FIRST Robots to Lead Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

[Wayne C.]

Here's a hypothetical situation: suppose your team was marching in the parade. What would you do to get the crowds eye for FIRST?

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Wayne C.

Here's a hypothetical situation: suppose your team was marching in the parade. What would you do to get the crowds eye for FIRST?

Wear Hawaiian Shirts in the cold of November

[JohnSchneider]

Originally Posted by Wayne C.

Here's a hypothetical situation: suppose your team was marching in the parade. What would you do to get the crowds eye for FIRST?

Marching with the tubes from '11 might be viable from cameras and you could make the logo pretty easy. Its also pretty unique and FIRST specific.

[Michael Hill]

If robots are really going to be driving the route, I'd suggest modifying the robot to use a 40 Ah car battery instead of a standard FIRST 17 Ah battery. That's a long route and changing batteries every 10 minutes would really slow things down.

[Greg McKaskle]

I'd also suggest that you try to use 5GHz radio and bring a tether cable as backup.

Greg McKaskle

[Hallry]

^Along with the above suggestions, I would also suggest being ready to expect the unexpected...Having been in the parade (as a balloon handler, for the Spongebob balloon ) before (my mom was a balloon captain for 15 years until receiving her Rollie Award after numerous years of being a balloon handler), there were many times that the parade stopped completely for a for a couple of minutes as well as many times that we were literally running for a few blocks to catch up to those ahead of us. This is due to commercial breaks (it is, after all, a parade-for-TV), and the fact that acts/floats/balloons must get to the Macy's building at just the right time to air. Most people don't know, but the Broadway Show Performers that you see on TV in the beginning of the broadcast (~1st hour) don't actually march in the parade, they are just at Herald Square performing until the parade finally reaches there.

Also - be sure you're wheels will be able to handle the 6-mile trek on a road! If I remember correctly, it took us somewhere between 1.5/2 hours to complete the parade from the time we started marching to the time we put the balloon down.

Huge congratulations and best of luck to the teams in the parade! Do we know yet which ones they are?

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

OK, so do I watch for robots in the Macy's parade, or watch for my daughter in the Detroit parade? Decisions, decisions.

As someone from the NYC area - There's a parade in Detroit too!?!

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by Hallry

As someone from the NYC area - There's a parade in Chicago too!?!

You mean Michigan?...

[RoboMom]

Originally Posted by Wayne C.

Here's a hypothetical situation: suppose your team was marching in the parade. What would you do to get the crowds eye for FIRST?

If they are marching with a robot - T-shirt shooter? With special edition FIRST - Macy Day Parade shirts? Banners? Balloons? Lots of LEDs - on marching shirts.

[Hallry]

Originally Posted by Navid Shafa

You mean Michigan?...

Thanks, it was an early morning

[Kimmeh]

Originally Posted by Hallry

As someone from the NYC area - There's a parade in Detroit too!?!

...As someone from the Thumb of Michigan I second this question...

[Mr_I]

What an AWESOME bit of news!

This is really spectacular, and mega-kudos to all those unsung heroes who made this happen!

Outstanding!

[peetam22]

Yes, a car battery is going to work a lot better than the ones we normally use. The real big change besides modifications is changing the controls so that you use just the controller and don't need the joystick. It'd be a pain to make a carrying support for the joystick. With all you need to do being drive, cut the ribbon, and perhaps only one other function?, you can use just the controller for it! A thought to keep in mind for whoever's going. Congrats to those who are and to FIRSTas a whole! Way to make it loud!

[Larry Lewis]

I am glad that someone was finally able to get this going! Our team applied for the parade in 2010 and were rejected. It is great that people in FIRST were able to work with Macy's to make it happen now.

[MrForbes]

More info....


http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20131107006532/en

[RoboMom]

Originally Posted by RoboMom

If they are marching with a robot - T-shirt shooter? With special edition FIRST - Macy Day Parade shirts? Banners? Balloons? Lots of LEDs - on marching shirts.

Confetti works! keeping confetti out of the robot works even better.