Greatings All!

For the X-Cats on team #191 we have students involved in every aspect of the design and build. Some critical parts may be machined by a few adults but students usually are still involved on the decision process on what needs to be done and are overseeing the actual machining.

As you all can see every year our designs are simple and not as flashy as some of the other robots all for the sake of making it easy to mentor build techniques and functionalities. Our site only has basic machinery so whe stick with what we can make on those. We avoid welding for the sake of safety and irreversible complexities it may involve.

So pending on how the team wants to approach each year's game, whether to be experimental or not, we may or maynot have the flashiest machine out there. But ultimately our team goal of having a competitive machine still exists.

Either way - I see this program as a great learning experience for both adults and students. As long as the team progresses and each person learned something and had a good time then I consider it a successful team whether or not you win anything.

Ellery

student build!
 

Our robot has been built by us students for te most parts:

We brainstormed all together, selected the ideas we wanted to realize and our engineer came up with the concepts for the most part, we gave him our input and he set us up at the machines to build the individual parts. ("Okay, look here, do this and this, till you're down to 1.05 inches. Now I'm gonna leave you alone and you do it. Just bring it over when you're done.")
It was so nice, we machined all the parst ourselves after he showed us individually how to. It was a big learning-experience for all of us. In the end Mike M. (our engineer) could describe us the measurements of a piece of metal that he wanted and we machined it all by ourselves without further instructions.
And we had a real nice machine shop. We built the robot at Advanced Animations in Stockbridge, Vermont.

Advanced Animations built the Terminator-robots for the Universal-Studios in Florida and while we where there they were just building a 3-story-tall clock tower for FAO Schwarz. Their machine shop is SOOOOOOOOOOO nice, unbelievable.

I believe that MOST teams have the students do the work. I would be surprised if that weren't the case.

However...

I am curious, for those schools that do not have the manufaturing capabilities (particularly a machine shop), where is the machine work done and who trains the students on the use of the machines?

Our entire team is run by students. Myself and another student started the team and the fundraising last year and didn't find a mentor until the beginning of this year.

Unfortunately, we were unable to find a corporate sponsor that could help us with the majority of the finances or help us by providing manpower. We are still looking.

We have a retired engineer that helped out somewhat (once or twice a week) and 3 parents that helped out as much as possible. Everything was designed, drawn on CAD, machined, built, redesigned, rebuilt, etc. by students. Much of the building and machining actually happened at a student's house, often without an adult present, because his garage had better machining facilities than our school (our school is a private school and doesn't have a shop), and we were unable to find a sponsor that would provide us with machining facilities.

Everything was done by the students (electrical, pneumatics, mechanical (gear ratios, drivetrain, pinning gears, etc.), control system, programming).

We are desperately searching for a sponsor for next year so that our team can fulfill the purpose of FIRST: for students to work beside professionals. The experience is still excellent but learning takes a great initiative on the part of the students and often requires a lot of searching without a professional on the team.

Matt Cuttitta
Team Founder & Student Leader
Team 894 - Powers Catholic High School
Flint, Michigan

On Team 100 everything is built by the students (with the exception of welding stuff, or other things that we dont know how to do). We have advisors that help out and give guidance, etc.

at the beginning of the season its a mix between the engineers and the students doing the building, but by the end it is probably 90% students. we learn new stuf along the way so the engineers are always there to help us if we need it.

jessi

our 2 robots from this year are all student built. (we built a fully functional, full scale duplicate to practice with/against) we had someone do the welding because no student knew how to weld properly, but i'm taking welding classes this summer, so i'll do that next year. our robot was design completely by the students too. i personally designed the drive system, but our parent/sponsor/mentor/(what ever you want to call him) helped us get the 4 motors geared to the same speeds. an engineer was convinced that my design would not work, but all of the students liked it so we built it anyway. and out of the 4 regionals that we attended (2 just to scout other teams) and nationals, i did not see any other robot able to spin 2 goals like we can. we remade our 3-piece telescoping arm from last year. our grabbers are also student designed and made.

i've heard that some teams had their robots completely made by an outside company and that they didn't see it untill the competition. this makes me mad. our team for 6 weeks spent hundreds of hours working. 2-10 weekdays and 10-10 weekends, with a couple of all nighters. we have a pretty small team, maybe 20 students, but we are all fully devoted. we were working all day today fixing and modifying the robot for some post season competions. we made new wheels that should get a lot more traction. i think that every robot should be built by the students, i know i've learned a lot form it.