and his Razor ('simplest solution is the best'). Then, our robots get a yearly surname; last year's surname was 'Deadline,' for example. The Yottabott surname is play on words that is only really funny to me (its pretty cheesy). Yotta happens to be the SI prefix for 1000^8 (10^24), and comes from the Greek word 'okto,' meaning eight. So, since it is our eighth robot, Yottabott seemed fitting.

To pick names, we usually just have a meeting where anyone can propose ideas and we have a vote for which one we like the most. Some names are nixed before going to vote for various reasons... 'Psychedelic Attack' is an example of one thrown out this year, due to drug-related connotations. This year, we also paired up team mottos with robot names and voted on them as a single unit. The runner up to Yottabott w/ the motto "Yotta brains, yotta brawn, notta yotta time' was The Razor (an occams razor reference) with the somewhat tounge-in-cheek motto "Raze the Bar" (I guess it is only funny if you are familiar with the 2004 game, but we thought it was humorous).

In conversation we usually don't use the surnames. We just use the numbers (which handily coincide with the year of the competition) and say something like 'Hey is 3 ready for a demo or should we get 6?"