Event Machine Shops

[Mark Holschuh]

The Wisconsin Regional has provided a very good machine shop the past few years, with a drill press, band saw, belt sanders and the usual assortment of tools. I know that this past year they were prepared to help any teams with materials to construct bumpers if needed.

[RoboChair]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

The SBPLI Long Island regional iirc has a pretty nice machine shop on a trailer. I believe it is sponsored by FESTO who has a HQ local to us

The NYC regional has a very nice machine shop they set up inside the venue. It is fairly large and supplied by Con Edison every year.

I can not find a picture of either but both do some solid work. Neither of them however allow students to work iirc.

There is a lot of iirc as I have never actually used any of the machine shops at our regionals. A team I work closely with did use one at the NYC regional to cut igus sliders and the cut was very very clean.

This is fairly typical SOP for these shop set ups. Sadly we live in a hugely litigious society these days. I've managed to get to know the 2 NASA machine shop guys that operate in our region and talk enough shop to gain their trust. To the point they are willing to let me use their stuff in the trailer and/or borrow tools. It's been very useful at times. It makes me feel better when I show up and there is a line people and both guys are busy, I can do something real quick when I will not be in the way and I'm not taking time away from other teams.

Pro Tip: Get really good at doing technical drawings by hand(really nail the dimensioning and tolerance call-outs), the shop guys will be able to make your part quicker and easier. And they will really appreciate it. You can dimension a really bad sketch really well and still convey the proper info very clearly.

[jpetito]

Thank you all for your most excellent observations and insight. No slight is meant on my part for any comments made by any of you.

One of our struggles here in the SoCal is the almost complete dismantling of what we call in other places Vocational Education or more simply Shop Class. That erosion affects our ability to convince administrators of the need to allow us to produce a FRC event at their school or within their school district(s). It's difficult for many of the academically-minded to grasp the need for skills in mechanical aptitude, wrench turning, welding, wiring, plumbing, etc.

We count schools as potential FRC event sites, but that does not get to the heart of the matter: Educators here expect every kid to get ready to go to the university and get a degree and pull themselves out of the educator's visualization of "underclass," associated in their minds with Blue Collar work. Anything less is a distraction, pulling down test scores at their school. Why bother with this sideshow (FRC) that messes up the school biosphere?

My frustration with the above has been how this kind of work is necessary and legitimate and a place needs to be found for it during the regular-day core of classes in the public school. My focus seems like a "sideshow of a sideshow," but the lack of interest by educators in this kind of education (FRC) has made for wider gaps in student's ability to employ themselves after obtaining the high school diploma.

Having these portable shops at venues whether District or Regional has opened the eyes of many school administrators and teachers about the need for teaching these skills. The spectacle in the playing arena is supported by the pits and these portable shops, and the whole thing is a circular ecosystem. Once admn/teachers/the educator intelligentsia grasp the concept we will start to get back what we've been cutting for the last forty years. That will in turn give us the ability to educate all young people in remunerative skills and lessen the so-called Poverty Gap.

Thanks all for volunteering your time for a kind of education lost in a lot of places in the USA.

Joe
Repurposer of Weird Gear