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Originally Posted by Natchez
Finally, I thought that it would be a good idea to contact local machine shops and see if they would manufacture a bunch of AM Transmissions and we would just give them to the Greater Houston Teams (about 15). We would parse the work out to several shops and each team in Houston could be shifting by January 10th. We would also set up tours of the machine shops for the students to see exactly how the trannies were built. Since machine shops in Houston traditionally have a slow period in December, this would be a perfect opportunity to introduce the shops to FIRST and get them involved. Of course, you know the long term plan: get them to support a team. A special thanks to AM for releasing the drawings or this idea could never get off the ground. Regardless whether the teams can use them on their '05 robot, I am going to initiate the effort hopefully to help some teams out.
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This is a good idea, but I suggest a twist to keep things "legal" with regard to FIRST's most current rules (2004). Get prints to the machine shops and have them prepare their mills and lathes. They can even make some practice parts to be sure that they are correct. Then, on Jan. 8th, have them start cutting metal for the competition parts. Heck, the CNC code could already be in the machines (teams already do this). Within 3-4 days, parts should be complete. This effort would take the same preparation, save some purchased parts cost (compared to buying them), give the students the same experience, and you would be sure this was legal. You could even make 1-2 "non-competing units" before the ship date to make sure things work out. This is what we have done during the past few years.
Andy B.