Who Builds your teams Robot?

[157#1Driver]

I've heard of teams that have sponsors make their robot, and never see it until their first competition. There's also teams that the students make their robot. I was just wondering whats teams do to make their robot?

[Melissa Nute]

The students on my team build ours, our two mentors oversee what we do, but for the most part everything is student built.

[Ricky Q.]

Its all us! And of course our engineers help us, that would suck to not even see your robot until your first competition. No fun!

[Gui Cavalcanti]

I'd have to say this robot is about 90% student made by the Mech Techs. The only things that were not student made were the gearboxes for the Chiaphuas (our engineer was the only one experienced enough with a lathe to do it) and any welding done with the robot (liability issues).

[Ian W.]

Well, the students did about 100% of the building, unbuilding, rebuilding, unbuilding, and finally rebuilding again. Yeah, we changed our design about 3 or 4 times, and of course, the frame was already togeter. all i can say is thank god we used extrusion.

going a bit further with the question, the robot was built by a core group consiting of two mentors (one being Michael Krass), one technology teacher, and 3 or 4 students, including me. even though i didn't do as much of the physical building of the robot, i did a good chunk of the coding, and had to correct some of dan's, as he did with mine . I can say that all 100% of the coding was done by the students (well, Joe Ross helped me discover a way around a problem, even if he tried to screw up the code ).

the only parts that we didn't build purselves were the gears for the atwoods, the delran rollers, the delran/PVC idlers, and the machined alluminum. next year, we should be able to at least machine our own aluminum, cause i believe we're supposed to get new machines in the classroom where we build. should have lots of fun next year.

[Clark Gilbert]

See......

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...=builds+y our

[Amy Beth]

We always start our year with a strategy/design meeting involving both engineers and students where we discuss what we would like our strategy to be and how we would like to accomplish it. Then engineers and students present ideas and we work together to create a workable design.
Once we have a design, the team splits into groups of students led by engineers to build the separate subgroups of the robots. I would not go so far as to say that the robot is built entirely by students, because our engineers want us to learn as much as possible. Sometimes this means the students do a job, and other times the engineers do it to teach the students how. This year especially the students were more involved than ever in building the robot. For one reason, we had a larger team which gave the older students a chance to share the burden of teaching the younger students. Also, the facility we used had more tools than we've had in the past, which allowed more of the fabrication to be done onsite, rather than in the past when all parts had to be driven to our machine shop. This has been a good year for us, and it just makes me sorry i won't be around for next year.

[Digo]

We have one Chemstry teacher that has a lot of experience in creating and building things, working with a lot of different tools and materials, and he builds all the robot.

We have one mechanical engineer that gives many good ideas and draws things in cad to be lasercut.

The students can give their ideas and opinions, and sometimes do some things a bit related with the robot building.

[Kristina]

Ours is almost entirely student built. Our class broke up into subdivisions (drive system, programming, special teams [which built the extendor], pneumatics, etc). The students designed the whole robot and formed strategy. As the class manager, I must say that this process was costly since some things didn't work and had to be rebuilt several times (like our $800 extendor), everyone learned a great deal from trial and error and how to fundraise Our team captain even missed 3 weeks of school to build all day, something I don't reccomened personally but he had lots of dedication.

Of course, like someone mentioned before, a company did our welding because of liability. We also had one mentor from JPL but his main job was to nod if we were doing something right or shake his head if we were way off or doing something dangerous.

But the rest was student built and it was worth it even if we had to work from 9am-midnight on weekends and after school on weekdays. Our teacher who basically delegates power on our team didn't even know what our robot looked like until our first scrimmage, which was a day before we had to ship it off. He says its the best class he never taught.

I'll definately miss this next year.

[Beowulf]

99% student built. (There are a few bits that the mentors did on the robot, but during the actual building, they mostly sat around and graded papers.) 100% student designed.

[Andrew Wyatt]

Team 524 had a grand total of one engineer and two machinists this year, which meant the students HAD to do most of the work.

the machinists were there every day, and they did the majority of the teaching to the students.

the control system was conceived and built entirely by one college student and one HS student (me and JT) , while the frame and pneumatics were mostly done by lewis,rigo,mr wyatt and mr curry.

[Ian W.]

i designed the control system, and built it with the help of another student. i learned that next year, a large piece of wood will suffice. mine's way to heavy .

[Andrew Wyatt]

We just used a sheet of plexi. it weighs not very much.

I think it was really interesting how each team designed their systems, some teams uberarmored their control system, some didn't, some had their control system all spread out, some had it in one place.

the design compromises are just fascinating to examine.

[mike pawlak]

with only 1 engineer on our team (and some parents) the students build the machine. we go to a machine shop down the road from the school and build it. we have, of course, help by the engineer, but for the most part the robot is student built.

[Mike Soukup]

I answered this question a few months back in a similar thread, so I'll skip the question and refer you to the previous thread.

But I will reiterate a point I made in that post. Before you accuse any team of having a robot where the sponsor does all the work and simply hands the bot to the students, make sure you get your facts straight. Don't believe what you hear from others; talk to members of the team in question. In most cases your sources are mistaken. And remember in large teams some students never touch the robot because they work on other aspects of the team (fundraising, animation, chairmans, video, etc). If you talk to the wrong person you could get the wrong impression.

As a side note, any team where the students see the robot for the first time at their first competition will not be a contender for the sole reason that the students don't know how to operate it. Any team who operates that way cheats their students out of inspiration, learning, fun, and a chance to succeed in competition.

Mike