We have a name. After almost 150 brainstormed contenders, six rounds of voting, and far more debate than was probably necessary… the winner is:
★ THE WINNER ★
Ducktape Robotics
56 points · six votes · the people have spoken
Yay! Go team! Quack, quack.
How we got here
Step one: we cast a wide net. Anyone on the team could submit names — serious, silly, technical, completely unhinged — into a shared spreadsheet. The list grew to almost 150 candidates. Some described what we hope to be (Beyond Ordinary Bots). Some described what we’re afraid we’ll be (Hot Glue and Prayers). Some were just funny (The Mildly Concerned Citizens).
Step two: each voter scored their favorites on a 1–10 scale. Six voters participated. The top scorers floated up; the long tail of one-vote curiosities sank.
Step three: we looked at the totals, took a second pass on the top finishers, and made it official.
The top 5 finalists
| Name | Score |
|---|---|
| 🥇 Ducktape Robotics | 56 |
| 🥈 Whatchamacallits | 42 |
| 🥉 Is it working? | 38 |
| 4. 0K (We’re 0K) (Zero-K) (Zero Kelvin) | 36 |
| 5. Little Robo FooFoo | 35 |
| 5. One Gallon of Milk | 35 |
Ducktape Robotics! Wins by a large margin. Because truly, duct tape is the solution to most of the world’s problems. (And the duck-call gag for new full team members? Now mandatory.)
Honorable mentions
We can’t let these die in the spreadsheet. A few personal favorites that didn’t make the cut but absolutely deserve to be remembered:
- The Last Brain Cell
- 0-K (Zero K)
- Batteries Not Included
- One Gallon of Milk
- Over Budget
- Beyond Ordinary Bots [B-O-B]
- Batteries Not Included
- We Fix It… Eventually
- Run Like the Winded
- It Was Working Yesterday
- The Mildly Concerned Citizens
- Debug Bunny
- Will It Waffle?
- Rapid Unscheduled Hibernation
- Ctrl+Alt+Defeat
- Hot Glue and Prayers
- Two Cups of Sugar
- Team Name Not Found
- 99% Complete
- 67% Complete
- Return to Sender
- Where’s the Remote?
- Three Large Eggs
- Pending Approval
- I Forgot the Name
- Preheat to 350
- One Slice of Pizza
- It Works on My Computer
- Absolute Zeroes
- Searching for Wi-Fi…
- Event Horizon
- Lost Wayfinders
- Within Tolerance
- I Can’t Find the Remote
- Batteries Not Included
- Beyond Ordinary Bots [B-O-B]
- [Insert Name Here] -Literally that 🙂
- The Last Brain Cell
- The Team Who Must Not Be Named
- The Parallel Parking Goblins
- The Damp Sandwich Council
- The Screaming Ceiling Fans
- Suspiciously Specific Team Name
- NullPointerException
If we ever start a second team, we already have a backlog.
Why the name fits
Duct tape is the unofficial mascot of every engineering project that has ever survived a deadline. It is what you reach for when the “real” solution failed at midnight before the demo. It’s an honest acknowledgement that we’re going to do hard things, mess them up, fix them with whatever’s on hand, and ship anyway.
Plus: ducks. The duck call goes to every Full Team Member at induction. Quack, quack.
🦆 Next, we will have to vote on the official team duck call. Here are a couple of options.
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And we’re off
The team has a name. The roster is forming. The summer learning plan is set. BIOBUZZ kickoff is September 12. From here it’s all forward.
GO DUCKTAPE!
P.S. Just a bit about FIRST’s policy towards team names. A team can change its name anytime they like. Teams can even have the same names. Not a good idea but allowed. Teams are identified primarily by their team number. Also it’s not a good idea to change the team name in the middle of a season for obvious reasons.