Pit design help

[Sean Schuff]

One word...wheels.

The more of your pit set-up you can put on wheels, the better. Our pit has evolved over the years to the point where EVERYTHING is on wheels! Take a look at the picture of our pit here then read the description below. We have the following items that make up our pit.

Two 4' x 2' pit carts. The bases are cabinets that hold spare parts bins and large power tools (band saw, drill press, arbor press, etc.). The upper cabinets (that collapse down low enough to fit in our trailer and raise high enough to support the frame of our pits) hold manuals, cordless/corded power tools, some spare parts, and have fluorescent lights mounted underneath. In addition we have power strips integrated into our pit carts as well.

Our battery cart charges 15 batteries at a time with custom electronics (courtesy of our friends at Plexus) and serves as another work surface. The top of the charger station is at the same height as the bench portion of our pit carts.

Our parts organizer holds 20 Stanley parts organizers and has a space for holding raw stock in the back. The parts organizers hold anything from fasteners to pneumatics to controls hardware.

Our tool chest holds all of our hand tools as well as milling bits, measuring instruments, drills, taps and dies, and a host of other "must have" items.

Our pit frame superstructure holds pictures from previous and current seasons to show off our students in action and serves as a mounting point for our lighting. We originally used halogen lights but switched over to compact fluorescent bulbs to save energy and reduce heat.

Good luck and happy pit designing/building.

Sean

[Cyberphil]

Wheels are a must. In Florida,we had to wait in line to get into the pits with all of our stuff, Wheels saved our lives.

I just have one question, How do you get all of that stuff to your competition? We have a hard enough time with the compact pit design that we do have. Do you have a trailer, because we just got one this year for our team. I think its a 12 footer. A nice size for what we need to bring to the competitions.

[Chris Fultz]

If you have the space in your work area at school (or where-ever you meet), create a pit space by marking 10' x 10'* on the floor, then put up some pretend dividers to identify the space you have.

Place a work table, your robot and cart, and the other items you want in your pit. Use boxes or other equipment to simulate the sizes of items if you need to.

Then, move around and do some 'work' in the area to see how it feels and how much room you have. Sometimes there is a big difference between how it looks in a CAD file and how it is to work in an area.

Think about how many people will be in the pit at one time, where you want to place displays, where to talk to judges, etc.

We had some new layout ideas last year, and doing this in the lab helped us determine what would work and what would not. We also kept our final layout set up for our open house, so that sponsors, friends and families could see what our pit looked like at a competition.

* If you go to events wher the pits are uaually smaller, then set up for an 8 x 8 or 9 x 9.

[Sean Schuff]

Originally Posted by Cyberphil

Wheels are a must. In Florida,we had to wait in line to get into the pits with all of our stuff, Wheels saved our lives.

I just have one question, How do you get all of that stuff to your competition? We have a hard enough time with the compact pit design that we do have. Do you have a trailer, because we just got one this year for our team. I think its a 12 footer. A nice size for what we need to bring to the competitions.

We have a fourteen foot tandem axle trailer we haul with us to comps. We special ordered it with a 6'-6" clearance so we can get taller items (and people) inside. It has a side access door and a ramp gate in the back for ease of moving things in and out. We've also installed metal racks at the front and side to handle bins and other items.

I'll see if I can scrounge up a picture.

Heed Chris' advice in the previous post. We did that as well!

Sean

[Cyberphil]

Hey, I uploaded some pictures of our pit if you want to check them out.

Heres the links:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/32045
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/32044
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/32043

And btw, thats great. I wish we could get a custom one like that.

[Cyberphil]

Hope this helps.

[Blue_Mist]

Someone mentioned batteries. We wrote on masking tape the word "fire" in five different languages and used each language to differentiate between each battery light and the ends of each cable connected to the battery. This way, you can look at the end of any cable and see which goes to which indicator light, avoiding the whole follow-the-wire-to-a-good-battery business.

Another thing that helped was a long piece of masking tape with "Charging... Charging... Charged!" on it that someone always sticks to the ground under the table by the battery charger/s, and now we just place the freshest batteries at the "Charged!" end and the least charged at the other end.

Also-we always designate one plastic bin to people's coats, backpacks, lunches, water, etc.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Blue_Mist

Someone mentioned batteries. We wrote on masking tape the word "fire" in five different languages and used each language to differentiate between each battery light and the ends of each cable connected to the battery. This way, you can look at the end of any cable and see which goes to which indicator light, avoiding the whole follow-the-wire-to-a-good-battery business.

What's a "battery light"?

If you're talking about battery chargers, we do something similar. Each charger has a colored stripe on it, matching the color of tape wrapped around the strain relief/handle attached to its connector.

Another thing that helped was a long piece of masking tape with "Charging... Charging... Charged!" on it that someone always sticks to the ground under the table by the battery charger/s, and now we just place the freshest batteries at the "Charged!" end and the least charged at the other end.

We use the plastic battery flags that were introduced a few years ago (actually, we invented them). When a battery finishes charging, the moment it's removed from the charger it immediately gets a flag in its connector to mark it as ready for use. The flag must be removed in order to use the battery, which automatically marks it as uncharged.

Each battery is numbered, and we try to follow a logical rotation to use them evenly during competition.

[Lancer Robotics]

One word of support. We were next to Sean (93) and their pit was very workable. Even in Atlanta we had an emergency repair and with our team and theirs in the pit their robot had room to spare. their trailer is awsom also. ours is smaller but it does not make the trip to Wisconsin.

lancer robotics #2437

[nothnright]

Hey, i am someone new to the FIRST competitions and was wondering about some of the specifics in pit design...
Could someone tell me come of the dimensions teams are using for there pits made out pvc.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by nothnright

Hey, i am someone new to the FIRST competitions and was wondering about some of the specifics in pit design...
Could someone tell me come of the dimensions teams are using for there pits made out pvc.

No more than 10' high, and be ready for pits between 8' and 10' on a side. This is from the manual's given dimensions and rules.

[nothnright]

Thanks, and also what is the diameter that most people use as far as pvc goes

[Teammax]

One thing that we have done in our pit that has been very effective for us is that we turned our crate into a storage area. The two sides of the crate open up and the floor of the crate comes apart to make shelves that are mounted to the 2 halves. Their are many other teams that use the crate in some way in their pit. It is nice to have around because it is storage space. Also it is ncie because there is no waiting for it to get moved out of your way when you first get there and no waiting for the crate when you want to pack up.