The title says it all. Our team is wondering where we should put our old robot from last season. Of course we will practice off it, especially the robots in the coming years with the new control system. But after a couple of years, you have a bunch of robots and they are just collecting dust. What do you do?
We usually keep them near our current robot, which gradually cannibalizes them down to almost nothing.
I know that many other teams with more storage/raw material stock save them for years though.
We have all of our robots from 2005 and on still together and either functioning, or close to functioning. We use them for demonstrations, to practice programming and driving for the next year, and to just look awesome.
There’s been a lot of threads before if you search you’ll find some cool ideas. One is to donate your old robot to a rookie team for them to use parts and learn how things work. Personally I like to keep them and we have our 05,07,08 bots in the shop in semi-running condition. The 05 bot is fully functional for the most part, 07 needs some fuses and relays but will still run and 08 needs the drivetrain reassembled because it was being experimented on by graduating senior.
Also old bots are excellent for driver training. As long as the game doesn’t change substantially next year (steps, gaps, or water :eek: ) we’ll most likely use our Kit based six wheel drive. So our future drivers they’ll have something to train on early on assuming we stay 6WD.
We use our '06 robot for presentation and display purposes. Most of the others have either been modified for prototyping or just gradually gutted over the long process of time. Some, however, still work, and we utilize them for driver practice and game simulations from time to time. Best use of old robots, though, in my mind, is to show visitors and potential members the variety that this program has shown, and helping both relate team history to new members and show them just what they’re getting into(and how awesome FIRST really is :))
*Search a little before starting new threads- I’m sure this topic has been covered at least once on these forums before.
EDIT- Oops. I was beaten to the punch…
Well, our first two robots, from '03 and '04 are long gone. They got demolished for parts. '05 is a skeleton, but if we put the compressor, motors, etc. back in it would probably work. From '06 on, we save the competition bot and take the practice bot apart at the start of the next year’s build season. We play, practice, train drivers, teach members, demonstrate, and show off with our 3-peat bots.
With the exception of the current year’s practice robot, the working robots are stored at our practice facility, because we don’t have room in our school’s workshop. Plus, we can practice our defense with the old bots and prepare our drivers for the New England defense they’ll see at the regional.
At the beginning of the season. The first order is to dissassemble the old robot. We do not have the space nor money to keep the old robot and build new one, so the metal gets recycled, and we salvage what we can.
330 has kept robots for a while now, but also takes parts from them–in order:
1997: not sure
1998: Somewhere at JPL
1999: In pieces somewhere…
2000: The “hook” on that, along with the upper stage of the lift, are in one shop; the rest is…
2001: Frame together, turntable together in another place. Stopped working for the last time in 2003.
2002: We’ll never get that one completely apart… Doesn’t run, but mostly together in one shop.
2003: Joins 2002, but might run again if the gearboxes were maintained.
2004: Still running, but it’s been used as a practice/defense robot for some time now. Parts have been removed; the lift no longer runs due to motor removal for use in 2005 competition.
2005: Runnable, though not in competition form. Should be restored, but not sure when that’ll happen.
2006: Running, used as defense.
2007: Running, though used as practice robot.
2008: Running.
1135, on the other hand, only has space for one or two FRC robots. Non-performers that aren’t current get taken apart, save for 2003 (stolen).
I’ll do an auto biography style of what we do. 
Chapter 1: There once was this robot named Rack Star, no one knew of this robot as it was born in the young minds of students early in January. For 6 weeks, rack star began to grow, learn, and play with it’s older siblings. Finally, the time came when it was time for the robot to move on. The young Rackstar then moved into a small mobile home, where it traveled all around the country to and play with those just like it. The young Rack Star attended concerts, and listened to those who commanded it following in the rock in roll way. In the end, feeling homesick, it traveled back to its birth place to settle down.
Chapter 2: Rackstar stayed in his birth home for many months until his parents returned to clean it up (finally lol). Rackstar started getting moved to different buildings, letting those like his parents see him run. He would have fun every now and then by running full blast toward a person, then stopping suddenly. Soon, one of these viewing gained him new parents to learn everything about him.
Chapter 3: Rackstar’s first birthday had finally come! And a new robot was born. His parents then began to put him through the hardest few weeks ever as they started using him for drivers practice. Hamtray, Rackstar’s younger brother then began to live the same life he did, following in his footsteps. After Hamtray took off in Rackstar’s old moble home, rackstar sat in his birth home for a few months. Every now and then, while Hamtray was on his own tour, Rackstar would be taken to different places to show himself off. Rackstar was getting old however, and there were a lot of pieces starting to fall off.
Chapter 4: Hamtray returned from his tour, and began being taken around to show off himself. Rackstar then joined the “Gutted” weight loss system, loosing all of his electronics and pneumatics for use on back up robots in the future. His parents love him dearly, and they have created a memorial for him, and those older siblings of his to proudly stand for all to see.
Please note, both Rackstar and Hamtray had twin siblings, and their stories are no where near the same! 
We have every robot we’re ever made except for our '92 robot which is now property of FIRST robotics and on display at FIRST Place. The other robots are on permanent display at our robotics site in our museum. We use them whenever we begin the design process all over again to learn what will work and what won’t. We use our previous year’s robot for demos and practice until the practice bot is complete which is used to design the new year’s prototype.
We never dispose our old robots and we try to avoid cannibalizing the robots as much as possible.
Pretty much the same here, except we have our '92 bot and we cannibalize our electronics to save money. But we have some demo bots specifically like the meccanum bot and the mecannon bot (rackstar’s twin with a t-shirt cannon and meccanum wheels).
We usualy just cannibalize our robots for the next year but the past few years we have customized our robots into fun things. We have turned out '07 bot into a humaniod looking robot called Mr. Burgatofor out mentor Mr. Burg and we have even more recently turned our '06 bot into a rideable go cart, we put joysticks on the robot so a person can drive the robot while sitting on top of it (pictures comming soon), it is very fun to drive and lights up little kids faces.
On 1618:
2005: The rails and end caps are assembled; that’s about it.
2006: It hasn’t been run since I joined the team (and, if the sources are to be believed, it didn’t run well when it did run), but it’s all physically together. We keep talking of overhauling it, but plans haven’t ever quiiiiiite made it to fruition.
2007 (Uppercut): We changed the arm to pneumatics (Uppercut now can only deliver an uppercut to the particularly short), and the gripper still doesn’t work, but it’s driving and together. We removed some superfluous electrical components along with the arm conversion.
2008 (Speedy Debris): Exactly how we left it at Chesapeake. I’m hoping we can get something together in the off-season for it.
On my old team, 1293:
**2004 (Bob): **Just the frame remains.
2005 (Ockham’s Raizor): Only the frame and side panels remain; much of the 80/20 of its lift was used on Atlas.
2006 (Chomp): Stripped to the drive base. The practice robot’s mechanism is still around, though.
2007 (Atlas): Still around and running (though not necessarily turning).
2008 (R5D5): Still in one piece, last I heard.
They work great as prototypes! Salvaging the drivetrains from past robots to speed up the testing process is immensely useful. We used the 2007 robot last year to test out our mechanisms early in the build season. An interesting side effect is that our designs end up being very modular…
Our modified 2007 bot on the left, and our nearly finished 2008 bot on the right. They’re almost twins!
Last I checked…
Minus pillaged electronics, '05 is still around, '06 and (I think) '07 are completely gone, and '08 is still there unless the team was capable of doing a complete teardown of the robot in five minutes the day the robot got back.
None of our past robots are in working condition. We often strip them for the axles and sprockets.
2005 - Disassembled, the lift is still together.
2006 - Assembled (For now). Does not run.
2007 (Competition Robot)- Assembled and working. Used for defense and demos.
2007 (Practice Robot) - Disassembled, used for off-season/build season prototyping. Cannibalized for spares.
2008 (Competition Robot) - Assembled and working. Currently on display at county fair.
2008 (Practice Robot) - In two pieces (lift and drivetrain). Cannibalized for spares. Being used for off-season prototyping.
Wow, you guys, thanks for all of your answers! I’m new to CD, and I am amazed at how fast people reply. Of course, there’s over a million members. Of course, being new, I did a total noobish thing and didn’t search. Only until after I posted, I noticed that there were about 5 other threads about this same thing. And, I stupidly didn’t read the things in the “read these first” sticky before I made this thread.
But, oh well; there thankfully isn’t too much damage done. We were all noobs once. 
It seems that most people use the old parts, keep the robots for demonstration purposes, or recycle the metal parts. I like the recycling idea. We don’t have a lot of space for our robot(s) at our school, so one of the reasons I made this thread was find out some reasons for getting rid of the parts. Donating, recycling, throwing away.
Any more ideas for our situation would be great, thanks so much.
That’s why there are mistakes. So you can learn from them.
1676:
2005 - All parts are intact, but not on Robot; Robot is a 6 wheel Chasis now, used for proto-typing
2006 - Robot is a shell - all parts are there, minus electronics and wheels
2006b- Kitbot Chassis, with the 2006 Electronics - used for testing
2007 - Fully Operational
2008 - Fully Operational