pic: Team 971's Robot

[AustinSchuh]

loading photo ...

[Nuttyman54]

looks like a pretty popular design this year! Great job, beautiful robot. Can't wait to see it play at SVR!

[Gabe]

A solid design that has been proven to work very well. Well done!!! See you at Silicon Valley Regional!

Wow. Looks like a really nice and clean bot from across the district. Hope you guys do well!

[Jonathan Norris]

I think we can now call this the west coast arm, I've seen a bunch of these 254/968/22 arms from 2004/5 being used this year. They are all look amazing, and I'm sure will function really well. Oh and you also have the west coast drive on there too. You have a proven arm and drive design there with a very unique manipulator.

[Ericgehrken]

Do you fit within the base parameters of 28"x38"?

[Dominicano0519]

are your wheels covered?

it doesn't look that way

[Nuttyman54]

The wheels are not covered, but there are bumpers that go on outboard of them.

oh, and let's not forget that Team 60 was also part of the original troupe that pioneered this style arm back on 04

[AustinSchuh]

Originally Posted by firstbots195

Do you fit within the base parameters of 28"x38"?

We do. We even designed in clearance. We are 27.5x37, instead of 28x38 like last year.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Nuttyman54

The wheels are not covered, but there are bumpers that go on outboard of them.

oh, and let's not forget that Team 60 was also part of the original troupe that pioneered this style arm back on 04

It was actually way back in 2001. I can't recall their 00 bot off the top of my head, but it may have had some of the same design traits too.

[Nuttyman54]

Originally Posted by Cory

It was actually way back in 2001. I can't recall their 00 bot off the top of my head, but it may have had some of the same design traits too.

so it would appear that Team 60 is at least partly responsible for both "west coast drive" and the newly dubbed "west coast arm". Quite the influential (and successful) team

[Ben Piecuch]

Yup, Team 60's 2000 bot had a very similar arm back then as well, painted in the very famous yellow and blue... That arm had a basket on the end of it, with a "spine" down the back for hanging on the bar. I seem to remember it being only 2wd however... I'm sure there are pics of it somewhere out there.

Back to this specific robot, you obviously have a lot of manufacturing capability. Welding, sheetmetal, laser/watter cutting... Do you share these capabilities with other teams in the area? (Sorry, I don't know much about your teams' history, or location for that matter.) I'm very jealous!

Nice.

BEN

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Nuttyman54

so it would appear that Team 60 is at least partly responsible for both "west coast drive" and the newly dubbed "west coast arm". Quite the influential (and successful) team

60 is fully responsible for the arm. It was refined by the aforementioned teams, but the underlying structure from it is entirely 60's brainchild.

[Nuttyman54]

Originally Posted by Ben Piecuch

Back to this specific robot, you obviously have a lot of manufacturing capability. Welding, sheetmetal, laser/watter cutting... Do you share these capabilities with other teams in the area? (Sorry, I don't know much about your teams' history, or location for that matter.) I'm very jealous!

Nice.

BEN

The machining is entirely donated by Berger Manufacturing of Santa Clara, who also sponsors Team 649 of Saratoga High School, and by a team mentor, Dave. This is the first year the team has had a full season with these capabilities.

Berger is primarily sheet metal, but they also did the welding

Dave made most of the non-sheet parts, including the shifting transmissions and the wheels

[AustinSchuh]

To add to what Evan posted, all of the axles and a fair amount of the aluminum parts were made on a manual mill and lathe. All of the axles in the transmissions started from hex stock bought from McMaster Carr. Dave worked miracles. We cut the tube aluminum on a horizontal band saw. Berger Manufacturing welded everything up, cut a few holes in the tube aluminum, and cut out the sheet metal parts using their laser cutter. We bought hex broached gears from AndyMark, and used the AndyMark dog from the spare parts for their transmissions. We used 254's hex broach for our wheels and some of the gears.

In case you thought otherwise, those neat wheels were cut out on a manual mill and lathe.

Quite a dramatic change from last year's robot, which was built using a drill press and the horizontal band saw.