Build Season is so exciting. We were setting up our “game court” today; it takes up almost our entire shop, so we temporarily moved some stuff out in the alleyway to make room and rearrange. When one of the mentors noticed some of the skater kids in the parking lot playing with what looked like pool noodles, I had a bad feeling about our 2006 robot we had set outside.
Sure enough, the robot was gone! After a frantic search of the area and some Jack Bauer-style questioning of the skaters, no robot. I called 911 and announced that the Bomb Squad had a robot stolen - well, that got their attention. By the time the officer got here, one of the skaters remembered seeing “Albert” on a moped with what could only be our robot.
A sweet 3-wheel articulated crab drive 17 fps robot base on the back of a moped and WE DON’T HAVE A PICTURE!!! That is the real crime.
Apparently Albert was collecting trash for recycling…one man’s treasure is another man’s trash. We are hoping to get the robot back…
We really don’t know. Even though it was just the base of the robot, it still weighed about 80 pounds. He is obviously a talented person and if we can find him, maybe we can ask him to be a mentor.
Yes, that is the kidnapped bot. We have the turret, shooter and gum-ball-machine hopper. We have been modifying the shooter for proto-typing; that is why the stripped base was on site. It’s just too bad that we never have weight for the GPS locator:p
If only you had the new system in the bot and the bot was on…you could set up a control station in the back of someones car and drive around town…then you could use the live video feed when you were within range to find out where the bot was:rolleyes:
lol, good luck finding your bot though
I would have thought that with all the sensors you guys put on those 'bots, that one of them would have been a GPS, so you could keep track of it. :rolleyes:
I hope that you can get it back, since it is part of your team’s history.
That’s really too bad that someone stole your robots. On the plus side, at least it wasn’t the 2009 robot the day before ship… But it’s awful losing any robot. I hope you get it back.
It wasn’t inside we placed it outside to save a little room while we get everything put together inside. then we went outside to bring the robot back inside and it was gone. When we found out it was gone the entire team scrambled in their cars and went searching.
WANTED* Albert - Blue moped - Orange jumpsuit - of course the 2006 robot
UPDATE! Robot found. Well, pieces of robot anyway. I haven’t seen what is left of it. I got a call from the police this afternoon that they had spotted it (it is great to live in a small town!) but the guy wouldn’t open his door. :eek:
So I dispatched a couple of mentors with a truck to accompany the officer to pick it up. Apparently it had been stripped, but they gathered up what they could.
That’s wonderful news! Even though it’s not the whole thing, even the remaining parts can be reused for future bots
Will you be able to post pictures of what is left (after you are able to see it), I’m interested to see what they took (yes I know that’s a weird request, but I’m wondering why he didn’t scrap the whole thing).
There wasn’t that much left on it; we have been stripping stuff off to use for a couple of years. It had a radio and some speed controllers, some motors and gearboxes, lots of item and connectors, cables, etc. I haven’t seen it and it sounds like we may have lost a CIM and maybe some smaller motors. I asked them to get a picture of it where it was found. Not sure if they were able to with the police around and all. I can post photos when I see it tomorrow, but it probably doesn’t look much worse than when it was taken!
“Lost Robot Found” sounds like something that happened to us: Our school had a team in 93 & 94 (before there were team numbers), and then folded. We restarted in 2002 as Team 811, with virtually no history other than pictures in the yearbook. Around 2004 one of the local community colleges contacted one of our mentors and said, “Yeah, we’ve got a robot with your name on it, do you want it or should we just throw it out?” It was Paragon, our '94 robot, in pretty good shape for having been apparently buried for 10 years. No clue why the college had it, or where it was for the decade.
Hopefully your robot will be at least quasi-salvageable.
