Re: Favorite Tool by Team
 

Re: Favorite Tool by Team
 

Hydraulic Crimper. Never have to worry about bad battery crimps again.

http://www.harborfreight.com/hydraul...ool-66150.html

Zip Tie gun is probably more useful though.

Re: Favorite Tool by Team
 

I'm going to keep this to hand tools.

1. All of our rivets are set by hand, and some members of the team don't have the strongest grips to use our normal rivet guns.

This one makes short work of even 1/4" rivets and can be used by almost everyone. It's smaller than the really large hand rivet guns that Harbor Freight or else wear sell so it fits into more spaces.

2. Another great tool I don't see enough teams using is a simple pair of aviation snips.

These combined with 1/16" polycarb can fix a lot of problems on a robot.

3. High Torque Ball End Hex Keys - These have been mentioned by other people on Chief before but they are fantastic. This year we have added colored heat shrink to all our hex keys to make identifying them easier. I also like the screw driver versions as well.

4. Cheap ratcheting wrenches - if you look on ebay you can regularly get ratcheting wrenches for under $3-5 each. We bought a ton of 3/8" since we normally use #10 hardware.

Re: Favorite Tool by Team
 

Team 423's most used tool would probably be our 7/16" ratcheting wrenches. We have at least 3 of them and a few non-ratcheting wrenches, and there are still never any in the drawer.

Our favorite tool is probably our spring-loaded wire strippers (like the picture but with yellow handles).
Attachment 19336
They work really well and choosing what size wire you have is easy even without the gauge labeled on the wire. Probably not as easy to use as the gauge-agnostic strippers posted earlier in the thread. We call them cachuk-cachucks after the sound they make when you use them. That sound can be heard from any spot in the room throughout our meetings, even if no one is stripping wires, simply because it's fun to use.

Re: Favorite Tool by Team
 

My personal favorite is the pneumatic rivet gun our district bought for us a few years ago. A Godsend for the unfortunate soul tasked with installing 100+ rivets on assembly day. One can install many dozens of rivets a minute working casually

Funny story about this, in 2013 we needed to replace a whole bunch of rivets in short time on our shooter mid-competition. We didn't have our shop compressor at competition (pesky rules) so we installed a quick-connect fitting to our robot and used it to operate the rivet gun. One of my proudest moments.

Re: Favorite Tool by Team
 

We have this hand riveter that we call the "Red Baron". It's named party after the color of its handles but also because the team member who bought it is a red-head and was the original "Red Baron". It might not be the most useful tool seeing as how we own a pneumatic riveter, but the Red Baron definitely has a lot of sentimental value to our team :D

Re: Favorite Tool by Team
 

When they choose to use them the students brains are my favorite tools.

Re: Favorite Tool by Team
 

pneumatic dremel... one of my friends accidentally used it on his fingers and got to the bone... He WAS wearing gloves ::safety::

Re: Favorite Tool by Team
 

Metric adjustable wrench! :p

Re: Favorite Tool by Team
 

Mark McLoed... But seriously, he's a huge help to the FIRST community and especially my team since the teams are neighbors. The best tool for every team should be other teams, only to learn from their successes and failures.

Re: Favorite Tool by Team
 

Or drive team says duct tape...

Our wiring team would be kill without those cutters. Love em.

We've been trying to put ours together and I've heard it's a nightmare.

Re: Favorite Tool by Team
 

The mill is definately my favorite (even though its manual)

Re: Favorite Tool by Team
 

Top 2:

Yippy-Skippy, the 3-lb. orange dead-blow hammer

• concussive repairs are often the quickest repairs (if not the most durable)
• named after the student, long since graduated, who decorated it with a sharpie shortly after we got it
• http://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/06622716

Roger, the he/she button maker

• fully automatic; just put the parts in and press the button
• fails frequently, but we love it anyway
• don't ask about the name
• http://www.badgeaminit.com/autcomkit.html

Both tools acquired in the early 2000's; both tools long past their service lives; both tools still in use regardless.

(For the record, we've named pretty much every one of our tools at some point or another; the general idea is that if a name sticks, then the tool in question must actually be important enough to deserve a name.)