7 years of Big MO and this is my 4th year on the team. Every year we concept the robot and make the parts out of wood then we have pars made that have to be precise made, and anything welded we mook up and hold together so it can be sent out to be welded. We in the past have ordered out frame thru 80/20 but for the this year and last year we have used extruded aluminum frame which was welded. 2 years ago we used a 1/4 inch thick aluminum plate (bad idea, but we won a regional). For the past 3 years we have used the same drive train and have only have 1 ort 2 chains break, and we have a total of 5 chains on each side.
When you say building a robot completely by the students i hope he is refering to assembly or parts and final construction. Because almost every robot has to have a precision part and if not something bad might happen.
For instance, in this years game you might want to have a precise motor mount for your shooter if you h a direct drive. If your motor is not secure you might run into shafts breaking and wheels flying.
Most parts on the robot do not needt to be precise but not every team is able to have a robot building spot such as GM or other corporate giant. These teams that do not need to have parts made outside of there shop, these teams might need outside fabrication. And if you think of what FIRST is trying to get us kids tolearn, it truly is just to make us further our knowledge by learning mechanical, electrical, programming skills. They are not saying we have to completely design, fabricate, and build our robot. But understand how things work and new innovative ideas on how to do things.
