I need ideas for some sort of cutesie robot thing, something for PR, where our team can go to a public place, and have it run around (either autonomously, or human controlled). Preferably it’d be easy to pick up, carry, store, etc. Its other purpose would be to recruit new people to the teams, or train members on.
It doesn’t have to serve much of a purpose, other than look cool, and get people’s interest. (Although I’ve always liked the idea of a t-shirt shooter )
Anyhow, if you, or your team has done something like this, please post what you did/how you did it, or if you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them!
Our very successful offseason project was a pneumatic t-shirt launcher, seen in this picture. It is a dual tank setup with a water irrigation valve for actuation.
The green tank in the front is the main air reserve tank, pressurized to approx. 120 psi. It goes to the black FRC regulator, which has a maximum output of 60 psi. The 60 psi output goes directly into the secondary reserve tank which is an integral part of the launcher. The seondary tank is the most important part of the launcher because it makes the whole thing work correctly. 1) The t-shirt flies when it has a great volume of air behind it. The secondary tank is connected to the valve by a 1" coupling, literally dumping all the air at once from the secondary tank. 2) The plastic plumbing pipe is not safe to use with 100+ psi of air pressure. 60 psi from the regulator is a safe pressure to use, while the main pressure system of the larger primary tank refills the system after every shot.
Building a public relations robot is almost entirely different than building robotics to survive a competition. When building your PR robots, design them more like how you would see a robot in Innoventions at Disney World than a FRC competition robot. Here are some of the design mantra that I’ve used when designing PR robots (FRC and FVC related).
PR robots have to look cool! Sometimes, the general public is more interested in minute little detail work than whether or not the robot actually does much. If powdercoating is an option, go for it! (Or else glossy spray paint is your friend. ;)) Use a lot of Lexan panels, and reverse paint them so that the paint is on the inside and won’t chip/scratch. Take your time building the robot, and hold yourself to a very high quality required for the project.
Hide all the “guts” and “inner workings” of the robot [with easily removable panels]. It’s sad to say, but 95% of the population doesn’t care about how it works. They only care that it does work; and when they can see all the inner workings of the robot, it makes it seem like it’s only halfway completed. But, when you are showing off your robot up and close to the other 5%, make it so that you can show people “what’s under the hood”. Lexan panels on hinges, as well as heavy laminated paper with Velcro have worked very well for us in the past.
Keep any exposed mechanisms minimalistic. If you cannot hide all of your 'bot’s mechanisms, keep all exposed mechanisms simple with nice, clean lines. PR robots need to look like there was a lot of industrial design that went into them.
Wow the crowd! Tee shirt cannons! Loud music with subwoofers! Free stuff (food/beverage almost always works)! Cold Cathode (neon) Lights! Make it fast! Make it loud! Add bling! Make it “play” a sport, like hit throw a football or shoot a basketball! Make it something so simple, even your grandmother could drive it! (Notice I stated drive [the base chassis], and not operate [the arms and other mechanisms]).
Hovercraft…
or better yet, get ahead of the curve from Back to the Future, a hoverboard. lol.
What would be cool is a tank that shoots t-shirts. I mean like turret and tank treads and a cool shell to make it look like a tank. As well, you can put lights and stuff on it and also rig up a stereo and have it blast ACDC as it fires a t-shirt. That would be awesome.
Maybe go for a robot that does a laser light show. That would be cool, though it wouldnt have to move much.
it’s the wrong season, but how about a Santa’s Village train like you see in the mall come Christmastime? Make an engine, a couple passenger cars, and a nice red caboose. Perhaps make it remote controlled, so it doesn’t follow the exact same pattern each time. Get young kids on it, excellent photo op, great use for all those old Skyways sitting around.
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