Reduced-space Demos?

[Conor Ryan]

We did a demo at our middle school about 2 weeks ago, we had a Quarter Sized field. We fit 1 small goal and an akwardly places Automatic Loading station. It was akward but we were able to drive around just fine. It was tight but we shouldn't need a half sized field to play on in the first place, actually come to think of it, it was pretty good practise for our drivers since they had to avoid scratching the stage behind us, as well as drive on a small field.

[Ian Curtis]

My team has never done a demo with more than 1/4 of the field (becuase that's how much carpet we have). You just need to put the goal in the corner and load tetras from an opposing corner.

Another Experience:

Before last years robot was taken apart to build our little bot we were given an elevated carpet square thing measuring 16 feet by 16 feet. We had barriers around so no one got to close, and the mobile goal. We were a ball picker upper so we'd bring a bunch of balls, but a couple on the square, pick them up with the robot, then release them for the kids to shoot into the mobile goal. People like interactive demos .

[spears312]

Last week our teams driver and myself took the robot over to a cub scout day camp in Tampa and we had a strip of side walk (great for wearing down wheels) boarded on both sides by grass. He just drove the thing back and forward and handled the single tetra we brought, then we let the kids take and give the robot the tetra which worked out well with our automated griping manipulator.

[evelyn1503]

we do a demo in our caff at least once every cupple week.... we wint to one of our poncers places and we had at the most 30 by 10 space and 7 feet hiy seling ( so we couldent do anny arme stuff) but the drivers drove carfuly and we stacke a cupple tetras we dont go in hiy gear.... we get the job done

[Al Skierkiewicz]

A really good way to do this is get a 25 ft serial cable and tether during the demo. Make sure that there is a small jumper between the tether port and a connector affixed to the robot so you don't damage the RC. While driving around, if the robot gets out of control just pull the tether and the robot will stop.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

A really good way to do this is get a 25 ft serial cable and tether during the demo. Make sure that there is a small jumper between the tether port and a connector affixed to the robot so you don't damage the RC. While driving around, if the robot gets out of control just pull the tether and the robot will stop.

Agreed. 25' and 50' available here You could have that "small jumper" be a F-F adapter ($2) with the M-F cable.

[santosh]

What we also did once when we didn't have tetra's and were in a small space, was we stacked chairs up.

[geeknerd99]

We had to pack 10 people, the robot, and the control board into a space about 7 feet deep and 12 wide. All we had room for was turning our turret and stacking two chairs.

Later that night, we worked in a larger, but more linear area. I was to drive the robot blind around a corner (and a copier), pick up a tetra in front of the school board meeting area (I could see the robot at this point), deliver it to them, and then drive in reverse, tracing my path the way a I came, and end up right back where I started (driving blind the last section).

Now that's parallel parking.

[Meyerman]

56 has been to about 15 demos since nats we bring 1 goal 2 tetras and when we get there we just put tetras on a table and stack then let who ever wants to drive the bot drive it, when visiting the pre-k we found a girl that was able to drive the bot good enough for us to step away from the control it was pretty funny. it seems kids really dont seem to care about us showing them the bot they like to drive soo we give them what they want. and most of our demos have been in a small areasoo limit what you bring and it makes things easier.

[WEHickok]

Our team has done demos in small areas. It is not easily done with our competition robots. So we developed CASEY (Community Awareness of Science and Education Year-round). You may have seen CASEY near the GM tent at the Competition. CASEY was built with spare parts (you get a lot after nine years in FIRST) and was designed to be a SHOBOT...to entertain. Two if the nice features are that we have are a Speed Switch that will change to program to slow the robot down to half speed...nice for small children. The other is a Kill switch that will shut down the robot when pushed.

The other day CASEY was out of service so we took the HOTBOT to a school in Detroit for a demonstration. We noticed that after you did what the competition bot was designed to do it became boring. With CASEY the kids can easily drive it (and it was designed with wheels that could be run on any surface) and they love to get the balloons that HOT Team members blow up and twist.

We do not take the HOTBOT out much anymore...so space is not much of an issue.

[petek]

We had a mulit-robot demo at MARM last month in a lecture room at Rutgers. The playing field was about 20' x 15', with two goals. The teams ran informal demos and let people try their hands at driving, running one robot at a time mostly.

One thing which we will do the next time is have channel switches to allow running two robots with radios; tethers are okay, but radios are better. We didn't have any incidents, but a master emergency stop would be a good thing to have, at least for peace of mind.

Team 103 did a lot of demos at the SBS Conference last year, too. There, we drove the robot all over the exhibition hall, gave driving lessons for attendees (everyone got a robot drivers license) and held a drag race with SICO (guess who won). No incidents other than a 6 yr old trying to drive the robot through a table, but an e-stop would have saved some anxiety. The key in an open area like that is to have people watching and anticipating to avoid incidents.

[Meyerman]

Originally Posted by petek

We had a mulit-robot demo at MARM last month in a lecture room at Rutgers. The playing field was about 20' x 15', with two goals. The teams ran informal demos and let people try their hands at driving, running one robot at a time mostly.

One thing which we will do the next time is have channel switches to allow running two robots with radios; tethers are okay, but radios are better. We didn't have any incidents, but a master emergency stop would be a good thing to have, at least for peace of mind.

when we found out team 365 had a switch bharat from 25 and myself went and switched all the channel we did have 5 robots running at one point then they all capped corey for team 25 with the robots.

so if you want to run more than 1 bot at a time be sure you can switch channels, tethers arent the best.

[Bcahn836]

Whenever we demo the robot it is usually in a small room. So before alot of people get there we do a few practice runs and test the limits of the robot in the room, like 360's and taking the arm full up and out, if the celling is high enough. Once we figure out what we can and can't do we have a few team members stand in various places to protect spectators and shut off the robot if something happens. It is very important to have spotters in small areas when doing a demo.

[Lil' Lavery]

We have had to do a few small scall demos. When weve done them, weve typically had the robot on display, but not driving. We had a display board or two, trophies, and a laptop either playing a highlight reel or our animation. We have our students answer the questions and whatnot in the remaining space. And of course we have a place to put brochures, spare buttons, trading cards, and other things they can take with them.