Editing Placebo

The Placebo was a series of stand-in "placebo" robots that were used between 1995 and 1998. The Placebo played in some rounds of the double elimination tournament, particularly to fill in for a third robot in matches that only had two out of three spaces filled. Placebos were not used during the quarterfinal, semifinal, and final one-on-one best two out of three format rounds, only the earlier one-on-one-on-one double-elimination tournament. The Placebo would occasionally fill in for an actual team.

The [[1995]] Placebo was a large black cylinder on wheels with large yellow PLACEBO lettering<ref name="placebo">[https://www.chiefdelphi.com/t/first-101-10-6-05/65665 FIRST 101 <nowiki>[10/6/05]</nowiki>]</ref>.

The [[1996]] Placebo was a hexagonal hovercraft vehicle with a boxy metal base with two angled fins on the top decorated with arrows and PLACEBO lettering. The air intakes on the angled front panels of the Placebo give it a somewhat mouselike appearance. The 1996 Placebo would float and often spin aimlessly around the playing field and the noise of the fans could be heard while it was running. This placebo was apparently named the "Placeb-o-matic" and was on display at [[FIRST Place]] at one time<ref>[https://www.chiefdelphi.com/t/first-robot-design-milestones/38806/20?u=duckgwr FIRST Robot Design Milestones]</ref>.

The [[1997]] Placebo was a black upright vacuum with the sucking portion removed to make room for a control system to make it drive around the field during matches<ref name=placebo />. At the [[1997cmp|1997 National Championship]], the Disney [[Showbot]] was used as a Placebo. 

The [[1998]] Placebo was simply a large box on casters that was intended to be pushed around for defensive purposes. In practice, they were essentially never used<ref name=placebo />.

Traditionally, Placebo would receive zero points in a match, although allegedly in some cases they did recieve points.

Early on, it appears "placebo robot" was also used as a nickname for practice robots. [[frc191|Team 191]]'s [https://web.archive.org/web/19970513235552/http://www.xerox.com/org/usfirst/tour/joevellozzi.html 1996 website] shows one of their students driving a 1995 "placebo vehicle," a robot built by the team to practice playing the [[1995]] game against.

An early precursor to the Placebo were the chicken and pig robots originally built for the [[1991 Test Game|1991 test game]] that were used as surrogate robots at the [[1992 FIRST Robotics Competition]].

==Gallery==
<gallery caption="Additional photos on the [https://www.frcarchive.com/index.php?q=post/list/placebo/1 FRC Archive]" perrow=4 heights=250px widths=300px>
File:1996 1996nh placebo.gif|The 1996 Placebo spinning around at the [[1996nh|1996 New England Tournament]] [https://www.frcarchive.com/index.php?q=post/view/]
File:4565 - 1996 1996cmp frc-112 frc45 match placebo score.jpg|The Placebo receiving zero points at the [[1996cmp|1996 National Championship]] [https://www.frcarchive.com/index.php?q=post/view/4565]
File:44539 - 1997 1997frc47 1997il frc67 match placebo robot.png|The 1997 Placebo at the [[1997il|1997 Motorola Midwest Regional]] [https://www.frcarchive.com/index.php?q=post/view/44539]
File:46163 - 1998 1998cmp frc45 match placebo robot.png|The Placebo in match 165 of the [[1998cmp|1998 National Championship]] [https://www.frcarchive.com/index.php?q=post/view/46163]
</gallery>