"Hey, look, it's a battle bot!"

[Ian W.]

no one ever said their team does battle bots in this thread. i know that hauppauge (358) does have a battle bot team, but that's something entirely different. this thread is not promoting battle bots, nor degrading them, just pointing out how something that is destrcutive and involves similar things to our robots is so much more popular, and how can we make FIRST as, or more, popular than battle bots, or at least get people to recognize a FIRST bot from a battle bot when they see one.

[Abi]

I am thinking about posting a huge sign that says ....... ATTENTION:THIS IS NOT A BATTLEBOT

We have one up at demos and people STILL ask!

[Mullen]

i had the same problem the otherday..i was driving our robot for a school family day picnic thing and everyone was asking why we do FIRST, cuz we should do Battle Bots instead. the first 20 or so people i gave a good answer, then i gave up and just wrote a note and stuck on the robot saying "I am not a Battle Bot, i am far more sophisticated"

[Dallin]

This may not be a thread trashing or degrading battlebots but the "negativity" can still be spotted. I really do think it's sad that FIRST doesn't get as much publicity as it deserves but there are just so many reasons for that. The majority of the public has a short attention span - most will not take the time to even bother to learn the rules of the game and most will probably get bored and walk away. I love first as much as I do battlebots and I participate in both. But there is a reason robotica flopped, the general public doesn't really care much for "games". Believe me, I get annoyed just as you do by those comments but I also get annoyed when we display our battlebot and we get questions like "Can you use a machine gun?" I mean it's all relative. The best way to get more attention is to educate the public and that's a rather difficult thing to do. I really don't think that's the main drive and idea behind FIRST though, they want it to be popular but among students(and big name companies) im sure the general public isn't as important. FIRST is well known in Universities and other places of the sort, it's hitting where it counts and that's what's important. FIRST has made a huge impact on many people's lives, including myself and many of you.

We need to spread and inspire people in technology by whatever method, be it Battlebots(Oh no I used the "b-word"!), FIRST, HERC Bug Battles(Cute little ant weight robots play games or fight eachother ), or any other thing like SECME, etc.

-Dallin

[Renzorocks]

hehehehe, and i thought my team was the only one who goes through all this

[Elgin Clock]

Originally posted by Wetzel

These motors are used in RV jacks.



Wetzel

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Step right this way

Which one's are those?

[Ian W.]

i believe the 'big black scarey ones' i forget exatly what they're called, but the company that made them was something like Atwood. i know we used them on our robot too, but that's about all i remember .

[DanL]

I believe the chalupas were in RV jacks... I remember thats where someone said you should look to get replacement chalupas

[Mullen]

chippawa, its the chippawa..a chalupa is something youd buy from tacobell

[Andrew]

I don't get upset by the BB questions at demos. That's a good entre into telling them what FIRST is and making the major distinction that FIRST is about positive things and the robots are more sophisticated and that BB is about negative things (destroying a competitors creation).

What bugs me is when we start the season and I have to uneducate the new team members. EG. No, we cannot put a chainsaw on the front of the robot. No, we cannot make a Van de graf generator and a leydon jar and vaporize our "opponent's" electronics.

One reason that we made a ball shooter this year, even though we knew there were better ways to get balls in the goals was that it would be a much cooler demo bot that what we have done in the past.

We did a demo in a gymnasium and the kids were floored by our ability to pick up balls and shoot them. The BB questions vanished but interest was kept. The only problem, they wanted us to shoot basketballs into the little goal.

We did demos with 2001's robot and 2002's goal. We put people in the goal and pushed it around. This also kept their interest but in a positive way.

Battle bots and Robot Wars accomplish one positive thing, they get people to come up and ask questions. It's up to us to keep their interest.

Andrew, Team 356

[Ian W.]

heh, i had some free time tonight, so i was watching some battle bots. the match that i saw had a horrible little robot, that kind of just ran under that big hammer, and then litterally got pounded to a piece of sheet metal. i don't think there was anything important in the robot where it got flattened, or at least there isn't now.

[Jeff Rodriguez]

There are 2 things you can do to grealty reduce the amount of people that ask that question.
1) - Put signs every where with the FIRST logo.
2) (And this could be taken very badly) Don't build robots that look like a battlebot. A box on wheels can be taken for a BB much easier than a FIRST bot. And i don't wanna point fingers but there was a team that was a wedge with spikes on the side that i thought was a BB on display at the comp, but it turned out to be a teams bot. You may know who that is

[DanL]

Originally posted by Mini-Mullet
chippawa, its the chippawa..a chalupa is something youd buy from tacobell

It sure is ;-) At one of the regionals, I heard someone refer to it as a chalupa, and I just think that sounds better

Originally posted by Andrew
I don't get upset by the BB questions at demos. That's a good entre into telling them what FIRST is and making the major distinction that FIRST is about positive things and the robots are more sophisticated and that BB is about negative things (destroying a competitors creation).

What bugs me is when we start the season and I have to uneducate the new team members. EG. No, we cannot put a chainsaw on the front of the robot. No, we cannot make a Van de graf generator and a leydon jar and vaporize our "opponent's" electronics.

One reason that we made a ball shooter this year, even though we knew there were better ways to get balls in the goals was that it would be a much cooler demo bot that what we have done in the past.

We did a demo in a gymnasium and the kids were floored by our ability to pick up balls and shoot them. The BB questions vanished but interest was kept. The only problem, they wanted us to shoot basketballs into the little goal.

We did demos with 2001's robot and 2002's goal. We put people in the goal and pushed it around. This also kept their interest but in a positive way.

Battle bots and Robot Wars accomplish one positive thing, they get people to come up and ask questions. It's up to us to keep their interest.

Andrew, Team 356

I like that. Its good.