Old Man Notices A Thing: Lots of Robot Names

[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.

[smistthegreat]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

First, what do you think about the whole naming robots thing?

Second, can you share names that you especially like/dislike?

Third, am I just getting old** or are more teams this year giving their robots real names this year?

Discuss.

1. I think every team should name their robots, but I don't expect anyone not on the team to remember them. I can't remember offhand other teams' robot names apart from the most literal ones (Simbot Jordan played the basketball game). I refer to most robots as "Team No + Year."

2. I'm a big fan of robot names that commit to a theme that makes sense with the team name. All of 4930's robots have been named after Muppets.

3. I haven't noticed a huge change from previous years.

[The other Gabe]

Bear metal usually does Bear puns in the robot names (2011 was Ursa Major/Ursa Minor for the mini-bot, 2012 was Bearmageddon, 2013 Bearadactyl, and 2015 is Xcalibear (the X signifying their 10th robot)).

that being said, the robot names are like flavor text to me; they're fun when they're clever, but I mostly ignore them in favor of saying the team's name or number and the year, which are what actually matter to me

[Peyton Yeung]

It's team tradition to name the robot Rowdy "insert team year here". It gets a little confusing since the team started in 2000 with Rowdy 1. Overall I've never really heard any Indiana team refer to another Indiana team's robot by its name, just by its year (i.e. Cyber Blue's 2014 robot)

[tindleroot]

Originally Posted by Peyton Yeung

It's team tradition to name the robot Rowdy "insert team year here". It gets a little confusing since the team started in 2000 with Rowdy 1. Overall I've never really heard any Indiana team refer to another Indiana team's robot by its name, just by its year (i.e. Cyber Blue's 2014 robot)

IIRC Every robot by 71 is called the Beast. Then again, anything related to Hammond is just called "Beast".

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

I have come around to the idea that robots should have names, actual names and names of the form "TeamNameOrIntialsOrIconicPhrase"-"NumberOfYearsTeamExisted" don't count. In fact, I go even farther, practice robots and concept chassis should have actual names too.

I agree. Engineers used to be much better at this, and it is to our discredit that has fallen by the wayside.
If someone tells you they used "The Lord Chancellor" to measure a part, aren't you inclined to trust them?
Or if the locomotive is named the Rocket, wouldn't you assume it goes fast?
Or if you call your airplane the Flyer, presumably it really does fly?

Really only boats have carried on the tradition of great individual names that (in my opinion) all technology should live up to...

[Liam Fay]

We've historically had the theme of warlords, though we've strayed a bit in recent years.

2008: Xerxes
2009: Auto Von Bismarck
2010: Cixi
2011: Ivan the Terrible
2012: Yaroslavl
2013: Sun Tzu
2014: Odin
2015: Valkyrie
2016: Orion

[SeeleySWS]

Our team has had a lot of great names but Oddjob (2013) and Tiny Tim XL (2014) are my favorites... They both came easily to the team because of some funny inside joke during the season.

[AllenGregoryIV]

We've decided to start a four year naming cycle so each class only builds one of every robot. Ultraviolet, Gamma Ray, Infrared, and X-ray our robots. This year is the first to reuse a name its Violet 2016 or Violet II or something like that, the ending isn't settled yet. No one needs a robot named Visible, Radio, or Microwave (one of our old Vex robots was Microwave). Practice robots normally get odd names Oscar, Domino, etc. This whole system could change if some robot ends up needing a better.more fitting name.

[Jalerre]

2014: SmaugBot (obviously from The Hobbit)
2015: Debbie (from the seahorse episode of Spongebob)
2016: Calcifer (a fire demom from some anime, I think)

I don't remember the name of our 2013 bot from 415.

[Karibou]

When I was a student on 1189, we named our robots, alternating between male and female names/robots, trying to relate the name to the game, and we tried to go in alphabetical order. This particular practice was short-lived: it started in 2006 and ended in 2010. It was important to us to pick names that would work easily in conversation and would make us feel like we were talking about an actual person.

2006: Balzac (don't remember the story behind this one)
2007: Charlotte (after the spider in Charlotte's Web, makes sense for the game)
2008: Atlas (technically after this guy, but we also had a lot of Ayn Rand readers on the team that year...) (alphabetically out of order)
2009: Diana (goddess of the moon)
2010: Erdos (no relation to the game, notable mathematician)

The name was decided based on a team vote, and the practice stopped in 2011 because we couldn't decide on a name as a team. The team still names their robots but I don't know how that decision is made nowadays.

The naming was more for internal purposes; I don't think anyone ever expected anyone outside our team to remember the names, but to us, the names made the robots feel more like our children, our own creation, and we felt more invested in them. We always referred to the robot by its name, and rarely called them just "the robot". If I tried to explain the connection I felt with Atlas (my first robot), you would probably think I was crazy, and I don't think I would have that connection if he didn't have a name.

That being said...whenever I talk/ed to someone else about those robots, I refer to them as "our 2008 robot", etc, because I never expect anyone else to remember the names. I think the only robot name from another team that I remember is 148's Tumbleweed.

I don't think it matters how a team names their robot as long as it works for them. Names in general do look good on promotional material (i.e. "Team 9999 Proudly Presents: ROBOTNAME"). As a lot of others have said, hardly anyone really remembers the robot names anyways - it only works in conversation if both parties know the robot's name, which rarely happens, so eventually it just becomes "hey remember that feature from 469's 2010 robot" etc.

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

You expect me to remember not only every team's name and number but now every robot's name from every year!?!?!? Yeah, that's never going to happen.

I'll stick to the "Team Name/Number - Year Robot" convention.