Silly and ridiculous robot designs.

[Qbranch]

At first, we wanted the robot this year to 'swallow' the ball so that it was inside of a cavity within the robot, and would just roll around on the floor surrounded by the robot so we could hold on to it guaranteed.

...then we tried to fit the 40" ball inside of the maximum robot size rectangle.

-q

[Vexkingof716]

This year we have a rookie freshman whop is constantly coming up with odd ideas. we have started to call him the storm, but he doesn't know this . one of his ideas was to put a jet engine on the robot for speed, then the end of arm device should be a vacuums. he is constantly just saying these random ideas, we are starting to get scared.

[Maggie27]

Mine wasn't funny until I drawed it out. Then it looked vulgar. >_<

[BillB]

We were going to try a hovercraft, but it would be so easy to bump.

[Cuog]

For Triple Play we considered a speed bump robot that fell and consumed the entire side between 2 of the tetras, and had an "Arm of God" to reach the automated loading zone and stack the tetras on most of the field.

To Aim High, we thought about a pneumatic cannon like a student on our team builds for fun, sadly custom pneumatics weren't allowed.

Rack and Roll we wanted a plate of suction cups to stick to the alliance station wall then lift our bot and 2 other robots up off the ground scoring points for all three robots... rules again got in the way.

This year the worst thing we were thinking about was a robot that turned by banking using pneumatic pistons. There was also another to attach to the center of the field, and run through the divider really fast crossing both finish lines.

[HedlessChkn]

we have always wanted a helicopter for years yet come up with the bumper and weight issue just as your team did...

our most rediculous idea this year was to have a bot with a very long pipe that harnessed the power of a black hole to suction the balls, as the vacuume cups simply wont do. then we realised that it might just suck the balls up, which we figured wouldnt be too bad, then the field gone, then the entire verizon center and then it would suck our own bot into itself. thats when we knew we had a problem... that and the fact that i dont think we could get that much tubing into envelope...

[3DWolf]

Originally Posted by JoeXIII'007

I would like to see someone design and build a robot that can find a particular loophole in the physics of space and time such that it can run a ridiculous number of laps in auton and regular play.

So you attach an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device to the front of your bot? FIRE RED PORTAL! FIRE BLUE PORTAL! RUN! I pray that someone doesn't get their bot stuck in an infinite loop.

On a serious note, I had an idea sort of like a speed ramp out of Sonic. Hold the ball with some freely rotating wheels, spin a conveyor below it really fast, then let go. Then I realized that gravity existed.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by 3DWolf

So you attach an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device to the front of your bot?

Even if it were available off the shelf, it exceeds the cost limit for a single component. (What's the exchange rate on internal organs these days, anyway?)

[3DWolf]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Even if it were available off the shelf, it exceeds the cost limit for a single component. (What's the exchange rate on internal organs these days, anyway?)

Pff, I'm sure SOME company has a COTS ASHPD. Either that or cake...

But wait... the cake is a lie!?

[Jeff Waegelin]

My favorite: my first year in FIRST (2001), we're sitting around discussing designs, and we had come up with several serious ideas. We get to the last guy in the room, and he says "I want a robot that can fly and make pizza". We quickly realized we had exhausted all possible ideas, and moved on. The "robot that flies and makes pizza" became one of our team jokes from then on.

[Bohalin]

we wanted to build just a frame then have our smallest member get on it and do all the work wile the drivers drove the frame around

[EricH]

Never ask for crazy, off-the-wall ideas...

The result was the idea of a robot that would do a chin-up on the overpass to send the ball over. Good idea, except that you can't grapple field elements...

Another was a large 3/4 circle with scoops at each end. The idea was to drive up under the overpass and drop the ball over into the other scoop. Just one minor problem...something about scale...

[pyxelz]

Originally Posted by BenjyPoore

We havn't thought of too many this year, but we had a funny one last year. We considered making a 6' robot that would drive to infront of the opposing player's station it would unfold to the maximum length and block the driver's view. We decided it wasn't very graciously professional.

actually, that was done by one team 4 or 5 years ago. there was a giant screen that unfolded - the screen was painted black on one side and white on the other, making a one-way veil. can't remember which team right now though...

[Alon S]

we thought seiously about creating a robot that goes this way:

in front he has platform that the trackball can be placed on. that platform can shoot the ball up and backwards towards an upright trampoline that shoots the ball back over the overpass =P

hell yeah

[Urban Hawk]

Put an air cannon on side to blast ball out of opponents grip and put something on the back of robot to push the ball backwards after you crossed the lane line. Score once though the finish line, fire it backward across it again scoring more points, then have another robot push it back again across the line for even more points.