How Do You Give Your Robot It's Signature Look?

[AJ R]

1714 uses as much clear polycarbonate as possible.
Here is our 2006 robot.
I don't have a picture of our 2007 robot, but here is our inventor submission.

[Grant Cox]

Green. Lots of bright green (and blue).

One of our main sponsors (FANUC Robotics) has a paint booth that uses the same powder coating technique that you see on shows like American Chopper. We got all of our shee metal painted for free, I believe

[=Martin=Taylor=]

We take 1/32" polycarbonate and spray paint the inside orange. Then we print up stickers and stick them on the outside. Because the paint is on the inside it doesn't scratch, and looks shiny. Its easier and cheaper than powder coating, and the plastic helps protect the robots electronics - so its functional too.

We started making this "armor" in 2006, and it looked really good so we took it a step further in 2007 by covering the whole robot with it.

Painting eyes and fangs on your robot also helps

[Otaku]

675 usually puts our team number/logo on some functional part of our bot, the conveyer belt last year, the ramp this year. It's also usually not top-notch quality -- Cthulhu was spray painted and Gloria was plasma cut by hand.

[Madison]

I've tried to incorporate "X" into the design when possible in the past -- which isn't terribly hard since it appears in trusses all the time -- but we've been moving away from that and trying to use the lightest material for the task to start with and lightening as little of the robot and its parts later.

I don't know how 'signature' that is, though, since I doubt that anyone has noticed. Last season, I cut lightening holes into a beam that, when read as morse code, spelled "XBOT," but the tube collapsed as a result.

[Pavan Dave]

Chain and Crab have been big in the past few years. I hope that continues since its been working well for us. Also we have managed to put a turret on every bot in the past few years too, it goes right in hand with the chain and crab. I hope though that our anodizing of our robot continues for years to come. It is a good way to promote robotics by showing people something that is very aesthetically pleasing.

~Pavan.

[JackN]

Well, our robots are famous for their massive Martian logo, four pneumatic wheels, six motor drive train, turreted arms, and lexan shell are all common components for any robot from team 494.

[hipsterjr]

We have a in house decal/sign shop, so we cover ours in a red glitter-finish decal with silver and gold sparkle flames. Also, we were the original one of the first to put spinners on a robot

[Kyle Love]

My past team, the TechnoKats, typically have very low profile drive systems, also this past season everything was black.

[Carmine Rizzo]

Team 75 uses lots of mothers polish (two to three jars each year). We use mostly Aluminum on our robot; our parts consists of lightning holes that are images These images could be numbers, logos common images and or our goals. We also have subtle statements machine into the robot. Quotes from the students or mentors like hidden Mickey’s . You have to look hard at the robot to see them.