Robotics Freebies

At FIRST Robotics tournaments it is common to have little give away items in your pit area. Buttons are the most common.  But I have seen other things.  Chap stick with a team logo on it was a nice touch.  A team from Hawaii that came to a tournament in Duluth and brought custom Ice Scrapers with their logo was the weirdest one I remember, but darn it all if it did not snow and people found them useful.

Last year we had a small number of buttons to give out.  As they were scarce items they were much in demand.

This year the team has looked at different things.  But at this point the leading contender happened by accident.

80/20 is a pre-fab aluminum product that is very handy for bolting things together.  It looks like this:

Now, one of our kids at the end of a long day managed to cut some stock a quarter inch too long.  No problem, it is better than cutting it too short.  But when he went to slice off the extra length it created a very interesting and complicated bit of metal.  It looked like jewelry.

So, just 3D print a plastic piece with our team number you have....well I would say it is art. And technology too.

The back view:

And the front:

Of course they still have a lot to do on this concept.  Black does not show up as well as it might, so other colors should be tried.  And a pin of some kind needs to be attached to it.

Here is Version 2.0

I think the labor involved will be such that supply and demand will again be mis-matched and the team swag from 5826 will be much in demand two years running.

Oh, and here's version 3.0.  New logo.  And using thin slices of a different size of 80/20 that we got for free and won't be using in this year's design.