General FRC mechanical things

[Comque1]

haha thanks for the heads up, im just tring to learn as much as i can so any information would be great tho

[the man]

Ahh. I belive I should have start out by saying welcom to FIRST

I have learned a lot thanks to my mentors. You are going to want to do all calculations such as physics ones, the limits of your electronics (such as how much current it can supply). Often times the simplest solution is the best, especially for a new team. Never take the screws all the way out of the jaguars.
Try your hardest to finish most of your robot early enough to allow the programmers time to work on the bot too. Always always always use blue lock-tight on set screws, or anything else that has any chance of working its way lose. Check bolts often.
Make sure your drive train is capable of what it needs to early on in the season.
On my teams 09 robot the frame was rigid but the impacts it had to endure were so great by the state competition it was not the same shape it stated out as.
Make sure if you uses a smaller motor that it can handle anything it might encounter. Basically don't design it to stall or be anywhere close to its limits.
Try to prototype somethings if you can before actually making them a part of your robot.

That's all I can think of at the moment. I would also try to find another team by you that could maybe show you some of what they have done. Good Luck and we'll see you at the competitions.

[CNettles11]

This document helped me out when I was trying to lear some of the physics that relates to an FRC robot.
http://www.botsnlinux.net/firstphysi...th_physics.pdf

[zachmartin1806]

This website has everything you'll need

http://www.simbotics.org/resources/workshops

[Jared Russell]

The Simbotics website link is a great one.

Another great resource is a website like TheBlueAlliance.net, where you can watch video from past competitions (YouTube also has many FRC robot and match videos). If you watch the Einstein rounds from each season, you can get a pretty good idea of what mechanisms tend to be successful. If you find a robot that you want to learn more about, you can google the team name to find their website (many teams have extensive media galleries and robot specifications), or click the "CD-Media" link on the Chief Delphi top banner and do a keyword search for "frcXXX", where XXX is the team number you would like to find pictures of.

[Matthew Blake]

You can always ask your team members

WELCOME TO FRC AND CHIEF DELPHI!!!!

Like said earlier, a lot of teams provide a bountiful amount of resources on their team websites. If you still have a question, then feel free to ask the Chief Delhi community! There's sure to always be a few people on at any given moment (trust me), and we'd be more than happy to help you! For even more help, click on the buttons at the top of the page labeled "Search" and "CD-Media". The "Search" button will allow you to type in questions you may have, incase someone already asked the question and it's already answered. *Pro-Tip: Check the dates. Things can be outdated and may no longer apply*. By clicking on the button labeled "CD-Media", you can search through the various photos and white papers(REALLY USEFUL THINGS FOR INFORMATION) to get anything you need.

Hope this helps, and good luck in the 2012 season! You're going to LOVE IT!

[Dr Theta]

Welcome to FIRST. Another useful resource is WPI's think tank. It contains presentations covering almost everything you might want to know for FRC. http://thinktank.wpi.edu/Portal