Where's the Tape Measure?
 

I have discovered that one thing you always need is a tape measure. However, no matter how brightly colored they are, you can never find them. In fact, we have shirts that say "Where's the Tape Measure" on them. Are there any other extremely common tools that teams have noticed seem to vanish the moment you need them?

SHARPIES grrrrr I can *Never* find a Sharpie when I need one.

Number 2=allen wrenches. Set one down and five seconds later you cant find it

Cory

Thing I always am looking for is the drill bit i was just using...it dissapears along with the drill..Sharpies aren't a problem, I have at least 5 in my pocket every minute when in that school. Everyone on my team comes and asks me for a sharpie...it is quite humorous. One day I am just going to cut off my supply...they won't know what to do.

The chuck key for the drill is always nowhere to be seen. I think it's because we only have one between two drill presses...and it gets lost somewhere in the 10' between the two :D I always lose pencils and markers. Pens are useless :)

Wow. A few weekends ago, we needed a new tape measure because one got broken, so a "tape measure run" was made, in which like.. 6 people went to the mall to accomplish a really simple task, and returned like an hour, hour 1/2 later.

Sharpies are never there when u need them. They aren't very dependable :( LOL!

Sharpies....
My caliber is always taken when I need it...
the number 7 drill bits are never to be found along with the 1/4-20 Tap...

I always make it a point to have three Sharpies in my pocket, whenever possible (ie, when they're not in use), along with however many pens I can manage. It's very good to just have pens and Sharpies easilly acecssable, at any time.

I also have a 36" miniature tape measure in the same pocket, at any given time, and a Gerbel multitool on my belt (never know when you're going to need needle-nose pliers or a serated blade, at any given time).

Perhaps a protractor / compass should be my next tool...

Alan wrenches. We are using 80/20 and we have two alan wrenches that fit the standard bolts . . . and we can never find either of them.

Did they manage to buy a tape measure?

....and we pretty well can never find anything...well, not in the last few days anyway because one of our teachers "cleaned" up our work area. When it was messy and everything was out, finding things mostly wasn't a problem. But now that it's all "tidy", no one can find anything.

Mess is a good thing.

We have a propensity for loosing ratchets, ratchet heads, the more effective parts of broken drill bits, any sort of quarter-inch drill bits, and, most inexplicably, the end part of the hacksaw. :confused:

Our tape measure is always getting lost
and recently a person who will not be revealed :) broke it. so the 3 ft piece is mostly used by another insane member as a sword...yes, a bit weird..lol. She hasn't hurt anyone yet, though, so all is well, :)
Hermione

Yes! Someone broke my tape measure! *cries* Well, it wasn't really mine, I just got attached to it. It was cool too. It was this really bright lime green color and no it never got lost because it was lime green and easily seen and I always knew where it was. BTW, it's a 30 inch piece that we still have (29 and a half if you want to be exact) :cool: Ah wells, my dad got me another one just like it. :D

getting attached to tape measures are we? oh, yes..sorry, it is 29.5 inches.. i was close though :)
i think cas would agree that it make a very good..not so reliable sword
where's the other half anyways? is there a burial? :D
Hermione

SHARPIES

We bought a box of like 12.
Withing a week, all were missing.
I dont understand. The robot room isnt THAT big.

One thing we CAN'T lose: Aluminum and/or iron shavings.

They get everywhere, thanks to our imprecise drilling methods. Now that we've started making speed holes, they've migrated to everywhere else. The shop vac just can't keep up!

Our auto shop is so big and so full of stuff that we lose things all the time. We probably have everything imaginable, it's just finding where the last person set it down that's the problem.

we seem to lose taps and drill bits...and somehow we end up breaking them a lot too when we find them! this year hasn't been so bad but last year...wasn't very pretty!

Haha yea, actually, they did ;D

Our team has had some "issues" with tape measures. They are NOT fun to wind up =\

I don't know about you guys, but I have a nasty habit of losing those little screws that are one of a kind and are only meant to fit in that tiny hole that you just needed to unscrew to make the smallest modification to a computer, robot, etc.

We have one tape measure in which BOTH the lock and the spring rewind work. Some will go back in but not lock, others will lock, but not go in.

Maybe I should be a leader and buy a new one....

We have the same problem, down at our machine shop ( at a college in a nearby city ) we have every tool imaginable, and at least a dozen of everything we'd ever need. BUT we lose stuff all the time, so basically, if we lose something, rather than look for it, we go get a new one and find the one we lost in the process.
Another problem we have is, our machine shop has about 5 compressed air hoses that hang from the ceiling, making blasting the floor, tools, pieces, people all the more fun...but say you drop something, then someone shoots the air gun, say bye bye to whatever you just dropped!

drill bits and other small screws seem to just vaporize out of thin air... and evn when we clean...(major cleaning) they still don't reappear... the boogie man took them :),,,

I swear. It's mice! I think it's a conspiracy!

by far, the most difficult tool to find is the centerpunch. It is NEVER there when we need it. Id say second comes the socket wrench. We have a nice case for all our sockets, but the wrench part of it is never there... I have to also agree with the sharpies. Very very difficult to find those. ITs funny when ppl resort to using dry erase markers and they inadvertently wipe off their marks on the way to cutting it. I have an explanation for all of this, which my team refers to as the unwritten rule of robotics: "The tool belongs where it was last used." Its a MIRACLE if it is where it is supposed to. Actually, I wonder if we've spent more time searching for tools or working on the robot...

I found it!
 

Yay! I found the tape measure! It was on a table in the shop.

You always find something in the last place you look:D