Would you or your team ever sell your old robot(s)?

[Elgin Clock]

If so, why, and who to?

Would you sell it to another FIRSTer who loved your robot?

Would you sell it to a battlebot team to retrofit for a whole new era of competition?

Would you sell it to a (potential new or existing) sponsor to put in their lobby?

Just wondering.

I always loved (of course all of them) but especially one robot (ok maybe 2) in particular in FIRST (besides my own teams of course), but would feel weird asking if:

A) they even have it any more
and
B) whether or not they would consider selling it.

What is your general feeling on that issue if I said to you:
"I love your robot from year XXXX, would you sell it to me"?

What would be the biggest factor to saying yes or no?
Would it be the money, or the future use of it, or something else?

[Ashley Christine]

Well, for me, my team has only made one bot since it was our first year. And for a first year bot it was amazing. And so I think I would want the school/team to keep it to show what an awesome job was done just in the first year.

Its the baby. You cant let it go!

haha

...and oh yeah, who in their right mind would sell their baby?

[spears312]

I really don't think our team would sell any of our robots. Although apparently some have gone "missing" or have been completely stripped down for later robots using similar parts or for prototype bots. If we were to do something with our bots rather than let them sit around in "the cage" we would probably give one to our primary sponsor, rather than sell it to them (mostly because they have literally already paid for it.)

[sanddrag]

If times were desperate and we were short on money or if we didn't have a place to keep them all (we are almost to this point). Otherwise, I'm pretty sure they would be kept.

I actually wanted the team to spend a little money and restore them all (because all the previous ones have been partially stripped and are in various states of disrepair) but I don't think they are interested.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by spears312

I really don't think our team would sell any of our robots. Although apparently some have gone "missing" or have been completely stripped down for later robots using similar parts or for prototype bots. If we were to do something with our bots rather than let them sit around in "the cage" we would probably give one to our primary sponsor, rather than sell it to them (mostly because they have literally already paid for it.)

We used to cannabalize them (the 1993 bot is just a frame) but we would not sell that robot.
We're trying to sell this one.

Your's for only $10,000.

[brandy836]

Our team has taken apart 2 of the 4 robots we have. My teacher has used the parts from the disassembled for various things. Occasionally he’ll sell different things to students for projects outside of school, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he sold some of the robot parts.

But as for the entire robot, we wouldn’t sell it. If anything, we may give it away to a rookie team, but not sell it. And as for the sponsors, we would give it to them if they wanted it and if we didn’t have the storage space.

[Arefin Bari]

Elgin... do you realize you are asking for my babies that I worked on for 6 straight weeks without sleep?

hahaha... it's always fun to yell at elgin. But seriously I don't think the team would sell any robots. Those robots are memories of students who worked their butt of each season.

[Anthony]

Robots from past years still in one piece? What an amazing concept. Our robots always get cannibalized either in the off season while teaching the new students about building robots or during the build season while the programmers need a test bed for code and such and the current bot isn't running. We have several frames laying around, but we find the parts all to useful for other things. Not to mention, during the off season we like to show off our past creations in attempts of gaining sponsors and enlightening younger students (particularly elementary and middle school age groups). As we get more and more robots, we will quickly run out of room for them (assuming they remain in one piece). However, so long as we retain the photos and the CAD drawings and the important parts (the bumpers that were banged up within 30 seconds of being on the field, the failed and successful mechanisms and such) to hang on our wall of robotic graveyard we will be content.
So in answer to your question, I dont think there would be much of anything to sell. Although if a team or group or something really wanted it, I am sure we would attempt to make them happy.

[Bharat Nain]

I don't think Team 25 would ever sell their robots because some of them are legend - atleast to us because they have taken us upto the Einstein field and we have put in an incredible amount work planning, prototyping, THINKING ABOUT IT and ofcourse building.

[santosh]

I dont think Wheeler would ever sell any of our robots. There ar so many memories that we have with those robots ever year. Such as this year, spinning in circles at like 60rpm+ for 2 straight matches, or righting ourselves up at Peachtree in the quarterfinals and then breaking in the process. And in 2004 winning Peachtree.

In short 1002 would probably sell our souls before we sold our robots.

[mechanicalbrain]

i think our team has been doing first for 7 or so years and i dont think we have a SINGLE robot. its allmost a tradition to canabalize them. im trying to buy a controller from our team since we have a huge stack of them held together by rubberbands.

[Cyberguy34000]

Our team has tried really hard not to cannibilize our robots, the result being that we have 3 very cool looking, fully functional robot that we can use for demonstrations. But the bot from 4 years ago didn't fair so well. We've channeled all of our cannibilism at it, and it had stripped of almost all of it's parts. Well, we were facing storage issues, so it had to go. The funny part was that after the mentors threw it away, some team members went dumpster-diving for what was left of it.

Last I heard, it was being converted into the ultimate lawnchair transport...

We'll see how that turns out

As for the bots that were built before that... Noone has really been able to find out. But I think we all know happened

[mechanicalbrain]

our team has the perfect solution. we just built a shed and hold everything in there.

[Jay Trzaskos]

Originally Posted by Arefin Bari

But seriously I don't think the team would sell any robots. Those robots are memories of students who worked their butt of each season.

I have to agree with Arefin here (that in itself is rare) I would hate if we ever sold one of our bots. I am quite fond of all of them, Burnout, R2, MJ, Denominator, Undefined. (not sure what happened to Undefined, last time i saw her was in '03) I didnt even work om some of them, seeing as i wasnt on the team at the time, but I would hate to see them go. But if anyone asks, that wasn't me you saw at Highbay loading up the truck, I have no idea where Denominator went.

JT
229

[JVN]

Originally Posted by Jay Trzaskos

Burnout MJ, Undefined.

Not much left of those...
I am usually in the "do not disassemble old robots" school of thought, but I took special pleasure in gutting Burnout and turning her into a pile of parts.

MJ and Undefined... well... you HS kids are mean during driver training.