First Robot

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur

In addition, remember that the pit area is 10'x10' (max, some are smaller), so make sure that you can fit it (and your robot) into the pits.

...and your tools, and your battery charging area, and the people who will work on the robot, and EVERYthing else you bring....that isn't in the stands cheering the team and/or scouting.

In other words: The pits are a lot smaller than you might prefer.

Many teams use their pit cart as their work table for when they work on the robot. Some have a lift mechanism, some sit on small stools as they work.

Others have a pit table that stays there all the time, and they just put the small pit cart somewhere out of the way...

[Karibou]

Welcome to Chief Delphi!

Originally Posted by Don Rotolo

In other words: The pits are a lot smaller than you might prefer.

Many teams use their pit cart as their work table for when they work on the robot. Some have a lift mechanism, some sit on small stools as they work.

Others have a pit table that stays there all the time, and they just put the small pit cart somewhere out of the way...

Our cart is just an off-the-shelf metal hand cart, with a hydraulic lift system. All we did was add some brackets to it to help fit the robot onto it. We choose to store our tools, batteries, etc. in the pit, but with the brackets that we have, there is a little space underneath the robot to store small things if need be.
The only part of the cart that extends outside of the bumper perimeter is the handle. When we bring our robot back to the pit, it usually just stays on the cart. Even with our gigantic pit tables, the fact that the cart is the same length and width as the robot means that we don't lose any space to the cart. The cart provides some elevation, too, which is useful when making repairs to the chassis.
If we need to take the robot off the cart for some reason, the small size makes it easy to shove into a corner of the pit.

(This picture gives a decent shot of the cart with the robot in the pit, even though half the team appears to be present also)

Oh, and make sure that the cart will fit through a standard-sized door. You might have more than few problems if it doesn't.