Last year was my first year as a mentor, and I was asked to oversee our pit operations. We didn't do anything special in the pit except bring our toolbox and crates of tools and spare parts. I was blown away by some of the great pit designs at my first regional, in South Carolina. I was especially taken by the pit design of team 1319, located across the isle from us. I resolved to do something to make our pit more organized and effective.
The first step was to make a rack to hold cases of fasteners and other small parts. We took this to St. Louis, and it really helped. This year, we improved that rack by incorporating battery shelves and chargers. We also upgraded our robot cart to have a "shelf" for the control station. In addition, I got the students to design and build a "bench topper", with shelving, lighting, and a whiteboard. At the Virginia regional this year we found these improvements really made the pit a better place to work. It's still not perfect, and we still can eliminate more clutter and organize things better. Before the North Carolina regional, we plan to add more shelves to the benchtopper, and improve our signage. Now that we have the basics of a really functional pit, we can spruce it up a bit.
Some photos:
Note the trophy mounted to the top of the pit. We got it for donating the most peanut butter to the food drive, over 100 lb.