Much of our funding comes from a grant that is derived from one incredible benefactor, Sally Jenkins. When we originally applied for the grant, they said,
“Okay, but you have to name the robot Sally in her honor.”
So, we did. We continue to do so every year. In this spirit, our competition bot is always named Sally in her honor.
With tools, however, the members are in control, and there is pleading, lobbying, and even, on the off-day, some bribery (Yes, we name our tools. This tradition started a few years ago as a way for a few members to enlist the help of the entire team to organize the shop).
We have a matching manual that identifies each tool and it has been incredibly helpful at events.
We name ours after birds. The past 4 have been Falca, Griffin, Raven, and Heron. Sometimes they have acronyms, like 2014. Cooperatively Optimized Northwest Defensive and Offensive Robot(CONDOR).
The tradition goes all the way back to our first season. Through my time on the team we’ve decided by collecting different name options, sitting on it for a few days, and then having everyone vote.
We have a nomination and vote system. Our robots are always named after inspiring women, and have to be in some way related to the game theme. So, those that submit a nomination do a short write up to explain the relationship and why they should be recognized. The number of nominations we get really determines our process from there - if there are a lot, you have to narrow it down first, but if there are only a few, a single vote might do.
Back when we started we used to hold competitions to get names for the robots. I think the first was called Galahad. The problem was that after that no one seemed to care enough to suggest names, and when we did name robots no one remembered what the name was. Now it is just “the ball thrower” (Aerial Assist) or “the forklift” (Recycle Rush).
We had some luck naming subsystems, but none for the robot as a whole. Thus this year’s shooter is called the Crown (we have a four-wheel shooter powered by four falcons), the pickup mechanism in 2019 was named Doris (from certain angles the prototype look like a giraffe) and the 2017 climber was The Spikes of Doom.
However, a couple of years ago when I was mentoring the FTC team I realised that our pink and white colour scheme looked just like coconut ice. Thus the name was easy. The cool bit was that we found that the parents then brought free coconut ice for the team every week. Realising the obvious advantages of free food, we now name every robot after a different thing we would like to eat. No more fights, and coming up with a name is fun and more about who can pick the best food that everyone likes. Plus the names are easy to remember and seem to stick.
Thus:
2019 FTC: Cocount Ice (robot designed in alternating pink and white colours)
2020 FRC: Lemon Meringue (robot was shooting lemons from a big white circular hopper). parents provided lemon meringue cupcakes and pies.
2020 FTC: Donut Factory (competition involved shooting rings - aka donuts - at targets, and we added 3D printed glowing donuts to the shooter). Inspired name, all the free donuts we could eat.
2021 FRC: Fabulous Fairy Bread (see Wikipedia’s fairy bread for a description of Australia’s national food). The relaxation of bumper rules means that our bumpers are hand painted with hundreds and thousands, and we get fairy bread and hundreds and thousands biscuits when we go in to build.
I have the team convinced that we need to make a circular robot for FRC so that we can call it Strawberry Cupcake, and current suggestions for this year’s FTC are already showing up, with Jersey Caramel and Chocolate Eclaire in the lead. Yesterday I even found out that an FRC alumni member has a business selling lavendar chocolate brownies in the farmer’s market next to our shed, so I’m going to try to convince the team to sell him naming rights for a year’s supply. Lavendar Chocolate Brownie is a name I can work with.
When the CAD is “done” we make a meeting to choose about 5 starcraft units that looks like and has a “role” similar to the robot. Then we make a poll, the most voted one is the name of the robot. For example:
The moment CAD is done, we usually open a Google doc that anyone can add names into, and about a week later we vote on a name. Since 2016 we made a it a tradition that every name should end with “ER”, and before it was about characteristics of the robot.
2014: Atlas (carried a giant ball on its shoulders)
2015: Rafiki (lifted cans in the familiar Rafiki pose)
2016: Skyzer
2017: Bolter
2018: Cypher
2019: Casper
2020/21: Chester
For some reason all the robots that I’ve been a part of began with a C… Odd…
Names are submitted, team votes on name, sometimes team votes to vote again when they decide they really don’t like “Maple Syrup Machine”. Last year’s name was originally Murphy, then we decided to capitalize all letters except for the “h”, which makes the “h” silent of course. This year’s robot was a combination of last year’s drivetrain and brand new mechanisms for everything else, and the name MhURGE was chosen.
We (The Apes of Wrath) name our robots after characters from the Planet of the Apes movies & books. Typically the team president picks the name, subject to “if everyone hates it you have to pick something else”. Some years the team president goes around asking everyone for input or to vote on it, other years they just decide unilaterally. Some years it’s very contentious, other times a random team member just looks at the Planet of the Apes wiki and says “hey how about _____” and it sticks.
Last-minute decisions after being put on the spot by FIRST representatives visiting our pit at competitions! Always works. Hoping the team carries on the tradition after I graduate.
Normally what happens on our team Is at some point during the season someone comes up with a nickname or a joke about the the bot and it just sticks giving us the name of our bot. For example our 2020 bot was named hammerhead due to the look of the intake.
Our robots all have female names, because the girls back in 2005 decided that’s how it was going to be, and you don’t mess with tradition. Beyond that, it’s just some kind of random agreement between the team members.
After they named our minibot Candi with a heart over the “i” I reserved the right to veto robot names, because while I found it funny in a mildly inappropriate way, some sponsors/parents might not take too kindly to that kind of joke.
We have a white board in the shop. Throughout the season if anyone thinks of a name, we toss it up on the whiteboard. At the end of the build season, one of two things happen, depending on how organized we are:
a. We put everything into a google form and give everyone on the team a few days to pick favorites. We usually let the engineering leadership pick from the top 2 or 3 of those.
b. Whoever is in the shop at the last late night of the season makes an impulsive pick and we stick with it.
or occasionally option c, which is that an inside joke pops up in the season and we go with that. As a rule of thumb, I like shorter names, and we usually give the practice robot a similar but dumber name. 2019 was Flip and Flop, 2020 was Orion and Oblake (had seniors named Ryan and Blake at the time.)
