[F22Rapture]

Originally Posted by EricH

There is one tool that I don't see on your list that could be very useful, if light duty. That is a 3D printer. There are some desktop models in the $2K range; they build plastic parts. If you can do CAD, they can make life a lot easier on smaller parts--and they can do both round and squareish parts. The BeachBots put some parts made by one we got from http://thefutureis3d.com/ on their robot last year, and those parts ain't failed yet. (Also note that this is something that could go into the classroom portion--it doesn't spit chips everywhere.)

It might be too much for most teams to buy one, but I'd like to point out that a lot of local community colleges have one, often much larger and more expensive higher-quality ones. Our local CC has one which we will hopefully have access to this year, and it's far higher quality than what we could buy on our own.