[Allen B.]

Thanks for the compliments,

Over the previous off season, and through build season, 973 designed and built the two pit modules you see in the awesome picture of the first post. We saw that there were many benefits to redesigning our pit for this coming season and tailored the design to our resources and needs.

We will have more information about it on our website, which I will link here soon, but for now here is an overview of some of the features we built into it.

The two modules collapse down to be stowed in our trailer that we take to competitions. One of our major design objectives was that when we got to competition, we wanted to be "up and running" in under 10 minutes. As mentioned, our setup for pit consists of bringing in the two modules and our tool box, connecting power and air between them, Flipping two levers to raise the upper half with gas spring assisting pneumatic cylinders, and turning on the light switch. Since we are still improving on the design and working out the details, Madera and LA took a little longer than 10 minutes to get functional, but not by much.

The modules have a 78"x30" footprint. In the picture, we have the pit modules offset so it is occupying more than 10'x10', however the pit was designed to fit in a 9'x9' space.

Features
Electrical
-The entire pit is running through a breaker to comply to the venue's policies we've dealt with in past
-Constructed by a certified electrician
-Along the lines of safety, we have two emergency cutoff button switches that kills all power to the pit.
-A computer with 2 monitors, one per module, in pit for both PR and scouting and match schedule updates.
-We have 3 power strips designed into the pit. One module has 8, 110V outlets with 4 more dedicated outlets for the upper shelf (computer and stuff); the other module has 10, 110V outlets. Although we did not have it implemented for our regionals, by Championships we will have a 12V testing station for our standard Anderson power pole connectors. This will allow us to test motors on or off the robot.
-The last power strip is a dedicated "programmers station" with table on the end of one of our end module. This allows our programmer to stand or sit at a table with 4 110V receptacles and 2 RJ-45 ports. These are connected to both the computer and a port on the other side of the pit that will plug into the robot. This way, the robot is connected to the pit in a manner that the cord is not in the way and not connected directly to the programmers laptop.
-In the same electrical category is our battery box. It holds 12 competition batteries and is independent from the pit module.

Pneumatic
-Our pit actuates up and down to fit in our trailer but also be a comfortable height to work with. This is accomplished by 4 pneumatic cylinders assisted by gas springs to counter balance the weight.
-One of the power strips has a pneumatics testing station. With a toggle valve and regulator, we can articulate pneumatic systems by plugging them into our station. This helps with quick tests on or off the robot.

Other
-Safety being a major design objective, we have a first aid kit, battery kit, and fire extinguisher.
-Flammables cabinet
-Trash can
-Belt sander, small vertical band saw, vice and anvil.
-Vacuum built into the table top. Future iterations will have dust control outlets connected to our power tools.
-Banner mounts for sponsor logos and a regional banner.

We look forward to having it at Champs where efficiency and time is even more critical. There are other things I missed I'm sure, but soon we will have a detailed page on our website that has more information and pictures of construction and use.