[Andrew Schreiber]

[*]Weight Savings - Freshmen with a hole saw? But there is no easy way of doing this, a lot of it requires you to do the math to figure out exactly what material you need and how much of it. Be very careful here.

[*]Chain Tensioning - AM sells a chain tensioner that works reasonably well. You could also just design for an integer number of links between the wheels and be done with it. According to some discussion on last night's cast #35 chain will just deal with it.

[*]Non-Traditional Gearboxes - Dewalts were pretty popular for quite a few years. However, in my experience, the majority of top tier teams use the AM guts with a custom housing. A few build completely custom ones nowadays but the need to do that is diminishing. As far as other sources. Banebots is TECHNICALLY a source but there are a lot of people on these forums that have some very creative words for BB transmissions.

[*]Wheel Sources (Not Andymark or IFI) - Colson wheels. Literally worst kept secret in the NE region. Avoid BB wheels, they tend to shred. Probably would work ok for grippers though. Some teams have been going back to the old school pneumatic tires but they are by no means easy as interfacing with them has, traditionally, been a pain.
[*]Sensors - Sparkfun Electronics. Incredibly support, reasonable prices, and probably the coolest shipping boxes in the industry. Most of their stuff is of decent quality, I've never had any problems with them. Just don't order resistors or leds from them, their prices are a little steep.
[*]Tools - Can't help ya here.


Not really a list of easy fixes or quick purchases that will turn you into the next 254 but it should point you to some alternate options you can utilize in the future.