Best Event Giveaways

[pilleya]

Originally Posted by Bkeeneykid

Since your name is Cooler Master, I think an awesome thing to do would be motor coolers. AndyMark sells one made by NextGen Robotics, but I've heard not great things about it (link). One for the 775Pro could be nice too. Even if it's not as a giveaway, you could sell these, and I would bet many teams would buy some.

A heat sink or fan mounted to the motor( BAG, 550,775) will help reduce heat build-up over the long term, but unless the heat-sink is made of a super-conductor, it won’t be able to draw the heat away from the motor when it needs most to be, when the motor is at stall. With the 775pro you have a roughly 3.9second delay from when the motor is stalled and when it burns up. This is because the motor is air-cooled relying on a fan, connected to the armature and thus the output shaft to draw air through the motor casing from the front ports to the rear.

There are already quite a few low-cost COTs heatsinks and fan combo’s which can fit onto 550’s and BAG’s( mainly aimed at the R/C market) eg. http://www.integy.com/st_main.html?p...8#.Vz2jkPl97IU

I designed a 3D printable cooler a few months ago which used a 40mm fan to draw air through the motor. It is similar in design the EBMpapst’s ICE box rs775 cooler that was included in the 2014 KOP( as far as I am aware).

Something like this which could be given out would be very useful but unfortunately it doesn’t look like CM sells fans that are small enough to make a system for the 775pro practical ( 40mm or 60mm is ideal). A Cooler ( either injection moulded or thin sheet metal) that uses the 40mm fans that are already donated in the KOP( the KOP fans aren’t very powerful at all so a high flow-rate Server fan would probably be better) would be useful but it would be important for more of the Coolers to be able to be purchased or acquired by teams.

In regards to giveaways to team members, I would be happy with some nice stickers to put on my laptop

[frcguy]

Honestly, I like anything that's free. Some things that stand out from this season:

• T-shirt and stickers from AndyMark at SVR and Champs
  
• Temporary tattoos from 1868
  
• The "Proud owner of a Defensive Blocker" Team 8 buttons
  
• A crocheted dolphin/whale/some aquatic animal from a team at Champs who's number I can't remember
  
• Buttons in general
• Apex necklace given to all the drive teams on the Curie #4 alliance
  

[KMeyers]

We have a tape measure from 4707 that still gets used pretty regularly.

[Hitchhiker 42]

Team 999 3D printed custom battery inserts for every team at Hartford with our team number on it. That was really cool.

[Eric Scheuing]

Originally Posted by Hitchhiker 42

Team 999 3D printed custom battery inserts for every team at Hartford with our team number on it. That was really cool.

They were cool, weren't they? One of our students had the idea and printed over half of them before we showed him how to add text to a SolidWorks sketch

[M217]

T-shirts.

Seriously, Cooler Master t-shirts would be cool. Just as long as the cloth is soft and the shirt design itself is reasonably colorful/interesting, I think people would like this idea (I certainly would).

[Edxu]

It'd be really cool if we could get FIRST color scheme Coolermaster stickers.

However, in terms of best giveaways, I remember NVIDIA's given out 8GB USB sticks a few years ago. In 2014, one of my teammates won an NVIDIA Jetson for coming first in their Forza setup, but idk if that qualifies as a "giveaway".

Lanyards are always a really great giveaway from teams. I still cherish my Bomb Squad one.

Edit: Almost forgot about the koalas that 3132 gives out. Those are awesome too.

[Richard Wallace]

I like squeeze toys, especially the Bomb Squad's bombs and Exploding Bacon's pigs.

The best volunteer giveaway I have seen recently was the 2600 mAh Xoopar XG11012 power bank we received at IRI.

Oh, and the crocheted whale was given by 5839 Blue Whales, from Nanjing, China.

[ctt956]

Originally Posted by wajirock

It might be a little expensive, but multitools would be really useful and cool!

Seconded!

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

My favorite is either my toothbrush from
3940 or my pig from 1902.

A 3940 toothbrush? Took me a minute to get it, but makes sense now that I think about it. Definitely a unique giveaway! Does it have a circuit pattern on it?

Originally Posted by frcguy

Honestly, I like anything that's free. Some things that stand out from this season:

• T-shirt and stickers from AndyMark at SVR and Champs
• Temporary tattoos from 1868
• The "Proud owner of a Defensive Blocker" Team 8 buttons
• A crocheted dolphin/whale/some aquatic animal from a team at Champs who's number I can't remember
• Buttons in general

Why didn't anyone tell me AM was giving out shirts at CMP?! Or that 8 had such unique buttons? Oh well...

As for my favorite/unique/interesting giveaways, so far I have:
- A tube of Chapstick from 2640, supposedly pink lemonade flavored(I haven't used it)
- Wristbands from several teams, one of which is checkered, but made of paper. I don't remember who gave them out.
- A red stress ball that came from a company at the Innovation Faire, NRG IIRC
- Buttons! Including a limited number Arsenal button from 118, two FRC buttons, an Nvidia button that says "I made the droid you're looking for", and a few from other companies
- And the most interesting/unique of all of them: a wooden magic wand and a bottle of liquid with glitter. Someone was walking around the pits on Saturday at CMP. I don't have it nearby, but I think it was team 5000-something.

[TheBoulderite]

There was a team at Utah last year that gave out safety-related coloring books. Pretty awesome.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by ctt956

- And the most interesting/unique of all of them: a wooden magic wand and a bottle of liquid with glitter. Someone was walking around the pits on Saturday at CMP. I don't have it nearby, but I think it was team 5000-something.

5012, Gryffingear. That'd be their typical non-button giveaway (they also do buttons)

[bam-bam]

I got a copy of Solidworks 2011 back at the champs in 2012 from 51.

[sanddrag]

Avoid the junky gimmicks and stick with things that are useful:

Pens, screwdrivers, USB flash drives, USB power pack charger things for your phone, measuring devices, etc. At trade shows, bags are useful, to collect all the other brochures from other vendors. CNC machined giveaways are cool too, in the right context. The nVidia video cards were cool.

For cooler master, what about a cooler, like, for drinks?

The best giveaway I've ever seen would be a motorcycle at SkillsUSA and a waterjet at IMTS.