Re: [FRC-Designs.com] Announcing!!!
 

I will have our CAD team submit the drawings for our '08-'11 bots. Great idea!

How about adding a space for teams to write a bit about their design, design process, cool features, lessons learned, etc.? These bots are gorgeous from a distance, but even more impressive engineering marvels when you can get the inside scoop and peek "under the hood".

Re: [FRC-Designs.com] Announcing!!!
 

Thank you to everyone for the positive feedback. It is great to see so much support for the website. The website has now been updated with more robots!

FRC Designs: http://frc-designs.com/

Thanks for the comments here. I hope that this will turn into a great resources for teams to continually innovate on what has been used in the past.

The short answer to this questions is Yes and Yes. I have been pondering the idea for quite some time and bouncing it off with some fellow engineers/teachers in FIRST (JVN, Karthik, Paul Copioli, Rees). I look forward to seeing their thoughts in this discussion. After sketching and generating working models, I decided to launch FRC Designs!

Thanks for the heads up! I just fixed it!

I remember the firstrobotics.net site when I was a student on the team (2003), and it was handy to have. FRC Designs looks to expand on what was previously there as well as add more content. The FIRST Robotics Canada site has given some great ideas on how to bring in multiple aspects into one site! Thanks for mentioning it!

Matt

Re: [FRC-Designs.com] Announcing!!!
 

The two previous posts mirror what the future of FRC Designs is. To create a database that can be searched by team number to see how designs have changed over the years.

An "under the hood" or "design journal" page is already in the works for FRC Designs. The idea for this section is to create an open source area (Virtual Book) that teams can post their design journals and descriptions of designs.

By the way, designs older than 2008 are more than welcome! I only included 2008 - 2011 because that is all I had to start with. Other thoughts are more than welcome! I am looking forward to expanding the site and meeting great teams in the process. Thanks in advance for more feedback!

Matt

Re: [FRC-Designs.com] Announcing!!!
 

Matt,
This is an awesome resource. From a use standpoint it would be neat if each year had a list of teams & a small picture that linked off to a seperate page that had the cad, picture, youtube link, writeup about the robot. Right now it is fine the way it is but if you get this as big as it could be ... it will be, the page for each year will get a bit cumbersome to look though.

You are an inspiration! keep up the good work.

I am already looking for all of our cad to send you. How about everyone else step up and inspire some other teams. I know I would love to see some cad from 2000 - 2011 also. I would love to work with my kids build some of those awesome robots. Great shooters, awesome arms, amazing drive systems, and really innovative ideas. To those teams that keep your cad from others because you are afraid that you will lose your competitive advantage by letting others see what you have done/will continue to do you are most likely wrong. You have an advantage beacuse you innovate, you will continue to innovate.

Re: [FRC-Designs.com] Announcing!!!
 

Thanks for the support, folks.

I've been working a little bit with Matt to try to make his vision a reality. What you see now is a taste of what Matt and I have been discussing for a few months. A lot of the suggestions I've seen (esp. in that last post by Rees - Hi Rees!!) are things that we're targeting with future development. A slight teaser:

• Optional engineering notes for providers of each design
• Preview a CAD file (preview image so you don't have to wait for the wrong 10MB file)
• Design tagging system (similar to blog tags or Twitter hash-tags)
• Year and team searchable indexes.
  • Browse a year by team name
  • Browse through several years of team designs
• And more...

I'm pretty excited for this to get rolling. The hit counters are already racking up the hits, and the bandwidth meter is rising. It's good to see some interest in this so early. For now, keep sending us those CAD files and giving us feedback. Our focus is on making this as easy as possible for teams to use, and to create a tool that can grow itself and continue to serve the FIRST community for years to come.

In answer to a one question that I haven't seen answered yet:

Yes... or no. Which is it? You can't have both. "I am thinking, therefore I am."

Re: [FRC-Designs.com] Announcing!!!
 

Looks super cool! You may want to add http://www.mcmaster.com/ and http://www.andymark.com/ to the links for the engineering section. Can't wait to see what this becomes!

Re: [FRC-Designs.com] Announcing!!!
 

Great Resource!

We have photos kicking around of every robot at all of our events since at least 2006. I know they aren't detailed CAD designs, but even just a photo can often be an excellent resource (especially since bluealliance no longer has photos :()

Even cooler would be if people could tag and/or rate images & designs with things like "pneumatic gripper", "6WD Traction Drivetrain", "4-bar linkage", "Electronics Plate", "Joystick Controls" etc so you can easily search for a particular kind of design (no matter what year).

If there would be any use for a ton of robot photos, let me know (PM or email), and I can zip and send them to you.

(Though I suppose it would have to be more of a navigation like Jason was suggesting or the search style with tags).

Re: [FRC-Designs.com] Announcing!!!
 

Kim,

Thanks for the response! In the next version, there will be tags to be able to search by what you are looking for. Some ideas include "pneumatic gripper", "6WD Traction Drivetrain", "4-bar linkage", and "Electronics Plate." This would be a huge resource for teams in the future. I am looking forward to developing this type of site.

Please send the photos along (matt@frc-designs.com)! I would love to include them in the database! Thanks for the help and I am looking forward to where the website takes me!

Matt

Re: [FRC-Designs.com] Announcing!!!
 

Seems like robowrangler-designs.com to me. ;) :p

Re: [FRC-Designs.com] Announcing!!!
 

It would appear to seem that way :D. So far, they have been one of the few main teams to step up and help to increase the level of inspiration and competition in FIRST. Are you next? I will leave you with this quote posted earlier in the thread.

Re: [FRC-Designs.com] Announcing!!!
 

It would be a bit more work, but I'm sure you could get a lot more designs by just asking. Most FIRST teams are extraordinarily helpful, although not all read CD.

Re: [FRC-Designs.com] Announcing!!!
 

See Blog Announcement Below:

FRC Designs: http://frc-designs.com/index.html

FRC Designs Blog: http://frc-designs.blogspot.com/

Re: [FRC-Designs.com] Announcing!!!
 

This is awesome.

Maybe link each bot to the corosponding Blue Aliance page to see each bot in action?

Re: [FRC-Designs.com] Announcing!!!
 

Our CAD will be up within the next few weeks. Don't judge us, though, it's kind of sloppy. :o

Re: [FRC-Designs.com] Announcing!!!
 

The dropdown "Robot Designs" navigation item does not work on iOS.