For the past few years, 1189 has used fabric for either robot parts (
2006), or robot coverings. One of our mentors/sponsors is a wonderful seamstress, and she takes care of all of our bumper and robot clothing needs. What we call our robot clothing is a easy way to protect the electronics, springs, wires, chains, etc. of our robots, display sponsor logos, and look good (don't forget, your robot's image plays a part in the Imagery award!). All of the "1189"'s in the following pictures are fabric numbers that are sewn on, but the yellow diamonds and sponsor logos are all some kind of laminated sheeting. I think that they might actually be stickers that were sewn on, because we have a ton of look-alikes sitting in a folder in our shop that are definitely stickers.
2007:
2008:
For the past few years, our robot designs haven't allowed us to use fabric coverings. 2009 didn't need it - we had a lexan-aluminum-and-zip-ties robot. This year we needed a hard surface to serve as a ball deflector, so we painted a piece of regolith yellow (it was last minute!), and plastered sponsor stickers all over the frame and the regolith. Stickers work well, as long as they're either sewn to something or attached to a hard surface.
(...this post coming from the team with 3 spirit awards and 3 imagery awards)