Team 869 In Need of Some Advice

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by 340x4xLife

I'm going to echo this. If you don't have access to a machine shop kitbot is the way to go.

Thirded!

397's robot was built using mostly 1 inch aluminum that we bent by hand. The only complex parts were the winch for raising our ball knocking device and the mounts for our cylinders. (We did them on a mill but I am pretty sure you could do them using a hand drill and a band saw if need be)

My suggestion would be to make sure your students can use the equipment safely and design knowing what you have to work with.

[Matt C]

80-20 is awesome stuff.

It used the original kitbot parts, plus some additional parts we ordered.
The only thing we couldn't do with out a bandsaw or drill was the welding of the chassis. We had to send it out for that.

[samir13k]

1501 seems to build there bot every year using monocouque, pretty much just sheetmetal and rivets. (about 1,600 rivets ). Its great, and its what the aircraft industries use. It takes some practice, but our tools are pretty much a drill press, pneumatic metal shears, and a tabletop belt sander. We also use some chromoly tubing, and that will reguire some welding. But monocoque can easily be integrated into a kitbot frame.

go to huntingtonrobotics.org for some inspiration. Click on the photos icon at the top, and then select 2008 build season. (you may have to hit the back "more photos" button on the lower left hand side. It may be back a page)

[Doctorwho]

One thing that will help out with metal working without a machine shop is a cheap used copy of AutoCAD, a can of spray adhesive, and a plotter printer.

If you Cad all of the parts you need to make out of sheet metal you can print life-size versions of your drawings and use the spray adhesive to stick the image on to the sheet metal of your choice. This way you can get the precision of a machine shop with hand tools.

[IKE]

While there is some great advice out there, I have a few questions?

Historically speaking,

How much have the kids made in the past?
What parts did you make in the past that can't be made with a bandsaw and/or drill press?
What experience level does your team have as far as building stuff?

Looking at your previous bots, I would have to agree that if you can't find a welder (both machine and person to do it), you should try to plan towards bolt together stuff.

With AM and the state of the KOP (assuming it is good again this year), you can definitely get by without a Shop. That being said, make sure that you work on it for next year as there are a lot of good lessons that can come from working with a shop.

[guakam0li1089]

perhaps you should also try working with spare medal to see if you can build what you designed using tips from the above posters. also, if you havent already, try asking your local home depot, lowes, or other hardware store that has a shop if they will sponser you

[Akash Rastogi]

Another brilliant example of basic kit chassis is 121. That's how they build a beastly robot and always have like half of build to practice driving.

(Of course it is modified)

[waitwhat?]

Originally Posted by IKE

While there is some great advice out there, I have a few questions?

Historically speaking,

How much have the kids made in the past?
What parts did you make in the past that can't be made with a bandsaw and/or drill press?
What experience level does your team have as far as building stuff?

Looking at your previous bots, I would have to agree that if you can't find a welder (both machine and person to do it), you should try to plan towards bolt together stuff.

With AM and the state of the KOP (assuming it is good again this year), you can definitely get by without a Shop. That being said, make sure that you work on it for next year as there are a lot of good lessons that can come from working with a shop.

Just to clear things up, our machine shop had originally put together an arrangement that was a bit unordinary. Our team was allowed to use the machine shop, and the machinists tought the students how to operate the mills, lathes and welders. We have a descent amount of machining experiance on the team, but we have no equipment.

[Aarnat]

That partnership you had with the machine shop is something that only a few teams are blessed with. I’m sincerely glad you had that opportunity. Obviously, the bad news is you don't have that anymore or machines for that matter. The good news is that you can take that experience with you elsewhere, including into your careers.

Our team, 2199, is in its 3 year. We used the old workshop in our high school that was rarely used. It had band saws, drill presses, and hand tools and managed fairly well to build a great robot. We also have been steadily adding our own set of hand tools. This year, new classes were created and now use that area daily (and I know because I'm in that class) and because of the lack of space to lock things up to keep everything secure, we had to move. Fortunately, last year we were given an empty warehouse space, managed by one of the student's father, walking distance (15 minutes) from the school. Getting that area was accomplished just by asking. Your team can go around the local area and find a new work space.

We moved there to practice near the end of the build season. This year, the father and his business then let us use his work area as well as keep access to the bigger warehouse room we practiced in. We have already started to clean up the space, organized it, and apply for grants to fill the space with tools.

Anyway the point is:
-Find a space through a massive organized “public relations” movement to all the local shops and warehouses
- If that doesn’t work find a team member's garage (we did our first two years when we were working on the weekends and couldn't get into the school)
-Clean up your area
-Buy essential tools with team’s money, grants, or sponsorships.
-You have 22 days or less
-You may not have the fanciest equipment, but you can still build a reliable robot. We have and so has many other teams.

Good Luck!

[JAZAD1]

The only thing that I can think of is find materials that are approved premade things that would be easy to modify to fit the game and the robot. But you could use the same theory our team has used for the past 3 years that seems to work KISS (keep it simple stupid) make sure that what ever you do can be done over and over again so if it breaks it can be fixed and you don't have to change the whole robot to fix a problem. (Ex you don't have to take out the transmission to get to the electrical problem that could be fixed in seconds after you figure out what the problem is) A reliable robot is a good robot. We try to look at it as a robot that can do our goal all of the time even though it may not be the most points in the game we can do it every time without a problem. I believe that the one thing that you should focus on with a limited amount of resources is a drive train. You can still be a competitive robot even though the manipulator may not be top notch but you are always moving during the two minutes (hopefully). If you need me to clarify any of this please message me.