Fabrication
 

We've all heard the arguments of in-house fabrication vs outside fabrication, and we know the answer depends on what your goal in FRC is and what your team wants to do. However, there is a point where things are taken too far.
FRC provides an engineering experience in designing and assembling a robot. However, the emphasis here is design. My team has become a team of fabricators. Our team does not do design, we design around the parts we fabricate. We avoid outside fabrication because fabrication is "the fun of robotics" I'm not arguing that fabricating parts is fun, but if you solely want to fabricate and not design, that is not engineering.

Has this problem occurred to anyone else, and has it gone to the other extreme?

Re: Fabrication
 

This year, we did very little in house fabrication. Everything had to be designed, before it was sent off to the machine shop. While I do not like having so little fabrication done by students, I feel we made up with it by have a 20 times better CAD and design process this year. Though I do not like the process we took this year, it was necessary in the advancement of our team. We do not have enough space for any kind of large machines, namely mills and lathes. This year, because we did so well in LA, we hope to get more space and funding for next year, and do more in house work than we have ever done before, while still having a complete design process.

Re: Fabrication
 

This is a topic that comes up every season, if not 5-10 times a season. The answer to this question is simple: There is not a right answer to the question. Every team must answer the question based on their goals and the resources they have access to.

The real problem come when teams decide their answer is the right one and those who do not do it their way is wrong.

Re: Fabrication
 

our team designs the bot, and we also mostly do in-house fabrication with VERY few parts being sent out to be made. we do run into a few challenges with this, as we tend to finish very, very close to ship date every year because we spend too much time designing before we actually get to building. we have debated sending more parts out for fabrication, but I feel it's part of being a part of FIRST to learn how to machine the parts we design too, and everyone can learn the maximum amount that way. However, that's my take on it, and the standpoint of most on our team.

Re: Fabrication
 

The Cheesy Poofs are able to do a lot of in house work. Part of it is a fast design process, and basically starting to machine on the first day of build. They can do this, because they know what type of drive train they are going with, and no the process of what they will have to machine. By adapting the same drivetrain to each game, they can already start to machine on day 1. By standardizing in this way, you can start machining much earlier, and have more time for practice and programming.

Re: Fabrication
 

Different teams have different philosophies; there is no right or wrong. If the team exists, and students are inspired, then I would consider that they have the right philosophy.

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the only time they might be "doing it wrong" is if their design/fabrication process costs them so much time that they don't get the robot done. The hard lesson learned isn't real inspiring.

Re: Fabrication
 

As we all strive to create new engineers, it is important that we try to expose them to both the design and fabrication aspect of creating these machines. Every engineer must design within the limits of the fabrication resources that they will have, and the best way to understand those limits is to experience the fabrication process for yourself. An engineer must design the nitty-gritty details of what is possible and economical to make, which is hard to do if you have never seen or done it for yourself. I find that my (limited) knowledge of fabrication options effects nearly every detail of every design decision that I make. Most designs that I consider to be "bad" or not workable are such because they are unnecessarily difficult or impossible to make.

When I was a brand new graduate engineer in my first job in industry, my company put us through a months-long apprentice program in the machine shop/toolroom where we worked along side toolmakers and learned basic machining and shop techniques. They knew we couldn't possibly send valid design work to the shop if we did not understand the details of what it took to make the stuff we designed. I realized then that it was something that was missing from my college curriculum. One of the biggest frustrations for those that have to work with new engineers is the new engineer's lack of understanding of what can and can't be made, or made economically. It is something that simply takes years of experience to develop.

Most FIRST mentors have the experience of having bright, enthusiastic students come to us very excited about their design idea, only to find out from us that it cannot be made. Learning to adjust your design hopes to the reality of what can be fabricated is one of the most difficult and important skills an engineer can learn. There is no better way to begin learning that lesson than to experience making parts for yourself.

Whatever your team's fabrication resources are, your students will need to learn to design within those resources. If your team is lucky enough to have fabrication sponsors that can do higher-level fab work for your team, take students on a field trip to the sponsor so they can see the work being done. Even if they cannot do the work themselves, seeing what it takes to create the parts they dream up will give them valuable insight.

Naivete about what can and can't be made is one of the most common obstacles for a new engineer. We are giving our FIRST students an enormous head start in understanding that lesson. It is one of the many things that will set them apart from their peers.

Re: Fabrication
 

I understand that knowing and experiencing the fabrication process is important, and I would not be complaining about in house fabrication if it weren't for the attitude that building a robot is not about design, but fabrication. I don't know if I made it clear in the first post, but what is happening is that our team is not designing by engineering drawing or CAD. What we do is say what drivebase and type of manipulator we want and we come up with the dimensions while we are fabricating. As a result, the entire frame has parts mis-measured, inaccurate, and the robot does not work because things weren't pre designed, they were designed while being placed on the robot. As a senior on the team, I want to see my team go through the design process and design something before starting any fabrication.

Re: Fabrication
 

Many people have already said that there is no right or wrong answer to this question and I agree. But I might add that things are not always what they seem. I do not believe there is really much pure engineering or pure fabrication out there. Engineering is an applied science so it must and does take into account all aspects of finished product including fabrication. And performing the simplest fabrication process can sometimes shed light into good design practices.

Any good mechanical design has to take into consideration how the parts will be fabricated. The choice of materials, aluminum vs. steel, sheet metal vs strut, drilled and assembled plates vs machined bar stock, bolting vs welding, etc. Even if you never leave the CAD station and outsource all of your fabrication to a machine shop, some amount of your design does need to rely on a significant knowledge of your fabrication process. How you come by that knowledge can vary, but it must be there to become a really good designer.

The same is true in the other direction. Experience in fabrication cannot help but give you a boost toward becoming a better designer. I believe you can become a great designer without ever drilling one hole in a piece of aluminum. But that does not mean that time in a machine shop at some point does not help you more quickly and efficiently learn some important lessons.

Most machinists have had no formal design training, but most have a acquired a significant degree of design knowledge almost through osmosis. This is not the best way to learn some things and can lead to some significant holes in your knowledge if it is not supplemented by detailed study in the basics of statics, dynamics, properties of materials, and all the rest. But do not underestimate the vale in knowledge obtained in this manner.

Perhaps in these days of CNC, EDM, LASER and water jet cutting, etc. there seems to be less connection between fabrication and design. But occasionally there is just no substitute for having a intuitive knowledge of what is easy and difficult to machine, the order of how things actually need to be machined, and even what the machinists themselves might be able to teach you.

Re: Fabrication
 

Failing to plan is planning to fail.

In industry, building without a drawing is extremely rare. And engineers who do their own building are almost as rare. This is because close to 95% of engineers would simply turn the part they need over to manufacturing. (The other 5% are likely classed as engineering technicians.)

So the normal process is to design, then build and refine the design.

We just had this discussion in one of my senior-level college classes today actually. Apparently, back in the 80s, at least one company designed by fabrication--they focused entirely on ease of manufacture. This cost them a lot of business because once built, the product could not be serviced easily. Fabrication drove their design process, and this damaged the company. They have since refocused to designing with all the other factors (and believe me, there are a LOT of other factors!) in mind, and are producing better products.

If I were your team, I would go to a local but large engineering/manufacturing company, and have them spend a day there shadowing the engineers and possibly the fabricators and talking to them. I think it would be an eye-opening experience for the team leadership. Sometimes, it's not all about the fun.

Re: Fabrication
 

In before thread close...

Re: Fabrication
 

Anupam,

If I'm correct, you are not concerned about how much direct fabrication your team does or how much an outside shop does. You are talking about "designing" a robot vs. stumbling through "making" a robot.

I think that your problem is one that most "capable"/"established" teams have either bypassed altogether, or solved many, many years ago. Others are stuck.

Many teams start out by taking the KOP, asking "what can we build with this stuff" and starting out making something right away. When it doesn't work, they rebuild. If it works, then that's what goes on the robot. "Prototypes" become the actual systems that make it onto the robot. Electronics are added as an afterthought, and the whole thing barely gets programmed.

Some teams seem to repeat this year after year.

If you are very lucky and clever, you can come up with a competitive machine, but you never reach your potential. We've been very lucky.

This is our first year (after 10!) using CAD to do any real planning of our robot. It has made a huge difference. The thing looks like it was planned out - designed to be the way it was, because IT WAS! Our problem was not having anyone with any CAD experience, or the time/interest in learning.

The key to getting over this hurdle is having people who can get ideas into a design that can be documented and easily and accurately communicated to everyone. Since you are concerned about it, it sounds like you're going to have to take the initiative to make this happen.

Get some like-minded people (if you can) from your team together, get some copies of some CAD software (students can get SolidWorks & Inventor free if they are on robotics teams) and set out to learn it. There are online tutorials if you can't get instruction from someone. When the time comes, do what you can to "stay ahead" of the fabrication. Keep in mind that your model doesn't have to be "perfect" for what you are trying to do. It sounds like any kind of beforehand design will be an improvement.

To paraphrase Gandhi - "Be the change you want to see in your team."

Good luck!

Re: Fabrication
 

Agreed. After re-reading the original post I now see that I did not fully understand the question.

There are things to learn from both design and fabrication, and if a team chooses to emphasize one more than another that is hardly wrong. But completely avoiding the design phase is never a good idea unless you are referring to a completely trivial problem. And the more experienced I become, the more I believe that there are no completely trivial problems.

Re: Fabrication
 

How is fabricating not a part of engineering?

How do you think they did it in the days before CAD? They built it and tried it out. Theres nothing wrong with it. At all. Don't force a method on your team that they don't want to use. If they have fun doing it, their being inspired. This is exactly how our team works. You build something, try it out, and use your engineering skills to improve it or redesign it if it didn't work out right. I personally don't see how people can get students into engineering by having 2 students cad it while everyone else waits around for parts.

Re: Fabrication
 

While I don't necessarily have a problem with your answer, before CAD there was Plain Old Drafting. :p

Re: Fabrication
 

Because that's not what happens.

There's a LOT of misconceptions about how the pretty powerhouse robots are created.

The students involved in CAD are typically CADing the drivetrain, while the other students work on designing, manufacturing prototypes, and testing an end effector, which then gets CADed, and all of the parts get manufactured in a professional shop, and then assembled by the students.

They're involved at every step except for manufacturing of the final product. The difference between them and a majority of teams is that a majority of teams are basically fielding their prototype, rather than a finished product.

Re: Fabrication
 

In their first year, I'd suggest that they don' t try to completely CAD out the robot before any tools touch material. It will most likely take too long. As the initial model is being developed, students can be fabricating and testing prototypes, or building components that they know they will be using. As components are finalized, they can begin fabrication - even without a complete CAD model. If nothing else, CAD in parallel with the fabrication.

Make the transition with as little disruption to the way the team works as possible. Most likely, everyone will see the advantages to introducing a bit of design before fabrication begins.

Perhaps watching the Grant Imahara "FIRST Design" video might help.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNweJ7QbF7Y

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Re: Fabrication
 

Not true. We drew it. The process was no different, only the tools and medium were different. There was such a thing as design before CAD. Cars, bridges, airplanes, and televisions were not cobbled together by trial and error.

I can see what the OP is saying. I don't see how they didn't have a plan before building. My team loves the fabrication aspect. We do everything in house. They love it so much that no one has any real interest in drawing an entire robot before building. So this year I got stuck drawing portions of the robot in Inventor. Next year I hope to have some students spooled up on the program to draw the robot as we progress.

As for knowing design before fabricating? I think you need to know how to make something before you can really be a great designer. That doesn't mean you need to actually drill a hole but you need to know its possible. It's just more fun to learn by actually doing it.

Re: Fabrication
 

There is really no reason not to CAD. I was our single CADder for our team this year, and I was able to CAD the whole robot before we started building. Again, we had an amazing machine shop, not ridiculous turnarounds, but quicker than we could have done it in. If I had to do it again though, I would recommend CADding a full drive system before the season, preferably 6 wheel, as it is simple, yet robust and maneuverable. We took 2.5 weeks to get a drive CAD out, which was ridiculous. Part of it was that we had a hard time choosing between 6 and 8 wheel, but also, I was just inexperienced(my first year CADding). If they practice, getting a drivetrain CAD done in 2 days can be easily done, and then they will have extra time for manipulators. Furthermore, you will save time by doing this because you don't have to remachine parts.

Re: Fabrication
 

Careful here. Check the timeline rules regarding design and fabrication. If I've got it right (at least for this year and several previous years), you can't take a CAD model you worked on prior to kickoff and use it to fabricate parts without making substantial changes or publishing the files for everyone to use.

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Re: Fabrication
 

I meant that they CAD the drive system before for practice, and then redo it for the season. Personally, I wen't into the season, and didn't know some things that I should have known. For example, one dilemma I had was deciding wether to use a bearing block, and after that, on a design for a bearing block. Sure, once you have seen Chief Delphi threads on the subject, it is an easy problem to solve, but it is much easier if you already decided on a design path before the season, and are just repeating decisions you made in the preseason, on a drive train that is optimized for the game.

Re: Fabrication
 

Of course we still draw, but not an in-depth kind of drawing. Its more of a "heres my idea", and then the specifics are figured out through prototyping.

This was just my view, I was not taking a shot at successful teams. What they do looks and preforms amazing, so whatever they do works.

I'm not against using cad, we cad things as well. Our 8wd was made in cad before we built it. So was our shooter. But theres no reason the kids can't make them as well, especially if you have a large amount of students that are interested in machining. Teach them how to do it professionally.

Re: Fabrication
 

Regarding this "fabrication is/isn't engineering" business:

We are a team that fabricates entirely in-house (with CAD, though), but most people on the team agree that it's not very sustainable to operate this way -- especially with the short length of the build season. However, an earlier poster noted that the designers may not understand physical limitations as well without manufacturing experience, and I completely agree. This is true even if in-house CNC is in the budget.

The most obvious answer to this, IMO, is to train manufacturing in the off-season primarily where the deadlines are significantly more lax. Students who have that knowledge can then help the designers understand what will and will not work during the actual build season, where out-of-house fab or CNC (i.e., whatever gets the job done best) would be preferred. In addition to a better understanding of the implications of various design choices, I believe this basically satisfies the "moral" issues that some people have with fab-less teams as well.

Our team in particular has yet to implement this. Of course, such a strategy may greatly increase the off-season commitment required (depending on the team, of course), but that's just what it takes to be successful in a competition like FIRST -- hard work and commitment. Regardless of your priorities, training strategies, morals, or whatever else, there isn't a successful team that hasn't worked hard to get where they are, regardless of how they accomplished it.

Re: Fabrication
 

Thank you all for your responses.

I don't mind in house fabrication, in fact, I loved it as a freshman, being able to manufacture my own parts and placing it on the robot. But fabrication without a design is meaningless. This year our mechanical lead student only used L-channel and 80/20 because of the ease of building, and how you can design around the build. When he heard about 1311's robot being fabricated outside and being amazingly done, he said "That's not fun, I like solving problems while building, that's more fun". Fabricating is fun, but fabricating without a design is foolhardy. I think that this attitude needs to be reversed.

Re: Fabrication
 

I completely agree. Yes it is fun to fix problems while building, that is even what our team, and many others did for the minibot. But remind him, that if you do that, it takes up much more time than if a CAD student solved the problem before you machine a part.

Re: Fabrication
 

1768 does very very close to all of our fabrication in house. We have one Bridgeport and one functional lathe, we work hard to make sure that these machines are running all the time. This year we sent out 3 shooter parts to be water jetted, we had never done that before but we didn't see any other reasonable way to make a large cam or to frame out of shooter other than water jetted plates.
Because we need our machines to be running all the time and they are often the rate limiting step in the robot construction process we have started using quite a bit more ABS in our designs, it machines like butter and is incredibly strong.
We have our CAD team working all the time as well and the robot construction doesn't usually pass the CAD until mid way through week 5 or so.
As far as the in house vs sent out argument I think students are going to learn either way, it is just a matter of what they learn and in what areas they excel.

~DK

Re: Fabrication
 

He's almost right. Solving problems while building is not more fun after this competition, however. The real-world version of that (without the boss's response to such a quote if said aloud) follows...

"I like solving problems while building, that's more expensive." And that, my friends, is why you CAD thrice, measure twice, and cut once (and then cut again on any identical parts), and measure again once you're done cutting.

Do a cost add-up. Figure minimum wage for every student, and normal wages for the mentors. Figure out how much the season cost in labor and materials. Now, subtract any material wasted by building something wrong and any time wasted fixing something that was built wrong (and the associated man-hour cost). I think the results might surprise everyone on the team.

There's nothing wrong with building then designing, if you don't mind wasting money and time, and not getting a real-world engineering experience.

Re: Fabrication
 

Its cheaper for us. We don't have the money to send parts out to be made. We do have a pile of scrap metal and nearly infinite wood from our schools wood shop. Its what works for us. This is not meant to be a "Real world engineering experience". This is a robotics competition with teams from high schools made up of high school students that are mentored by real world engineers (be it we don't even have those). Try telling your potential boss "I'd like the job, but you're going to have to hire my mentor as well". In a real world engineering situation, CAD and then sending parts to be made would be the best choice. But this isn't the real world, and not all of us have the luxury of money. There is no right or wrong way to build a robot during build season. It depends on a teams situation what is cheaper. Don't assume everyone is in the same financial boat as you.

Re: Fabrication
 

Usually, they already did. Most companies will have a time period where new hires have a mentor to help them adjust to the company.

If you have an infinite supply of scrap material, that's one thing. But, not every team will have that. There are teams out there that have to buy all their material. And, some of those teams are on a shoestring budget (as in, before they buy material, they have to look at can they afford it, or can they find a donation). For those teams, making it right the first time--or screwing it up so it CAN be used--is important.

Now, regarding it being cheaper for you: I also said that you should factor in labor. With materials being a non-issue, let's assume that each mistake or miscalculation costs you 15 minutes of 2 students working to fix it, on average. That's about 1/2 man-hour (that would otherwise not be used), and if one man-hour is 8 bucks, that's 4 bucks for an average mistake if everyone was paid. I'm not going to ask how many you make per season, because there are a lot--but let's assume that over a full build/competition season you make 100 mistakes to make calculations easy. $400 for fixing mistakes, in the entire season. Not too bad, unless you're on a shoestring budget. (Yes, I AM AWARE that all time in FIRST is volunteer time, so all labor is free unless you're dealing with an outside shop. I'm also quite aware that I didn't factor in major "Oh great that part will not work at all" redesigns, which take substantially longer.)

This isn't the real world: but it is meant to reflect the real world. Your team is a business, or can be looked at that way. If your team was a business, with paid employees, you would have far less room for error. Some planning before you build is necessary.

Re: Fabrication
 

Still, CADding should be done. Unless you also have an infinite amount of students, you still have time constraints. How much time do you waste when you have to remake parts? Also, you don't always need to pay a shop to do things for you. Many will give you sponsorship.

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Could you explain how you use ABS? Team 422 uses aluminum C channel, Angle, and 80/20 for almost everything, and I would be interested to hear about what different materials teams use, and how. I also spent a lot of time talking to 1829 about their use of carbon fiber at the Virginia Regional, so my interest in odd build materials can be considered piqued.

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I'm trying to encourage my team to use more aluminum tubing and composites. 80/20 is really heavy and though easy to build with, does not make the best frames. Aluminum tubing, when proper weight reduction holes are drilled, is very strong and can be very light.

Re: Fabrication
 

We do CAD, I wasn't saying we don't. My point was sending parts out to be cut doesn't work for everyone.

Again, this isn't the real world. We don't pay for labor. If it were real world, I agree 100%.

Re: Fabrication
 

If I have to tell you to read the whole post, I will. And in the part you quoted, I specifically stated that I was aware that paying for labor was not an issue, because it is entirely donated. Do I have to make it stand out like a billboard?

I did note that FIRST is a reflection of the real world. As such, real world analysis and skills are a highly useful tool. However, they should not be the sole driver. If FIRST was real world, you and your team would be paying for that infinite supply of scraps, and for the labor. You probably wouldn't be functional financially, or would be having a lot of trouble paying bills. Do the analysis sometime, using the FIRST BOM accounting methods for the materials, and minimum wage for the labor costs. I think you'll be surprised at just how much your robot is actually worth. (I conservatively estimate any given Kitbot+stuff box-on-wheels built by a small team at about $9K. The bigger the team and the fancier the robot, the more it'd be worth. I'm not factoring in any awards earned by said robot, either.)

But when you get to the real world, you will have to worry about that. Engineering is a balance of money, time, and quality. (In some fields, use weight in that balance as well.) You can pick one, or maybe two, but the third will suffer. Reduce the cost, the time might go up or down, but the quality is almost certain to go down. Reduce the time, the cost goes up (for expediting) and the quality goes down. Increase the quality, one or both of time and money goes up. This is a real-world exercise, and this is engineering--learn to balance them now so that you can deal with the balancing later.

Re: Fabrication
 

Eric, I call it the triangle of manufacturing.

You can have it good, fast, or cheap. Typically one of the three, if you're lucky two of the three, but never all three.

And the way I describe this idea I may have just made up, but I feel I heard it somewhere before.

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What's the company? That sounds like an interesting story (to an engineer, at least).

I think it's fair to say that the relative value of manufacturability vs. serviceability depends greatly on the application, the industry and the capabilities of the enterprise.

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One problem I have seen is that some teams have a really nice bot but don't even know how to make a simple rod on a lathe (manual or cnc). They ship out even on stuff that your grandma (assuming your grandma isn't skilled in fab) could make in a few minutes.

If you (the team) want to ship it all out, fine. Just make sure your students (as a collective) don't look like idiots when a rod snaps at competition and someone brings you metal stock.

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I'll PM you the company. They've since changed to a design process that isn't driven by ease of fabrication.

It's one that builds a lot of heavy equipment, particularly for farming and construction.

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I think you might have some false impressions about how other teams work. I only have first hand knowledge of how two other teams work, both had some neat CAD (student) designed, out-of-house fabricated parts. The rookie team 4183 which my brother works with had most of their robot structural and shooter parts made by a sponsor. The parts were free, there was no monetary cost to the team. But the cost in time was kind of heavy, first they needed to learn how to use CAD and then they had to figure out how to design the robot, and the parts. By the time all the parts were made, build season was almost over, so they had to work really hard to get the robot built and working, and there were some design issues that required them to make some "hack" changes to the robot at their first regional to get the balls to move through it.

The other team I know about is 842, they had some (student) CAD designed transmission plates made by a sponsor, again no monetary cost to the team.

Instead of worrying about the cost of having parts made to your design, you might want to spend some time finding out if there are any companies in your area that can do this type of work, tell them what your robot team is all about, and ask if they'd help you next season.

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3507 is only a second year team, but this is how we've been doing it.

We haven't even been using CADs, since no one knows how yet (working on fixing that next year), but we DO use drawings (obviously). Most of the time this ends up being just a rough draft, but we do make sure to conceptualize EXACTLY how each piece goes where, how it's supported, etc. etc. We do most of the fabrication ourselves. I believe this year the only thing we had machined was our shooter, which was rolled somewhere else - it had to be exactly right. (It was. I honestly believe ours was the most precise shooter at OKC, if we could have known how hard to shoot it. We had a 91% accuracy in the qualification rounds)

In any case... just designing? Where's the fun in that?

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Team 751 does all our own manufacturing for one simple reason: we don't have the resources.

Let me explain. Our team has, in terms of manufacturing, a manual mill, lathe, drill press, four hand drills, a drop band saw, a vertical bad saw, a sander, a grinder, and a TIG welder that we got half-way through this season. We have a small team of fifteen students, and a highly devoted core of less than eight. As such, we have to balance both man-hours and machine hours. For every day-long mill job we set up, we sacrifice another, and lose design time for some area of the robot. And that is precisely why we, the students on the team, choose not to outsource our work. We've found that the lesson in practicality and trade-offs is more valuable than the functionality that we would gain from outsourcing. If a person on our team has a great idea that would need three days of manufacturing time, we all sit down, and run cost-benefits analysis on it. Is one day of mill-time and a student day worth half a pound of cheese-holing? We run into this one a lot. Most of the time, we say it isn't. But before SVR, we realized that, for one part, it was, because that half pound let us change out our corner wheels from Plaction for Performance, letting us solve the wheel breakage issues from Sacramento (cracked one in half and dented three to the point of being unusable crossing the bump.) So we spent the time, and ended up below the weight limit.

And it's precisely because of our in-house work that we CAD everything. We design all our parts, do time estimates, and schedule our machine time, going for maximum efficiency. We've got folders of part layouts that students just churn out, organized by sub-system and machine utilization. Our drivetrain was fabricated (not assembled, Andy-Mark shipping held us back) in three days, and everything else took us about nine. Everything was CAD'd, everything was prototyped. When you know how to run design well, you can streamline manufacturing. CAD is vital for optimizing machine schedules and ensuring that we can make everything, and producing accurate drawings our designs (very few of which are made by the person who designs them. That's usually for the few that we decide need the machining time the most for optimization, as we want the person who understands the design intent and manufacturing process, having designed both.)

We're looking into expanding our manufacturing abilities with another manual mill, and possibly a CNC. We are also hoping to get access to a local waterjet (at the TechShop. We've also done a bit of laser cuttig there.) This will eliminate some of the urgency of the scheduling (though I have no doubt that our designs will become more complicated to saturate our machines again.) However, we will continue to design and build all of our own parts, as we find it promotes a culture of responsibility and efficiency.

My point here is: we build in-house to teach our members about time and resource management, at the cost of some machine functionality. Is it worth it? Depends on what you want to get from it.

Re: Fabrication
 

Right. I'm not against in house fabrication at all, I think it's great to know the process and be able to make good time estimates. If people can do it properly, let them. I love being able to use our team's CNC mill, and being able to mill manually is very useful. As a freshman and Sophomore, I loved being able to make parts and place them on the robot, as I got proud that my own part that I created was being placed on the final machine.

The point of this thread was to point out that designing is needed before fabrication, and everyone here seems to agree that detailed drawings or CADs are the way to go before any fabrication. My team likes to jump into fabrication, so a lot of times we end up finding solutions while we are creating parts. It's terrible. Parts cut too short are somehow placed somewhere else, parts too long are cut, and then found out they are not needed, and the result is an entire robot that is one swift kick away from being destroyed. In 2010, we used a lot of 80/20, but we didn't do CADs or detailed drawings. By the end of CMP, which was our second event that year, our Frame was offset by more than 30 degress because of the irregular placement of parts and the use of subpar parts because of a lack of design.