[fox46]

A great investment for any FIRST team are these little guys:
http://www.busybeetools.com/products...N.-X-8IN..html
http://www.busybeetools.com/products...3-CRAFTEX.html
Another of our mentors owns the Mini Lathe and it is absolutely awesome. Great for all kinds of parts and will handle pretty much anything you can fit in its chuck which is likely about 95% of any robot part you might need. Best of all you can throw it in a car and take it wherever you want- including your pit area at the competition! This dynamic duo would make a great investment for any team who is being forced to do work at home. If there's a bunch of snow in the forcast, just throw these guys in the car with all your WIP parts and you can keep working at home with almost all the capability of a full size machine shop. They are also great for teaching students how to use a lathe/mill because if you crash the chuck or royally mess up there is never enough kinetic energy involved to do any catastrophic damage ie: whipping chuck keys/parts/tooling into things, mangling the machine etc.