Pit design

[dhitchco]

I have put a bunch of photos of good pit designs onto our team photo-sharing web site at http://rollingthunder.smugmug.com/gallery/1414921 from the 2006 Atlanat world championships. In our 2nd year, we created a really cool pit which won us the imagery award at the Boston regional (along with our team camouflage uniforms, etc). See some pics here: http://rollingthunder.smugmug.com/photos/67064497-S.jpg

Some thoughts:
1) Portability and easy-setup is critical, especially if you're going to Atlanta championships via public transportation.

2) Abide by the rules as defined by FIRST and expect the rules to improve year-after-year. FIRST now mandates a maximum height of the pit. There is now a "typical" 10'x10' maximum footprint for a pit, but not all regionals have this (yet).

3) Safety is the next consideration. Pits should be stable, and some regionals get a bit fussier about flameproofed fabrics, spotlights in the pits, power strips, etc. Your team needs to have EASY egress from the pit with the robot on the cart (height clearance?). Therefore, side curtains, etc are a real pain in the #$%^&.

4) I strongly advocate NOT putting up side walls nor a "roof" since a) it blocks out a lot of light and b) is somewaht unfriendly to your teams next-door.

5) Many teams use PVC pipe (electrical schedule 80 or plumbing sched. 40) which is OK, but only in shorter lengths. Consider cutting sections into easy-to-handle lengths and then use a "coupling" and a bungee cord at each break such that the pit poles can be dismantled like a mountaineering tent. Go check out camping stores to see tent frameworks.

6) Be sure that your pit does NOT stick out into the aisle. Think creatively about making shelves, organizers, out of fabric with pockets instead of rigid materials in order to ship them. Here's an example of a collapsable shelf unit: http://rollingthunder.smugmug.com/photos/67064483-S.jpg

7) Additional thoughts:
-- Make pit components fit into the robot crate (along the side; securely-mounted with Bungee cords) as long as it doesn't make the crate weigh too much
-- Re-use the doors of your robot crate as folding tables. There are leg kits available on the Internet which can be mounted to the inside face of your robot crate doors. be sure they're stiffened to use as tables, not just 1/2" plywood....
-- Figure out a way so that your tool boxes become "bases" for table, etc. Same holds true for those big plastic tubs.
-- make sure that you have a way to show-off your team's literature out front, a dispenser/bin for button hand-outs, display stuff for judges walking by. Just go to a real trade show and benchmark what they do...have fun.

[anna~marie]

I'm currently in the middle of working with our mentors and redesigning HOT's pit. It won't be changing too much though.
Thanks for all the pic's everyone! Gives ideas

[FourPenguins]

This year's MORT cart had two (IMO) important upgrades over the previous version.
1) Magnetic tool/hardware trays. Cheap and incredibly useful, putting a couple of these on a cart/table give you a secure and easy to find place to store hardware and tools so that they can't roll away or fall. (Like This or this .
2) Slotted cart-top to hold the robot. Our robot frame fitted securely into two channels on our extruded aluminum cart. No risk of rolling and also about a foot above the work surface of the cart allowing more space for tools, etc. underneath.

Our pit isn't all that sophisticated. Keep extras of everything and don't forget the zipties. (both learned the hard way) We keep our spare hardware, serial cables, electrical parts, and other small parts in plastic organizer boxes. (A bit like fishing tackle boxes.)
It's good to have some form of tool organization, but ours is just a husky tool chest with drawers. It works, but I've seen other teams with entire walls set up with hooks for tools and countless other organization systems, many of which are probably more effective than our toolchest.
Our batteries and chargers are kept in a wheeled cabinet filled with power strips that is plugged into the pit power supply and with a shutoff switch. All chargers (robot, drill, backup, laptop on occasion) are kept out of the way in this manner. It also gives us a lot of free outlets for tools.
Don't forget to tape down extension cords. Loose cords are a major hazard with so many people moving so fast.

Overall, I think that your pit crews direction and training is more important than your organizational system. You can be as organized as you want, but it will all fall apart if nothing gets put away. Make sure everyone knows where everything is and how it should be put back. Pick a couple promising freshmen and make them pit monkeys. They're in charge of the "get me this tool" and when the robot goes to queue, one of them stays behind to man the pit and clean up for after the match, when it'll get crazy again. The freshmen will be honored to have the job (I know I was) and it'll keep your pit clean and organized.