Last night a tough mentor-driven decision made last Fall came full circle, and it's paid dividends for our season.
Determining when to sacrifice some space for additional equipment is a very tough call. We did it this year after some grumbling and anxiety, and it's turned out to be a blessing. We lost an entire assembly bench to an in-house CNC, but wow - turning around a precision part in an hour is insane. The CNC was a DIY mentor project (with a waterjet sponsor doing some really nice plates...), sponsored by funds raised by students & mentors alike. The mentor who built the CNC learned a ton about a subject he didn't know, and in the process he himself grew to a new understanding of design process as it relates to precision parts.
Let's pause for a second.
While it isn't in FIRST's mission statement, IMO any adult who grows in their careers as a result of FIRST is a success for a team as much as an inspired student is. The nation is going through an educational re-structuring in some regions, and there are plenty of adults who need inspiring too.
Continuing:
Another adult heard of the CNC through that esoteric old-school 'Grape Vine', and he just so happened to know some CAM and how to drive a CNC. Now we have students going through the CAD/CAM/CNC design process on a regular basis (so long as we can find a USB thumb drive...). Without the original mentor to drive it, we would still have the same thought processes as we did last season and we would also lack another mentor with a whole new set of knowledge to bestow upon unsuspecting teenagers. On top of that, I have new late-season CAD students this year! More CAD students than ever
! The kids understand they can't use the shiny new toy without some pre-requisites, and that by itself is inspiring (to me).
Other musings...
The premium of all FRC luxuries, I think, is a dedicated space for practice that includes enough room for a good portion of the field and high ceilings. Teams with this get to see kinetic objects interact as if it were a real game. Teams who don't have access to enough practice space only shoot themselves in the foot when they blindly go after the trickiest of objectives in a game (1885, 2013-auto, cough cough).
This year's game doesn't require so much space. Get a patch of carpet, build the cheapest field piece I've ever seen (the bump) and some totes - voila! (Build a chute door if you're into that kind of thing)