[EricH]

Originally Posted by George C

A great off-season activity is to build your own. http://www.reprap.org/wiki/RepRap We're in the process of building our 2nd. It costs about $600 to build one from scratch using linear bearings. The one we have draws a crowd at events. Once you have one, you can use it to print parts for more.

Might be a bit more than that--I was trying to come up with a number for how much a Mendel Basic (which is a RepRap printer) would cost if the plastic parts are already built, and came up with about $1K for everything. Admittedly, I didn't shop around much--the site I linked before, if you click on the "Store" tab, has almost all of the kit parts/electronics. The cost comes down if you find more local/cheaper sources. (The other thing about that site: The customer service is outstanding.) They ship a full-up printer, verified to work and fully assembled, for about $2000, so if a sponsor is funding it, it isn't a whole big chunk of budget.


The storage thing is something that you'll have to decide, but what I would do is be able to bring as much of the stuff as you can. That means portable toolboxes, rolling or not, that you can take out of the shop and stick in a vehicle. One set of tools probably isn't going to be enough at the competition. Bring 3. That's also where the KOP bins come in; they stack nicely under a table. When I was on a college engineering competition team, about the only thing from the shop we didn't take to competition was the workbench--we brought folding tables in the trailer instead. Figured if we didn't need it, someone else did.

Gray, I think you've got it reversed. I know of teams who've gone years with a miter/chop combo saw and no vertical bandsaw--about the only thing it can't do is turning cuts. That's why I put a Dremel (OP, take note--I'd put that at a 1 and it's fairly cheap) on the list, as it's a highly versatile tool that can help with making turning cuts. The Bridgeport instead of a drill press--Sorry, but a used Bridgeport can run in the $2500-$5000 range and that's without tooling. A 2-axis vice for a drill press can give some mill functionality; you just have to go slower when cutting a slot. And like I said, without knowing how much space they've got available, I'm willing to bet that a mill will take up an awful lot of it.