Storage Space & Previous Robots

[Cactus_Robotics]

Originally Posted by Donut

It sounds like most teams have their bots around, but they just sit there and look good (which wouldn't be a bad thing). Does anyone use previous years robots still, for demonstrations or for practice for the upcoming year?

How did you guys get enough space to store all the previous robots? Is your team just big enough that there's a gigantic room for robotics, or did you go ask a sponsor or someone for space? The big thing I'm trying to figure out is where to get more space since I think there is very little chance we'll get any more at our school (considering we actually lost space since the golf and soccer stuff moved into our closet and hasn't been moved to the new gym despite our repeated efforts).

You know Andrew at one point in our teams history that whole room was ours closet, tables ah the good ol days. We need that empty shop next to autos. ahh what dreams we have.

[AV_guy007]

our team has 3 places were we keep robots and etc. they go by the names of: 1.secret storage
2. super secret storage
and 3: super super secret storage

secret storage is i small closet/ room in the back of our shop as well as several large metal closet locker things. they have battery's materials and spare parts

super secret storage is a separate small closet/room that is not connected to any other rooms and can only be entered from outside. it has our old robots some working most not

super super secret storage is a large crate(the kind you see on cargo ships)in the back of our school. i don't even know whats in it!

[want2modmygt]

The Martians keep three in a team built display case at the high school. This picture was taken just as it was being installed, it was not filled with trophies and pictures yet.

[Pat McCarthy]

The HOT Team has all of our robots back to 2000 stored and displayed at the GM Milford Proving Grounds building in which we work. There is a large area at the end of a hallway that we have set up with display lights where we keep our old robots, FIRST awards, and peer awards on display. (The right half of which is seen in the below photo)

Pictured above: the 2001 HOTBOT, the 2004 OCCRA bot, and the 2002 HOTBOT.

However, the GM just renovated the upper part of the building, and we had to move all of the robots and awards into a conjoining room just to the right of the original display area. (The right half of the temporary storage is pictured below)

Pictured above: 2002 HOTBOT, 2004 HOTBOT, 2004 OCCRA bot, 2001 HOTBOT.

We also use a huge room directly above the machine shop, which contains very large heating and cooling units, as additional storage. In there we have a bunch of random stuff, our old shipping crate (which now has lots of tubing joints, a garden hose, old software from autodesk, among tons of other crap in it), a new roll of carpet we got from GLR last year, 2 old TVs (not sure if they work), and lots of binders. We also used to have our practice fields up in that room as well.

Condition of Robots:
HOTBOTs:
2005: Almost fully working order, just some minor, competition-like fixes to make it run perfectly
2004: Drives like a champ, the claw on the arm was replaced last year with tongs to practice with tetras
2003: Rear drive turrets pretty much disassembled; lots of scavenging here. I think that the box stacker and self-righting mechanism would work fine if the RC is still in there, not sure if it is.
2002: Fully functional; runs sweet, hopper tilts back to dump, goal grabber works, but is disabled.
2001: A shell of a HOTBOT; it looks like it should, but under the skin most of the important stuff is gone or non functional.
2000: Another shell of a HOTBOT; looks like its former self, but has no controls left.
1999-1997: Completely disassembled and gone.

Other Robots:
2004 OCCRA bot: It's all there, but there are some major mechanical & electrical issues that would have to be resolved before it would even make a good driver training bot.
CASEY V1 (Community Awareness of Science and Education Year-round) Showbot: The 8 wheel drivetrain is probably functional, but using 25 pitch chain on drive wheels was a mistake, and constantly throws chains. The 'torso' of CASEY is next to it, just fine.

[Martinez]

Every generation of Chuck is stored in an abandoned Ames building. Now fully functional is a completely different story. They are not well displayed and honestly it reminds me of a robot grave yard. Still, it is very cool that they are all still around!

[Angelfury126]

We keep the majority of our past robots that are in one piece at our playing field in Nypro. The robots are suspended from the ceiling it sort of creates a museum. There are a couple robots that have been taken apart, so there just lying around the playing field. The '92 robot is actually in a glass case at school with some of the awards we've won over the years.

[mtaman02]

You know A Thought came to mind while reading these posts & listening to Styx - Mr.Roboto, What if FIRST made 2 games for their 15 year anniversary. One for the first half of that year and another for the second half of the year. The First game will be decided upon by the Game Design Committee and would require 6 weeks of blood and sweat. The Second Game would be a voted decision made by the teams on which game should be replayed (namingly making it the best game FIRST has ever came up with that it needed to be replayed) The Regional Directors have the ultiumate decision if they would like to hold a second regional. Any of the robots may enter past and or current - provided they meet FIRST Rules and Regulations. There would be 6 Weeks of Build / Prep time and would start somewhere in May / June - that way teams have time to get materials to repair whatever damage was done at Nationals or to repair the past damages due to the robot being no longer needed. The Catch that only crosses my mind is that if the the game voted on is Autonomous Enabled Teams have the option to buy at IFI's discretion a current brand new controller setup at a discounted / full price. (Or if FIRST has chosen to do so; include with the entry fee and teams can have it mailed to their school, sponsor or robot building location for pickup and Since I do not know how well the Field Controller would be able to communicate with both PBasic and C++ Robot Controllers; that would also be a major deciding factor that would judge whether or not A complete overhaul of the teams competing Robot Controllers would be needed) Rules for that games robots would change to allow the old 3/8 & 1/2 Bosch Drill Motors and whatever motors were used in the past and to allow all the electrical components. Chances are LEDs may be shipped with new robot controllers - if they're still around that is and rules will also change to allow the rotating light and these items would be subtracted from the weight and be charged seperately. Would you the teams entering in it want to enter your old robots in to the competition (Robots 10 - 12 yrs old still working and competing in the FIRST Robotics Competitions like it where yesterday) - or - a different idea would be instead of hosting 2 games for a 15 yr anniversary, 1 game would be chosen from the past by either FIRST or the Teams to be replayed under the same robot guidlines said above. Except Build season would be under the normal timeline that exists now.

[Donut]

Originally Posted by mtaman02

You know A Thought came to mind while reading these posts & listening to Styx - Mr.Roboto, What if FIRST made 2 games for their 15 year anniversary. One for the first half of that year and another for the second half of the year. The First game will be decided upon by the Game Design Committee and would require 6 weeks of blood and sweat. The Second Game would be a voted decision made by the teams on which game should be replayed (namingly making it the best game FIRST has ever came up with that it needed to be replayed) The Regional Directors have the ultiumate decision if they would like to hold a second regional. Any of the robots may enter past and or current - provided they meet FIRST Rules and Regulations. There would be 6 Weeks of Build / Prep time and would start somewhere in May / June - that way teams have time to get materials to repair whatever damage was done at Nationals or to repair the past damages due to the robot being no longer needed. The Catch that only crosses my mind is that if the the game voted on is Autonomous Enabled Teams have the option to buy at IFI's discretion a current brand new controller setup at a discounted / full price. (Or if FIRST has chosen to do so; include with the entry fee and teams can have it mailed to their school, sponsor or robot building location for pickup and Since I do not know how well the Field Controller would be able to communicate with both PBasic and C++ Robot Controllers; that would also be a major deciding factor that would judge whether or not A complete overhaul of the teams competing Robot Controllers would be needed) Rules for that games robots would change to allow the old 3/8 & 1/2 Bosch Drill Motors and whatever motors were used in the past and to allow all the electrical components. Chances are LEDs may be shipped with new robot controllers - if they're still around that is and rules will also change to allow the rotating light and these items would be subtracted from the weight and be charged seperately. Would you the teams entering in it want to enter your old robots in to the competition (Robots 10 - 12 yrs old still working and competing in the FIRST Robotics Competitions like it where yesterday) - or - a different idea would be instead of hosting 2 games for a 15 yr anniversary, 1 game would be chosen from the past by either FIRST or the Teams to be replayed under the same robot guidlines said above. Except Build season would be under the normal timeline that exists now.

If either of those ever happened I hope it'd be the first one. One of the great things about FIRST is that they DON'T repeat the same game year after year. If they did do a throwback game I could see many teams analyzing the most successful robot from that year and just doing slight variations of it.

Now if they did a "throwback" game that had different parts from different games but combined them together into something new, that could be a bit more interesting.

I like the sound of all these "robot museums", but sadly I don't think we could ever find room for one.

[Bob]

Originally Posted by Martinez

Every generation of Chuck is stored in an abandoned Ames building. Now fully functional is a completely different story. They are not well displayed and honestly it reminds me of a robot grave yard. Still, it is very cool that they are all still around!

Yeah all nine of them are there. Now that we are done with our last regional this year we will be adding one more. A total of ten.

[mtaman02]

Originally Posted by Donut

If either of those ever happened I hope it'd be the first one. One of the great things about FIRST is that they DON'T repeat the same game year after year. If they did do a throwback game I could see many teams analyzing the most successful robot from that year and just doing slight variations of it.

Now if they did a "throwback" game that had different parts from different games but combined them together into something new, that could be a bit more interesting.

I like the sound of all these "robot museums", but sadly I don't think we could ever find room for one.

How about a way larger playing field - and the combined games of Diabolical Dynamics 2001 (Use the Bridge), FIRST Frenzy - Raising the Bar 2004 (For the excessively overweight mobile goals and chin up bar) and this years game Aim High 2006 (For the Center goal), The Weight would be increased to 135 - 140lbs w/o the battery and LED's or Lights w/ Electrical Wires.

[the_short1]

we have space on both sides of the boarder.. in the american side we have a tool crib in the welding shop with 2 robots, competition 2005, practice 2006, and on the canadian side in the machine shop we have 2005 practice and 2006 competition (well soon).. we try to keep them functional for doing demonstrations, except our 2005 competition bot got diced for electronics because we didnt have the money for new .

keeping a past robot is invaluable for demondstrations and programming!

[Donut]

Originally Posted by mtaman02

How about a way larger playing field - and the combined games of Diabolical Dynamics 2001 (Use the Bridge), FIRST Frenzy - Raising the Bar 2004 (For the excessively overweight mobile goals and chin up bar) and this years game Aim High 2005 (For the Center goal), The Weight would be increased to 135 - 140lbs w/o the battery and LED's or Lights w/ Electrical Wires.

I love the bridge. I've been dreaming of a bridge for the past month in next year's game.

It looks like for now I will be keeping the 2006 robot at my house until we clean out our closet more. Our 2004 robot is already partially apart (missing the RC, victors, circuit breakers, and some other things), so it will likely go the rest of the way apart then, although we may keep the base and a few other things together for something to test with this summer.

[mandad]

Originally Posted by Martinez

Every generation of Chuck is stored in an abandoned Ames building. Now fully functional is a completely different story. They are not well displayed and honestly it reminds me of a robot grave yard. Still, it is very cool that they are all still around!

I agree with Martinez, that's Mr. Martinez to you guys ... it is kind of like a robot grave yard at the Ames building. But let's be fair ... we're a Chuck without a Country. There are 10 Chucks that were built in 5 locations. Chuck (the 1st) was built in Scranton PA. Chuck R2 & Pi were built at GPU Energy. Chucks C-IV ("We're Explosive"), V, VI, VII, & VIII were all built at the Towanda Middle School wood shop. Chuck IX was built at the Towanda Vo-Tech. and Chuck X at the Athens High School shop.

We are fortunate that one of our mentors, Ken "the Electron Shepherd" is "tight" with the owner of the Ames building ... otherwise ... who knows where all the Chucks would live ...

Besides this year's Bot there is Chuck (the 1st) through Chuck IX hanging out at the Ames building. And YES ... It IS very "cool" that they are ALL still around ... well said Jeff! ...

I've been with Chuck since the first Chuck and "I have a dream": We can rebuild "Him", we can make "Him" better.

Particularly, I have a desire to rebuild the Original Chuck ... not because he was a "Good" Chuck but because he was the "First" Chuck. Back when they were 36" square, had to deal with toroids (and didn't fit through doors very well) ... also want/need to rebuild those Chucks that did well ... Like Chuck Pi, Chuck Seven (who was once ... for one year ... Seven of Nine!), Chuck Nine (who's actually in pretty good shape) ... Chuck Six also ... AND Chuck X ... plan to keep him in good working shape.

Anyway ... retirement is coming (in 15 years or so) maybe then there will be time (and money) for project Phoenix ...