Robot Tips For Rookie Teams

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by yash101

This thread isn't just about funding. We are talking a little about funding a little bit, though the sole purpose of this thread is to have a place for newbie teams to get advice from!

Huh? Where did he say/imply the thread was just about fundraising?

Regardless, fundraising is a vital part of successful participation in FIRST, and that was useful advice.

[SoftwareBug2.0]

One of the most important pieces of advice is to try to build within your capabilities. It sounds like a tautology and is therefore easy to overlook. To make it concrete, here's my team capability checklist:

Basics:

• Do you at least have these basic tools you will almost surely need?
  • Wrenches
  • Pliers
  • Crimpers
  • Screw drivers
  • Drill
  • Drill bits
  • Taps
  • Hack saw

Materials:

• Which materials do you know how to get?
  • Aluminum bar/plate/tubing/angle/rod
  • Steel bar/plate/tubing/angle/rod
  • Titanium
  • 80/20
  • Wood
  • Plastics (Lexan, HDPE, Delrin, etc.)
  • Composites (fiberglass, carbon fiber, etc.)
  • Other?
• How quickly can you get them?
• Which materials fit in your budget?
• Which materials do your members have experience working with?

Drafting:

• Does anyone know CAD?
  • What kind?
• How about drafting by hand?

Machine shop:

• For each of mill/lathe/waterjet/laser:
  • Can you do this in house?
  • Do you have someplace you could send it?
  • How long will it take?
  • What sort of accuracy can you get?
• For 3d printing: All of the above, plus:
  • What are your material options?
  • How strong is it?
• Do you have access to welding? What type? Which materials can you work with? Turn around times?
• Do you have access to anodizing or powder coating? What kind? How long is the turn around?
• Can you work with sheet metal?
  • Do you know how to design it?
  • Do you have access to a shear and a break? What size?

Electrical:

• How long would it take your team to wire a doorbell?
• Could your team build a basic low-pass filter?
• Do you know how to make a custom PCB?

Programming:

• How many students know your chosen programming language? And how well?
• How many mentors? And how well?

I recomend actually writing down estimates for each of these questions. Every team's resources have limitations. You should know what your team's are.

A teams that understands what they can do well will do better than a team with more resources that doesn't know how to use them. Most of the wooden robots that I've seen have been above average.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by yash101

This thread isn't just about funding. We are talking a little about funding a little bit, though the sole purpose of this thread is to have a place for newbie teams to get advice from!

Wasn't meaning to imply it was, just commenting on the previous posts focused on funding!

Having money is a necessary prerequisite to build a robot: ergo, making use of FIRST's resources for acquiring funding should be high on any-- rookie or veteran-- team's list.

[yash101]

Oh. no. I wasn't trying to be mean or anything. Sorry about the misunderstanding!