How to create a workshop

[Owen Busler]

Although it may be expensive, my team uses our dremel quite often. We use these:

http://www.amazon.com/Dremel-EZ406-0...l+cutting+bits

and they work very well.

[EDesbiens]

Originally Posted by Owen Busler

Although it may be expensive, my team uses our dremel quite often. We use these:

http://www.amazon.com/Dremel-EZ406-0...l+cutting+bits

and they work very well.

The workshop is located in my basement... So while cleaning it up I found many of those dremel wheels I hope I find the dremel itself

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by EDesbiens

The workshop is located in my basement...

That tells me you aren't looking for advice on finding space, but for advice on what to fill your space with. How much space are you talking about filling? How many people are you expecting to have working there at any given time?

[EDesbiens]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

That tells me you aren't looking for advice on finding space, but for advice on what to fill your space with. How much space are you talking about filling? How many people are you expecting to have working there at any given time?

We have a room of about 16' x 16' with two tables, a few chairs (2 or 3) and a counter with a lot of storage space under it... I expect 2-3 persons to be working in there (very small team). We have another place to use the bigger tools (table saw ect...) but it can't be used to assemble nor program the robot...

[asid61]

You should have a band saw and a drill press as far as power tools go. Apart from that, GeeTwo's list is pretty solid. I would add calipers to that list; a good 6" caliper is like $20 on Ebay (not plastic, and a brand like Mitutoyo). I got my 12" Mitutoyo's for $23. One thing that is extremely useful to differentiate metric and imperial allen wrenches is to paint them different colors. Some are sold with different color on the outside (like blue) to show metric/imperial.
Avoid screwdrivers and phillips/flathead screws. Keep a couple flathead and phillips screwdrivers available, but don't buy either type of screw unless it's unavoidable. Electrical stuff uses a lot of philips though, so you should stock tiny (jewelers?) screwdrivers and the regular ones as well.
Dremels are fantastic. Socket ratchets are also fantastic. The latter can be cheap and is usually very, very useful, especially for had-to-reach locknuts (which sometimes can't be gotten to any other way).
The next power tool I would get is a mini mill like you get from HarborFreight. The "Seig" manufactured mills are pretty handy. It can even replace a drill press if you're ok with only one person on it at a time.

[Billfred]

One thing we've found useful: Make your build space your pit space. We keep our pit table set up in the shop, and when we go to competitions we just rearrange some plastic shelving to suit. Very easy.

Also think about where you're going to hold non-build meetings. If you don't have that space elsewhere, you're going to want to leave an open space for that (and perhaps some seating). 4901 has reasonable access to classroom space since we're on a college campus, but we still hold an occasional stand-up meeting in the shop for expediency.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by Billfred

One thing we've found useful: Make your build space your pit space. We keep our pit table set up in the shop, and when we go to competitions we just rearrange some plastic shelving to suit. Very easy.

This hasn't been an option for us in the past, as our build space had to become a classroom again after each build session. We also tend to do most of our cutting outside to keep the noise down; Slidell has reasonable temps and precipitation for half to 3/4 of build season, depending on the year.
Now that we have a dedicated build shed, this is something we will definitely consider, though given that we're building heavy workbenches for the shed (2 down, 3 to go), and that we build two "identical" robots since last year, a 10x10 area within the shed won't be our primary work space. We had a 10x10 area marked off on the plans for a "test space" in the shed - with a 7-1/2' ceiling and an irregular floor sloped about 2 degrees to the back, we aren't going to be using the shed for real driver practice. I suspect that about the time we need to go to the classroom or the parking lot for driver practice, the "test space" will become our "pit layout". We can even drill rolling the storage shelves and benches in and out, as long as we keep things below that low ceiling. We can do the full-height drills in the classroom. After stop build day, we can build the pit in the shed and note whatever we use that is not stored in that space to adjust the pit loadout. I like it!

[sgeckler]

These are good lists. I would add:

A Vise
Spring loaded center punch (makes drill presses MUCH more useful)

Good luck!!

[Joe G.]

Do not forget about any of the following:

-Storage space. The amount of random parts that a FIRST team accumulates over time is truly impressive. Making sure that everything has a place to live takes a lot of planning ahead. Invest in a whole lot of drawers, large and small, to keep everything organized, and a quality toolbox or well-designed pegboard for all your tools.

-Table space. You can never have enough open table space, as many elements of the robot will be being assembled in parallel, especially during the prototyping stage.

-Open space. This can't be forgotten about either. Whether for storage of large items like full size prototypes, for testing, or just for freedom to move around, it's important not to fill your shop to the point where there's no free room.

[EDesbiens]

I'm almost done cleaning and making space for it... I'll show you guys a picture soon to give you an idea

[EDesbiens]

Here it is Still need to move the pinball machine to a corner or something and to bring a few things to other rooms