Tips to make your robot look good.

[MarkoRamius1086]

Keep all the electronics organized and compact. The one thing that most people blurt out first when they see our robot though is "POWDER COAT"!

Powder coat or Anodizing is really nice unless you're looking for a more metallic look. I remember this year 75 has a really nice shiny aluminum look.

(I mentioned anodizing because in Atlanta last year, I saw 148's robot... I was speechless. The black anodizing was so insane I could feel my jaw drop. If you want to model your looks after a team, 148 is a great place to start!)

[MrForbes]

Anodizing, powder coating, and CNC machining can really improve the looks of a robot, especially when seen up close. But the key to making a good looking robot is careful planning, which includes the schedule, so you can take the time to do a neat wiring job, paint the parts (if you can't manage to get them machined/coated/treated), and generally make it look finished.

Last year our robot looked pretty good, it was made mostly of plywood, which we spray painted. A couple of coats of spray paint, sanded between coats, can be hard to distinguish from powder coating!

[fordchrist675]

Also a designed layout for electronics condensing and organizing helps make it look professional and efficient. It may be tedious but its well worth it.

[Vermeulen]

Added bonus to having a nice and tidy electrical board: it takes way less time to pull the electrical stuff, or to fix a problem. It once took me 10 minutes to pull our electrical board while testing, with two people helping me look for wires. Also, try to go away from the "box on wheels" design that many teams are guilty of (mine included). It doesn't even need to be a fancy cnc-milled one-piece aluminum shell. For example, the top section of 2194's robot this year was made out of die-cut cardboard with a design printed on one side.

[artdutra04]

It's all about the small details.

[VanMan]

I prefer the robots that look like they were made with hardly any time or funding. If the robot doesn't look good, people don't expect much and when it does well, people will be more impressed. With powder coated and nice looking robots, people mentally expect them to do better and if they don't preform well, people will be surprised. That's just my opinion. And I don't have any advice on how to make a robot look nice. All of the robots that I've built with my team in the past have looked only half decent although most preformed above average.

[BJC]

I think that you will find that teams that consistanty have a good looking robot also have a good brand image. For instance many teams have unique colors that they use on their robot every year. These team's robots are often able to be recognized from a long way off because of their uniqueness.

For example, if you were to put my own team 33's robot is a gigantic line along side of every other team in the world. Most people who knew our name, the killer bees, would be able to walk down that line and clearly distinguish our robot from all the others because our robot is covered in yellow honeycomb every year.

Just food for thought

[Andy L]

Originally Posted by =Martin=Taylor=

Carefully design your robot in CAD.

Then: poorly machine the parts (make sure to drill a lot of unnecessary holes). Do a terrible job welding (the key here is to make sure nothing comes out 90*, while maximizing burnthrough and blobbyness). Duct Tape. Use it wherever possible. When wiring, make sure to use as much wire as possible and tie it in great nots all over the bot.

...Then cover everything in plastic panels so no one notices


What? You think I'm joking?

I laughed for a good three minutes, because it's completely true

[VanMan]

Originally Posted by BJC

I think that you will find that teams that consistanty have a good looking robot also have a good brand image. For instance many teams have unique colors that they use on their robot every year. These team's robots are often able to be recognized from a long way off because of their uniqueness.

For example, if you were to put my own team 33's robot is a gigantic line along side of every other team in the world. Most people who knew our name, the killer bees, would be able to walk down that line and clearly distinguish our robot from all the others because our robot is covered in yellow honeycomb every year.

Just food for thought

I agree with this. The alliance colored bumpers really changed that this year though. If a team has a specific color scheme and it doesn't really go well with red or blue, then it changes robot appearance a bit.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by MarkoRamius1086

Keep all the electronics organized and compact.

Minor counterpoint: Organized, then compact. I've been on teams that have done "and", and "then" works out much, much better when you're trying to fix it.

In the absence of a lot of time or resources back in my 1618 days, I had to pull a few tricks of my own. Among my favored tricks:

2007-2008

Plotter-printed graphics. Laminating them worked decently in 2007 (and may be all you need in years where there's no reaching outside the frame). In 2008, for fear of pokey robots (or bumbling students), we spray-adhesived them to lexan for more protection. I printed 1618's at USC, whose computer labs charged me $2 a square foot. (I often printed extra rectangles with just our number, just in case.)

Before/After:


2009

For 2009, we went with an all-black look--and about hit it. In spite of many last-minute scrambles right before ship, we were largely successful with a few other tricks:

Spray paint. The only part of the robot we were able to spray paint were the side and rear plywood panels around the lower part (and even then, only on one side). A few coats gave it a nice look from the stands.

Gaffer's tape. With the aluminum superstructure of the robot in the crate unpainted, and FIRST rules prohibiting any more painting in the pits, we had to figure out a new way of blacking out the rest of the robot. I was working a fair amount with a cameraman for a local TV station at the time, and he suggested a source for a roll of gaffer's tape. One roll did the entire robot with some to spare, and only ran about $20 after tax. (You might be able to find it cheaper elsewhere.)

Cut vinyl stickers. The last part of the puzzle was getting our schools and sponsors on the robot. Using the company that pinstripes our cars at work, I sent them the sponsors' vector art and had three sets cut for each. Applied properly (place them, tape down one side, flip down, peel off the backing, carefully roll it back up, carefully peel back the top piece), they look great and held up fine even on our painted plywood. Getting all three sets cut (including the differently-colored One Six One Eight) was about $75.

Another before/after:

[pm 2389]

we use painted aluminum sheet sideing that we etch are sponsors in.

[jblay]

I think giving the robot a face makes it look super awesome.





Also cading out your robot and knowing where everything is going to go (especially electronics) helps make your bot not only good looking but much more organize and easy to deal with at competition.

[Karibou]

For the past few years, 1189 has used fabric for either robot parts (2006), or robot coverings. One of our mentors/sponsors is a wonderful seamstress, and she takes care of all of our bumper and robot clothing needs. What we call our robot clothing is a easy way to protect the electronics, springs, wires, chains, etc. of our robots, display sponsor logos, and look good (don't forget, your robot's image plays a part in the Imagery award!). All of the "1189"'s in the following pictures are fabric numbers that are sewn on, but the yellow diamonds and sponsor logos are all some kind of laminated sheeting. I think that they might actually be stickers that were sewn on, because we have a ton of look-alikes sitting in a folder in our shop that are definitely stickers.

2007:


2008:



For the past few years, our robot designs haven't allowed us to use fabric coverings. 2009 didn't need it - we had a lexan-aluminum-and-zip-ties robot. This year we needed a hard surface to serve as a ball deflector, so we painted a piece of regolith yellow (it was last minute!), and plastered sponsor stickers all over the frame and the regolith. Stickers work well, as long as they're either sewn to something or attached to a hard surface.


(...this post coming from the team with 3 spirit awards and 3 imagery awards)

[Kims Robot]

Spray paint! (and camo bumpers!)
Last year, 1511 had a contact that offered to powdercoat parts for us, but it was a 4 hour round trip drive, and the process took a while. Our drivetrain got done, but in the rush to finish the rest of the robot, we didnt have time, so we tried metal spraypaint, and it worked beautifully!

Flash forward to this year, and we again used red & black spraypaint, and coupled that with a crazy camo mesh hand painted by one of our mentors! Version 2 of the robot was a metal mesh with some more spray paint.

Its not quite as fancy or pretty as annodizing or powdercoating, but it works well to have a pretty distinguished, non-aluminum looking robot.

[Kibaspirit]

I prefer the robots that look like they were made with hardly any time or funding. If the robot doesn't look good, people don't expect much and when it does well, people will be more impressed. With powder coated and nice looking robots, people mentally expect them to do better and if they don't preform well, people will be surprised.

I totally agree! Our robots don't always look the best, but, especially this year, we have had no issues. It doesn't matter how a robot looks. If it doesn't work, what does it matter what it looks like?

Fabricated robots are nice, but we wonder where other teams find the time for that.
(We only have 9 students)