[SiliconKnight]

Design

* Graph paper and a good ink pen. You'll waste untold hours of CAD time if you don't draw out sketches first.

* Solidworks 2003 - I like it more than Inventor. Let me see what I'm building, calculates how much it weights, and let me see if things are gonna bash into each other. (Interference detection is a god-send when you're building anything with more than 10 parts).

* Cosmos/SM - To see if it'll break, and to use FEA to optimize my designs.

* GNU/SCiTe - my text editor, G-Code editor. Good also to keep to-do lists in. Yeah, I'm arcane like that.

Build:

* Sharpie marker. I was a decent machinist when I knew how to use the shop's precision layout tools and hold 0.002" tolerance on my parts. I became a *good* machinist when I knew where I can cut corners and just mark things with a sharpie marker, locate things with my Mark 1 eyeball, and use a drill press instead of a mill.

* Bridgeport Manual mill. Yes, there are times when we CNC things, but we still havn't gotten to the point where we have enough good CNC operators. I can build just about every part on our robot with a mill and a lathe by hand.

* Clausing-Metosa 14x40" lathe, with carbide indexable tools. You have to admit, being able to see the cutting edge reflected in the mirror finish of a piece of aluminum is pretty darn cool..

* HydroMech horizontal band saw. With a 420V motor, you can just about cut a car in half on that thing.

Field Repairs:

* Dremel. Only complain is that I don't have a cordless one. Never underestimate what a Dremel with an 1/8" end mill chuck into it will do for aluminum removal, at 30,000 RPM (Steady hands *AND* eye protection for *EVERYONE* around you is a MUST!).

* Ryobi 18V Cordless drill/driver I'd go for the DeWalt, but it's my personal drill and I couldn't afford the DeWalt kit.