Old Man Notices A Thing: Lots of Robot Names

[Jared Russell]

But are you referring to what robots are named, what their names are called, what robots are called, or what the robots are?

'You are sad,' the Knight said in an anxious tone: 'let me sing you a song to comfort you.'
'Is it very long?' Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry that day.
'It's long,' said the Knight, 'but it's very, very beautiful. Everybody that hears me sing it -- either it brings the tears into their eyes, or else --'
'Or else what?' said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.
'Or else it doesn't, you know. The name of the song is called "Haddocks' Eyes".'
'Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?' Alice said, trying to feel interested.
'No, you don't understand,' the Knight said, looking a little vexed. 'That's what the name is called. The name really is "The Aged Aged Man".'
'Then I ought to have said "That's what the song is called"?' Alice corrected herself.
'No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The song is called "Ways and Means": but that's only what it's called, you know!'
'Well, what is the song, then?' said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.
'I was coming to that,' the Knight said. 'The song really is "A-sitting On a Gate": and the tune's my own invention.'

[EricH]

Torbot naming rules: Gotta have "Tor" in the name somewhere. Bonus points if it's a bad pun.

We've had a couple of Tormentors, Entorprise (with Galileo, the minibot), Trogtor, Trajector, JaniTOR, and Bantor. I'm missing a few here...

[dodar]

Originally Posted by EricH

Torbot naming rules: Gotta have "Tor" in the name somewhere. Bonus points if it's a bad pun.

We've had a couple of Tormentors, Entorprise (with Galileo, the minibot), Trogtor, Trajector, JaniTOR, and Bantor. I'm missing a few here...

Has to be one named Doctor.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by dodar

Has to be one named Doctor.

Don't think there was.

OTOH, then there's the RoboDox--every last one of those robots is named after a specific branch of being a doctor. Trying to remember what they called this one...

[tig567899]

We're a rookie team this year, but being a robot with a tall blocker, we named it the Iron Curtain. Kinda fits what the robot can do?

[mrnoble]

2007: GhettoBot
2008: the Beat Bot
2009: I don't remember Lunacy
2010: the Covered Wagon
2011: Bruce
2012: the Toilet Bowl
2013: Deus Ex Machina
2014: Phoenix
2015: the Bus
2016: Horton

[GeeTwo]

Robot names have been around for a while; when I look back at a lot of the heaviest CD posting years (2003-2005) I see plenty of robot names; I don't know how much farther back they go, but I'd guess that far more than half of the robots that have competed have had names, even if only known within the team that built it. When you put six plus weeks of creative work into something, it's human nature to name it.

Favorite names and favorite robots seem to go together. As I started a mental list of favorites, I hit a dozen before typing any. I knew I would leave too many out, so I'll pass. In most cases, one word names are best, and most of the memorable multi-word names are puns or (usually geekish) references.

We're only in our fifth year, but we've named all but one of our competition robots and all three of our prototype/practice robots.

2012 Rebound Rumble: T1G3R (All our later competition robots are officially T1G3R^year-2011.)
2013 Ultimate Ascent: T1G3R² (not properly a name by Dr. Joe's description; internally, we simply call it the frisbee launcher because all of the students that had anything to do with it but one have graduated.)
2014 Aerial Assist: Buzz (our prototype/practice robot was Woody, named after the primary material in its chassis, and Buzz was a natural for the Aluminum follow-on)
2015 Recycle Rush: Atlas (Practice was Peabody; forced names, but names nonetheless.)
2016 FIRST Stronghold: T1GGR [tee one double guh er] (It's bottom is made out of rubber, and its top is made out of springs*, it's bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. The practice robot was named R00 [are double naught] after Tigger's "little brother".)

As you may have guessed from my commentary, my favorite names for our robots are T1GGR and Buzz, probably because they came about most naturally. Still, they're enough to give me a Disney spell.

* Yes, we know we swapped these around.

[NShep98]

If you ask me, this sounds like one of those ideas that looks good on paper, but in practice will make things even more confusing. Names are a lot easier to remember when you come up with them, and I can only really recall a few others.

[fargus111111111]

343's students always name our robots and we generally try to name them something relavent to that specific robot, for example our 2015 robot is named Armstrong, it has big arms, our 06 robot is named cyclone, it has a spirally thingy that brings the balls from the floor intake to the shooter. I personally love the robots having their own unique names that make them easily identifiable and it allows for "dedication" to someone as we have done twice, 2010, John O'Connor, JOC, a former student who died in a car accident, and 2007, Andre, the janitor who helped us out ALOT.

I will say that I do not remember the names of other teams' robots and refer to them simply by team number then year, however I do know the robot names for most of our 17 competition robots and I refer to them by name most o the time.

[BBray_T1296]

I have spoken to several alumni of other teams who refer to their teams robots by name in conversation. While the teams themselves are well known, stating the robot's name without a year for context means absolutely nothing to me. I may remember exactly what your robot looked like in 2010 but I haven't a clue what it was called.

[trumpthero786]

STORM Robotics has been going in alphabetical order since our sophomore year as a team.

2009: Stormy
2010: Brave Beckham
2011: Crimson Claw
2012: Donald Duct
2013: Electra
2014: Fonzie
2015: Genesis
2016: Hephaestus

[Dancin103]

From what I can remember...

1999: Crusher
2000: Cattywampus
2003: Little Box of Terror
2004: Monkey Business
2005: X-Factor
2006: Triple Threat
2007: Screwball
2008: Apex
2010: Serendipity
2011: Tower of Terror
2012: Echo Charlie
2013: Little Box of Terror 2
2015: DELTA
2016: Punch

[qscgy]

We generally take nominations around week 4 of build season, when the robot design is mostly finalized, and then do a name vote a couple weeks later. The name is usually some sort of pun.

2016: R.O.U.S.
2015:Totedile
2014: Ballbasaur
2013: Panda
2012: Bowser's Castle
2011: Dr. Aughn
2010: Caspian
2009: Archie
2008: Eddie (Edward Scissor Lift)

[Phoenix Spud]

We have always named the robot something Australian themed with the practice robot getting a "fun" name:

2010: Wombot
2011: That's Not a Knife (T-NAK) with mini-bot Spoon
2012 practice: Mothslayer
2012: MATE
2013 practice: 10Cims
2013: Ikara (throwing stick in an Aboriginal language)
2014 practice: Enterprise
2014: Maloo (thunder in an Aboriginal language)
2015 practice: Cockroach
2015: Kosciuszko (tallest mountain in Australia)
2015 WARC (China trip): Dapao (Cannon in Chinese)
2016 practice: Excali-plier
2016: Aragung (shield in an Aboriginal language)