California District Proposal, Rev 2

[Pauline Tasci]

Originally Posted by EricH

I'm not entirely sure about O.C., but I think the school shop was open there. Can't say when the last time I've seen the NASA shop down here was.

We hosted at a school who has a robotics team so their shop became the machine shop, which I think is JUST as great!

[frcguy]

Thanks everyone for the great responses! I'm happy to see most districts represented in the answers!

I have a follow up question. For those who have used both a trailer-based shop (NASA, team provided, etc.) and another kind of shop (a team's build space, a "bring your own equipment" shop, etc.), do you ever have problems with not having a certain tool, the tools not being maintained, or any issues along those lines? Just curious.

Edit: Related to the discussions we're having about machine shops, I think it would be good to add something about them to the potential venue criteria. My quick read through that section turned up nothing about an event needing to have a machine shop.

[Chris Fultz]

Originally Posted by frcguy

I'm curious how machine shops work in a district environment. As the only regional I attended this year was SVR, the only machine shop I know of is the NASA trailer kind. I'm assuming that they don't drive a trailer out to every district event, although I may be wrong. Could somebody who has experience post a quick overview? Thanks in advance.

Many of the IN events are in team schools, so the "host team" effectively provides a space. For the Perry Event, we recruited a few former team members to run the machine shop. Our build space is located near the playing field and pit gym, so it was easy access.

This does bring up something that FIRST may need to be sure is clearly defined. We considered our build space to be "off limits" during the event, and any work we needed done we did through the machine shop, like all other teams.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by frcguy

I'm curious how machine shops work in a district environment. As the only regional I attended this year was SVR, the only machine shop I know of is the NASA trailer kind. I'm assuming that they don't drive a trailer out to every district event, although I may be wrong. Could somebody who has experience post a quick overview? Thanks in advance.

The Duluth regionals have used trailer-based machine shops, from a couple of different sponsors.

Minneapolis uses an off-site machine shop at the U.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by Thad House

In the PNW, we own 2 (I'm pretty sure. I know we own at least 1) machine shop trailers that travel to every event. I'm fairly certain these trailers are easier to work with and incorporate logistics for then finding a machine shop in each school or venue we go to. Even the district championship uses the trailers for the machine shop.

Washington FIRST Robotics owns one machine shop trailer that was purchased when we were still in the regional system. That of course is the one with the wrap. The plain black trailer is owned by an uber volunteer. They are for the most part equally equipped. They are towed to the events by volunteers.

[sanddrag]

The only real issues I've had with event machine shops were no tungstens and filler rods for the TIG welder, and lack of a large enough arbor press.

And for the record, Octavio, the machining instructor at Ventura college is a great guy. Very friendly and helpful.

[jpetito]

I saw a NASA-hosted shop at Maderia CA a couple of years ago-very basic.

The best example I know of is Holy Cows of San Diego-getting their mobile shop organized and funded and staffed so as to haul around to events was a major point for them in winning the national Chairmen's Award--Two? years ago.

Another sideshow: There is so much hardware and gear hanging around because the old guys with the expertise who have/had stuff in their garage are dying off. Estate sales, the digital auction, word-of-mouth will get you more gear that you can possibly use.

There's some money involved to get it up and operational, space requirements, etc., but the bigger picture is reconstituting a skill set on the national level that we are losing to attrition. And you don't need to get into debt with a university degree to do this work and be successful.

Joe
Windmill Climber

PS- We're losing the focus of this thread. Lets go back to the Districts topic and somebody put up another on a move for more mobile machine shops. Post the link here so we can find it. Have a great summer!

[feverittm]

While we are talking about machine shops and getting back to the topic of moving to Districts. There needs to be a requirement for review of the 'site requirements' document. This would apply for a school or other venue that would host a district event.

I know that FIRST has such a document and when we were looking at moving the PNW OSU/Philomath event, that document was used quite extensively during the selection. It includes requirements for such things as space, power, access and seating capacity.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by feverittm

I know that FIRST has such a document and when we were looking at moving the PNW OSU/Philomath event, that document was used quite extensively during the selection. It includes requirements for such things as space, power, access and seating capacity.

The FRC district planning guide and venue site selection guide are on this page.
http://www.firstinspires.org/resourc...lanning-guides

[ASD20]

Originally Posted by feverittm

It includes requirements for such things as space, power, access and seating capacity.

I'd say it largely contains suggestions, which should be heeded to varying extents.

[frcguy]

Originally Posted by jpetito

PS- We're losing the focus of this thread. Lets go back to the Districts topic and somebody put up another on a move for more mobile machine shops. Post the link here so we can find it. Have a great summer!

First of all, sorry for dragging the thread off topic with my questions .

Allen Gregory created such a thread that you can find here: https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/s...d.php?t=149665

[EricH]

Originally Posted by ASD20

I'd say it largely contains suggestions, which should be heeded to varying extents.

I think that it contains both requirements and suggestions. The hard part is knowing which is which!

For example, I would think it possible for an event to have pits and field on different levels--the catch is that said event would need a device to safely move the robots between levels (commonly known as either a ramp or an elevator, depending on vertical distance, and preferably a freight elevator with some speed to transport lots of robots at once).

On the other hand, the field space can't be compromised much without compromising safety and access. So that's more of a requirement. Pit space in total can't be compromised much either--but having it all together can be, to an extent. Power can be supplemented. Seating probably can't be fudged much without somebody complaining (loudly) about not being able to see their team compete--or the situation we had in IE '14, where the reminders to not sit in the aisles in the stands were constant but there wasn't much of anywhere else to sit!

Short version, you're right, but you have to know what the actual requirements are before you can fudge the given numbers.

[Christopher149]

Originally Posted by EricH

I think that it contains both requirements and suggestions. The hard part is knowing which is which!

For example, I would think it possible for an event to have pits and field on different levels--the catch is that said event would need a device to safely move the robots between levels (commonly known as either a ramp or an elevator, depending on vertical distance, and preferably a freight elevator with some speed to transport lots of robots at once).

FIM St. Joseph had (and probably still does?) have the pits a few feet lower than the field and uses a ramp.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by Christopher149

FIM St. Joseph had (and probably still does?) have the pits a few feet lower than the field and uses a ramp.

The ramp works pretty well, but was actually dangerous for many due to transport configuration. We eventually let teams with tall bots do their best to stay safe through that area.

[Isonine]

I was informed by Janet that California will not ever get districts because when FIRST looked at it, they deemed that they would need something like 25-35 district events to cover the state, which they deemed was unfeasible.