An idea I have been kicking around for a while is a place where people can post opensource mechanical designs.
Many teams post their CAD files and document their designs heavily for other teams to use. However, there is not a central place where teams can go to get inspiration for designs or to learn something new.
I think it would be sort of like the Behind the Design books but any team could post pages that detail their design decisions and also post CAD files for other teams to learn from. There used to be a mechanism library, I think it is still up somewhere but last time I checked it hadn't been updated. It just had photos of teams mechanisms but their was never any explanations.
I like the way FRC1640 does their website with many details of their designs, here is a sample.
http://wiki.team1640.com/index.php?t...II_Drive_Train
Also the content that JVN has been putting out about their robot this year has been exceptional.
http://blog.iamjvn.com/2011/02/insid...hip-joint.html
If you could figure out how to make a really easy to use site for people to post designs, explanations and tag them easily, I think it would benefit a lot of teams.