Old Robots?

[Jeremiah Johnson]

1999 (309) - I have never seen this robot. Nor have I ever seen pictures of it.
2000 (309) - Do we still have the base? I know we have the basket sitting in the corner of Ken-Tronics.
2001 (648) - 95% intact. Almost completely functional.
2002 " - WAS completely intact before this year. Now there is no basket.
2003 " - It's completely intact. There's not much use for an obsolete drive system as far as our team is concerned.
2004 " - ~75% intact. Arm is not working. Used mostly as test driving.
2005 " - 100% intact. Perfect and best performing robot.
2006 " - ?? Will most likely stay intact. Not sure if it's arrived yet from Michigan.


All of these robots 2001-2005 and up are on a shelf above our work station. Hopefully we can get some of them into the local children's museum.

[Dan Petrovic]

At the moment, we still have several off-season competitions that we are going to.

We built a practice robot, so if anyone comes up between now and River Rage and puts out that they'd like to start a team, they can use that one.

Right now they aren't exactly in working condition, but it wouldn't take long to get them to be.

Our 2006 and 2005 robots were stripped completely of their electronics and now we're just using them for historical reference. The ball pickup mechanism worked beautifully on the 2006 robot.

And then there are going to be plenty of demos and stuff that we'll be doing. Our robot does more work in the off-season than during the official competitions.

[Billfred]

1618 has three robots thus far.

The 2005 robot was stripped for parts before I joined the team--about all that's left is the frame and electronics panel, which was used to build a pneumatics demonstration setup before Kickoff. During the season, the robot was rigged back up for testing the BaneBots transmissions, with interesting results. (It wasn't the carrier plates.)

The 2006 robot is still largely in one piece. We robbed some Victors and the Maxi block for Uppercut, our 2007 robot, and stuck in the 2005 breaker panel. We also borrowed the 2006 RC for testing when the 2007 RC's spade terminals came out, but that can go back in without incident. I'm hoping that we can get it back up and running this summer.

Uppercut is already back at school, and made the trip in one piece. The arm tower is a little bent from where we tipped trying to get off of 1251 at the end of qualifying (we never used the arm in eliminations, so we left it), the graphics are a little scratched (we can print new ones), and the front bumper's got a few hits on it (gee, wonder where those came from). I'm hoping that we can keep this one together (save the standard Victor-stealing) for a long while--it's a really awesome robot when it works as intended (and even when it doesn't!).

[Kyle A]

As i said in a earlier post from last year all of our robots from before 2003 are gone.

2003- has gone through some minor changes, took off all the phumatics, and repaired the drive motors many times. It is now a t-shirt cannon that we use at different events, hopefully this year though it is going to be put up just as a display model.

2004- is gone

2005- has been torn apart. the drive base may be used as a tank/ chair robot to sit and drive around on, or maybe a kid friendly robot. The mast is going to be used as our air tank for the new t- shirt cannon that we are making.

2006- it is still fully together, we have made some minor changes like making the roller system more stable, and we also use it to test programing for the 2007 robot.

2007- is back at home in the shop. It had some small problems that needed fixed, but its running as good as new now. Hopefully it will stay around for awhile.

[gurellia53]

Ours are sitting in a corner in our workshop (maintenance garage). We tore the 2006 bot up a bit this year, but we're trying to get it back together sometime.

I've heard rumors that our robots are going to the future Caterpillar museum here in Peoria. I'm not exactly sure when the museum will be finished, or if our robots are going to be on display or stuffed in storage, but it would be really cool if they were displayed for the public.

[JaneYoung]

418 has been lucky so far in that our robots remain pretty much in tact year to year. Because we have participated in BEST for many years as well as FIRST, we have robots varying in sizes with stories and history attached. Several of the smaller robots decorate the classroom walls of our coach and lead teacher, Mr. Bertucci. In the metal shop there is storage for robots and for the tool cart. We've gotten rather creative with our storage and it becomes somewhat of a dance to access the older ones when they are needed. We pulled out our FIRST 2004 robot at the beginning of build to take some photos of a lift mechanism for another team. To access that robot, it took 3 of us and a carefully choreographed movement of robots and people to bring the robot out of storage and into the metal shop for photographing.

We also have old bicycles stored/displayed along one of the walls of the metal shop that have been built and there is always something coming in: old wheel chairs, bicycles, etc for future projects. It is nice that we have the space we do in the classroom and metal/wood shops to be able to use our robots for demos, training, and as a showcase for future students and guests. When unexpected visitors drop by, we can usually be found in the 'cage' either doing a simple demo or choreographing a moving 'dance', usually involving the guests. They have always loved it.

We have the entire 04 bot sitting in our mentor's physics room. The 05 bot is only a drive train (the arm if off rusting somewhere), and is slowly being cannibalized for off season projects. Our 06 bot, AimBot, is sitting pretty much intact inside our shipping container that we use for storage. The 07 bot, FloJo, just got back and did a nice PR run during a school assembly, and will be kept up and running for recruiting purposes.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Update: Our 2005 and 2006 robots run perfectly and flawlessly. The only thing changed in those two robots was that there was a prototype of this year's manipulator added to it. It's nice to have three running robots and hopefully we'll be able to utilize this... someday.

[Dan Petrovic]

We usually canibalize them for random parts and such. Mainly the electrical board. We didn't do that to our last year robot because of it's performance but it's still retired because it's broken from the hard fall we took in the last match of our most recent competition.

[SugaRaXie]

We usually take apart the old robots to help new kids to get a feel of what building and such is like.

Last year we dismantled Robogeet [first year robot] and Belladonna [second year girl's robot] -- and we combined em to form -- BELLAJEET! It was mostly for show than anything else.

This year we dismantled Dark Knight [second year boy's robot] so the new grade 9 and 10 kids could get a feel for working with robots and such -- we didn't really put it all back together.

However -- we refuse to allow anyone to touch last year's robot -- The Grip -- thats our pride and joy [made us proud in ATL]--!

[Éowyn]

Unfortunatly, only the 2005's robot has been left intact. The rest of the bots are in a room called the "morgue" and are randomly pillaged for parts during the build season.

[M-A-T]

Like most other teams we strip our old robots down. Some parts we keep intact like the drive train to train next years programmers on during our R&D period. It is kinda sad tho to see all that work taken apart but it just mean u get to make a new better one...yay

[Tyler Olds]

Originally Posted by YonZ

Veteran teams who have at least one post competition robot, what do you do with those old ones once they finish the FIRST season?

Being a graduate, it is always sad to see those robots that you worked so hard to build be out of commission. I always feel like Uncle Rico where I keep saying to my self "Ohhhh, man I wish I could go back in time. I'd take state. " (nationals in this case).

[Barry Bonzack]

My reply is in the old What to do with old robots thread

[Joohoo]

We keep our robot around for teaching rookies and for demonstrations. We usually keep most of them around. we currently have two laying around. One I used this year in november to test code, I was the only programmer and a rookie! and it saved my life and lessened the learning curve for the six weeks.