What does your team do with the old robots? My team has been participating in FIRST for three years now, and we are running out of space in the shop. What does your team do with the old robots?
We have a huge display section at the GM Proving Grounds. Not only do we get to show off, but we get other workers involved and, because our trophies are there too, we remind GM that there is a very good reason to continue the sponsorship…
Right now we’ve only got two robots and they sit in the shop. So far, we’ve used them for displays, training, and referencing. We also used last year’s robot to test our field at the beginning of this year.
On 1, we store them in a room with all other random parts that can be used for the next season’s robot.
On 573, we take them apart and use the good, unbeaten-to-a-pulp pieces (such as angle aluminum, motor mounts, and PVC tubing) for next year’s robot. We do keep the well designed parts of those robots though, parts such as pneumatic powered clamps and ball roller systems, just in case we do not have their designs on CAD and would like to use a similar design later.
i work with team 73 who has needless to say a few robots sitting arround…and that is what they mostly do, sit arround. we have used them in the past for idea building using old concepts…we have also retro-fitted them with the new control system for driver practice and auto programing…besides it is always good to have more bots on the feild when practicing even if they are only just causeing road blocks
We have our now 10 robots sitting in a room somewhere in the school, in various levels of construction. For example, we had to take apart one part a couple years back because we used latex and latex isn’t allowed in our school. I really think we ought to do something with them, though.
Donate them to science!
I’m in the extremely early stages of trying to develop a program for teams that coordinates FIRST Robotics Competition exhibits at science, history and industry museums throughout the country.
I’ll start another thread with more details soon, I think, but it seems like something that has wide appeal and reach, allows teams opportunities for off-season education and projects, and stands a good chance of succeeding because there’s very little burden upon the museums to contribute time or resources.
If you’re interested in learning more before I finalize the details of what I plan to do with this, my latest zany idea, PM me and I’ll fill you a bit more.
Our first robot (1999) was donated to the local community college and they “reversed engineered” it. Last I heard it was still there and being used for thier CAD classes. This robot no longer had any controls since we use to have to return them back to FIRST after the last competition. Due to lack of storage space all the other robots were dismantled and destroyed. We saved the controls, motors, pneumatics and such. The ones that had TIG welded frames were cut up and the ones constructed with profile were unbolted. All the aluminum and steel pieces were sold for scrap.
I will say destroying your robots for scrap value isn’t a “fundraiser” I’m proud of.
Uhm, ours is still in the crate, untouched since Palmetto.
Hopefully, nobody gets any bright ideas over summer.
We only have 2. This year’s we’re going to save until we build the other one. Last year’s is for tinkering.
My suggestion: Make a drivable cart out of it.
Tie a long rope to it and you can use it for a lobster trap
or a boat anchor
next year you will look at last years robot, about 4 weeks after the kickoff, and think, ‘what are we going to do with this old thing now?’
theres nothing quite as sad as an old robot that has no purpose anymore :c(
“Its better to burn out
than to rust away!
My my Hey hey!” -Neil Young
someone should bring one of those giant pumpkin-chunker catapults to the nationals, and after the last matches our bots can go out in a 20 second flame of glory
all the way out
to the far side of the parking lot
would save a lot on shipping that way :ahh:
Some great ideas indeed:
someone should bring one of those giant pumpkin-chunker catapults to the nationals, and after the last matches our bots can go out in a 20 second flame of glory
A few of us on our team were actually planning on building one of them contraptions this summer. Along with a few other fun things to do. If only there wasn’t so much value in the robots.
We have a few robots still around for design review and teaching freshman about the systems. But most of the robots have been disassembled for the use of the parts and lack of storage space.
Me really wants to go robo-throwing with a pumpkin-chunker.
well we have as many old bots as any team out there. Our 92 machine is on display, most of the others are used for parts/ideas on new bots and a few are rolling around to let students practice driving skills. Everyone will actully get a chance to see the 92 in action if they make it to Battle Cry. It’s one of the few we still have in one piece.
I think one of our mentors is going to take this years robot and use it around the house. He is going to use the plow to shovel snow off his driveway, and use the 7ft arms to take out the trash, and the robot itself is the new head of security. Would you wanna break into a house protected by one mean looking robot???
our 97,98, and 99 robots are no longer together, but from what i’m told they “didn’t really need to be” by the ends of the seasons 
we have 2000, 01, 02, and 03 sitting in a closet in the school (our 04 bot is in Big Mike’s trunk). we take them out for demonstrations or just for people to try driving. sometimes we have 2 or 3 robots running at the same time. all of our robots since 2000 are still active every once in a while. we plan on keeping them for as long as they still work.
It might be a lot of fun to bring out the old bots to play this years game…at an off-season cometition. Maybe someone will start an off-season competition where you have to use an old robot to compete. It would be really interesting to see how well those bots could play the new games, cause there would be robots from several different years, so they would all be designed to do different things. The best would be if a previous robot could hang on this years bar (without any modifications).
We disassembled our 1998 and 1999 robots at the end of the 2001 season, when we had to pack up all our stuff and move out of our shop for a year. They were non-functional, and just taking up space that we didn’t really have available. It would have been nice to keep them for old time’s sake, but we really had nowhere to put them. Amusingly, we saved all the parts, and ended up using quite a few of them on our 2002 OCCRA robot, and a couple on our 2003 FIRST robot.
All our robots from 2000 and later are in storage in our shop. We still pull them out for demos and testing a couple times a year. It’s a really nice thing to have 5 functional and very different robots available for testing. And, we’ve found that some of our older robots make better demo machines than others. I think our 2002 'bot has done more demos than any other robot in our team’s history. It’s small, sleek, and just looks cool Plus, it doesn’t have the tendency to attempt to kill people like our 2001 'bot… not that that’s ever happened or anything…
we keep ours at our school in our resource class room. I know this last season we found an old bot that we wanted to use as a model and refrence for our new robot and took it out to where we build.
All of our robots’ (tom, hephty, daisy I, daisy II, daisy III) drivetrains are intact and working, we use them for demonstrations and mini competitions, but most of their extremities are either non functioning, taken off, or programmed out so that people dont whack eachother in their noggins.
As a matter of fact, we used our first robot as a reference for this years’ bot (transferred its ladder mechanism to our 12’ telescoping arm), so its topless. Most of our robots are female tho, so I wouldn’t advise calling them topless, but…
Put them in what was once known as the PAW room and call it the X-Cat’s museum.