Tell Me About Your Pit

[CMBrandon]

What are the top 5 most important things in the pit? Not counting your robot, of course. I'm thinking things like battery charger, band saw, tool storage, laptop/desktop, etc.

[tjf]

Well, first and foremost a pit has to be clean. Without a clean and orderly pit, having one is functionally useless. Every tool has a place, and is kept in it obsessively.

Secondly is the layout. The robot needs to be somewhere when it's in the pit when we're working on it such that we can have 3 or 4 people on it at once (depending.) As a result it's almost always dead center.

Thirdly is our tool location. Keeping them at the back wall worked for 1257 in 2016, with a shelf off to the side for the sake of storage of things we don't need frequently.

On that note are the 4th and 5th items being laptop charger & battery charger. Without either of these, the DS can't work and the robot won't move. IIRC we purchased a spare charger just in-case the main charger for our DS breaks, and we have a backup battery charger (4 at once vs 1 at once) just in case.

Overall, a pit just has to be clean, orderly, and functional. Anything else is supplementary. Though a mess in this photo, it does show 1257's 2016 pit all-right. (It was during finals at MAR DCMP, so it was clearly deserted. I should have watched that match is something I've said far too much...) The photo goes against everything I said, but there are toolboxes that were dragged to right beside the field.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BEWBmF6sOFe/

[Chief Hedgehog]

I will be following this thread closely as we are in the middle of a complete PIT redesign. Top 5 needs for us in no particular order (and will most likely change a few times over the coming weeks):

1. Battery charging station w/read outs
2. Programmers area
3. Tool chests/Work stations
4. Lighting that doesn't overheat the work area
5. Media/Marketing area

[NShep98]

Originally Posted by Chief Hedgehog

1. Battery charging station w/read outs
2. Programmers area
3. Tool chests/Work stations
4. Lighting that doesn't overheat the work area
5. Media/Marketing area

6. Dragon

...right?

[mastachyra]

Battery charger
White board with schedule posted
Safety supplies
Tool box with tools
Foam flooring

These are the things we MUST have even when we travel light to off-season competitions.

[Chief Hedgehog]

Originally Posted by NShep98

6. Dragon

...right?

Dragon? Not following... Please elaborate.

[nickbrickmaster]

Our pit has a mobile island made out of two toolchests, and a spot for the robot on top. We also have a back area made of shelves. This is (along with our battery cart) all we have in our pit, which gives us a place to store tools (toolchest), robot (top of carts), storage for hardware (shelves), a place for immobile tools (shelf), extra workspace (shelf), and a place to store coats, etc (top of shelf). On top of these shelves, we have a bank of TVs that display a powerpoint.

This design is very clean, and gives us enough room to work and room to store all our stuff without feeling cramped. I can't really stress how good this feels - you have space to move around people without it becoming awkward! It's also quick to set up and easy to transport.

For five most important things, I would put toolchest-island first. It's nice to have a work surface that also stores your tools.
Second, our bandsaw. We had tons of people use it during 10,000 Lakes (we joked about setting up a fundraiser by charging 1$ for using the bandsaw), and we couldn't have fixed a few essential parts without it.
Third, our powerpoint TVs. TBH, it looks nice. We had a good number of compliments on these last season.
Fourth, (though this is kind of cheating) the shelving. Work surface and storage.
Fifth, our battery cart. It's essential for a robotics team (so I would put it higher), but ours is up for a bit of a redesign, as it's a bit clunky and space-inefficient.

Here are some pics. In the second one you can see some coats up top.

[Cothron Theiss]

1. Safety equipment
2. Battery charger
3. Whiteboard with schedule and battery list
4. Tools/parts storage
5. Talking materials (basically some printoffs we can show to Amy judges or teams that come up when the people in the pit don't know the answer to something)
6. Foam flooring

One thing I would suggest if you have the space is to set up your pit in your shop permanently. We started doing this because we share an old band room with a regular class for our work shop. We initially set up our pit so we would have very clear boundaries as to where the classroom's property ended and our team's property started. However, we figured out pretty quickly it made our team members much more efficient at competition because we were so used to working out of the pit. Knowing where all of the tools go is a wonderful thing, and you can figure out what does and doesn't work for your pit before you get to competition.

Another thing I'll add is that having your team number displayed prominently on all sides of your pit makes everyone else's lives easier.

[NShep98]

Originally Posted by Chief Hedgehog

Dragon? Not following... Please elaborate.

https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/s...t=10th+defense

We kept him in our pit after that.

[dirtbikerxz]

1. Battery charger
2. Rolling toolboxes with all our tools
3. organized system of totes with all our spare parts
4. An unobstructed corner for the programmer to work
5. A pit team that works in perfect (and I mean perfect) sync, to get repairs done as fast as possible

Extras:
- A monitor in the pit to show current match details, and the upcoming match schedule, and countdown to our next upcoming match (its easier for the pit crew to know exactly when the next time is)
- a scouting station with all the ipads and tablets for scouters
- a charging station for phones (a hub with 4 android and 4 apple cables plugged in)
- a spot for our button bucket (a bucket with our buttons and other swag like bumper stickers)
- a hanging safety box with gloves and goggles
- a place to hang banners and logos

[ollien]

Originally Posted by dirtbikerxz

- A monitor in the pit to show current match details, and the upcoming match schedule, and countdown to our next upcoming match (its easier for the pit crew to know exactly when the next time is)

How do you account for delays? Do you just manually enter it from the FMS display, or do you have something fancy going on?

[MrForbes]

1. Safety Captain
2. Driver
3. Operator
4. Human Player
5. Coach

Oh...you meant stuff, not people.

Toolbox with the tools we need to fix the robot, and make a few parts as needed
Spare parts bin/box plus the shelf to put the parts on so we can find them quickly.
Battery cart with the batteries and charger(s).
Robot cart, some years it's more better than other years.
Art. Stuff that other teams can see to figure out who we are, and what we do.

I didn't include the robot and driver station, because you probably already know that you need that.

[dirtbikerxz]

Originally Posted by ollien

How do you account for delays? Do you just manually enter it from the FMS display, or do you have something fancy going on?

I have it updating from both TBA and the FIRST API, and incase those two are reporting accurate times, than there is an option to manually input the field "running behind" time.

[bobbysq]

1. Toolbox
2. Part Shelf
3. Video Button Box (lets us back up claims when others are pit scouting)
4. Battery Charger
5. Programming Computer (for quick code changes and adding quick new auto programs because command based code)

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Chief Hedgehog

I will be following this thread closely as we are in the middle of a complete PIT redesign. Top 5 needs for us in no particular order (and will most likely change a few times over the coming weeks):

1. Battery charging station w/read outs
2. Programmers area
3. Tool chests/Work stations
4. Lighting that doesn't overheat the work area
5. Media/Marketing area

4 is largely optional unless your local events provide really insufficient house lighting, and 2 can be accomplished outside of your pit.