Where did you get the name for your robot?

[GKrotkov]

Curiously enough, Dawgma has kept a record of our robot names and reasoning through the years, which is how I know some names/reasons that were around far before I joined the team. Here they are, as best I remember:

2006: Dawgma I
Pretty self-evident. We didn't continue the naming convention.

2007: Deuce
Named for its dual function/versatility.

2008: Galactus
Named after a comic book character, the "Devourer of Worlds" - we thought the trackball was world-like, 'cause it was so big.

2009: Alice
Named after Randy Pausch's teaching tool, a computer program that taught kids how to program. Our team had been influenced by Randy Pausch in our early years, through Rich Kressly, our founding mentor.

2010: Darwin
Something about how our program was evolving...
I don't quite remember.

2011: Geoffrey
We thought that our elevator would look like a giraffe as it telescoped up to score tubes. Reality proved our thinking wrong.

2012: Darryl
Now I know a bit more backstory about this one. We named Darryl after a star player on Lower Merion's basketball team - but there's more to it than that. Lower Merion has a storied basketball tradition, in fact, Kobe Bryant came from LM. How, you might ask yourself, did 1712 let this robot go by without naming it "Robe Bryant"? Not only did we have an actual reason to name our robot after Kobe, but his people had even given us permission! Eventually, I believe we decided against it to avoid associating ourselves with some of Kobe's off the court actions.

2013: Oddjob
Named after the James Bond character who throws his hat like a frisbee.

2014: Peter the Great Egg
A consensus name, we literally mashed together the two names that had exactly equal support: Peter the Great, and Eggy. Peter the Great came because Peter the Great had founded St. Petersburg in 1712, and Eggy came from the way our robot treated the ball.

2015: Kaylee
"Shiny"! We named Kaylee after the Firefly character of the same name, who often said that things were "Shiny". One of our programmers mentioned in passing how shiny the robot looked, and the name stuck. Though I should mention that Kaylee did not actually receive the majority of votes for a name; our captain wisely vetoed "OG Forklift".