[D.Allred]

It's difficult to make specific recommendations without understanding your current resources or perceived resource gaps. But there are a few strategies teams do to manage material resources.

First, standardize your basic materials of construction and fastners. Material standards are somewhat limited by your tooling. Limiting the various fastners and fastner sizes makes your robot easier to maintain and keeps you from buying too many tools.

Next, I like to have a few spare COTS parts that get used every year. Having those go-to parts speeds up the early build season and provides other opportunities for off season training projects.

Here are a few examples of materials, fastners, and standard COTS parts for your team to consider.

Materials - We use 1x1 and 1x2 aluminum tubing, 0.09 and .12 aluminum sheet, and 1/8" polycarbonate. This type of construction is now more assessible to teams using VexPro's framing system. We also keep 1/2" hex shaft and associated bearings.

Fastners - We use metric from our sponsor. However, I have seen lots of teams use 10-32 or 10-24 screws plus 5/32 or 3/16 rivets.

COTS - This list can get large and expensive. But I always need a stock of motor controllers, pneumatic solenoids, motors, cylinders, and a few gearboxes. Robot construction rules do change year to year. There is some risk in buying these items in advance.

Let us know if you have any specific questions.

David