Robot Access Period Questions

[magnets]

What's interesting to me is the fact that we can add unlimited weight of fabricated items. When you're at a regional, your fabrication ability is fairly limited. At home, we can do spectacular things in 6 hours.

On my old team, we built the competition robot starting at the beginning of week six. Before that, it was all practice robot parts. Once we'd made the parts once, we could get the frame welded up in an hour. My current record (which is still the fastest, because we ran two CNC's at the same time) was 2 hours and 20 minutes to CNC, assemble, and mount two shifting gearboxes. Making the same parts two times in a row is much faster.

I think, that if we practiced, our full team of 50 or so kids and mentors could fabricate 90 out of the 120 lbs of robot in 6 hours no problem with some practice. So, if you know exactly what you need before your access period, and you've got your CNC machines/mills/lathes/welding team set up with the stock already clamped down, the drawings/toolpaths already made, and gave your team 6 hours, you could get a lot done.