pic: Swamp Thing's Sprockets

[CD47-Bot]

loading photo ...

[Aignam]

That's really quite nice. Kudos, and good job!

[Salik Syed]

sweeeeeeeeeet................kinda large tho... guessing its for big wheels????to gear them down a LOT..
is it water jetted out?

[Rickertsen2]

What r they made of if not steel?

[BillBartell]

Yeah....nice job on the sprockets...i personally like them and would like to get a set for my team but...just wondering who made them? I thought that this was supposed to be a highschool preoject...were the kids design, fabricate, and test the robot all by themselves. On my team..we have mentors to help us with complex problems but for the main part, all of the designs and deciosions are made by the team captains. This way when our robot does awesome at the competittion we can say, nice job guys, to each other, rather than having to give all the design credit to some...I dont know know if im barking up the wrong tree...but i just wanted to know if some one ( a student) actually made these, or were they made by some pro.

[pras870]

well yes, the robot is designed and built by the students, but I know a majority of the team, like ours, has machine shops to do complexed designs for us which our lab cannot do (ie.. cutting out precise holes and such in our drive train to lessen weight, and still give it a profesional look).

[KevinB]

In 2002 we were lucky enough to have an extremely high tech machine shop (a subcontractor for Boeing ... they had CNC equipment left and right) working with our team.

We created some motor mounts that are probably equally as pimp as that gear.

[Gui Cavalcanti]

Don't assume that all CNC and milled-out pieces are engineer-designed an machinist-made. My team, for one, has a core of machinists who are trained on manual mills and lathes, with a specialized group of three people (including me) who are trained on the CNC mill. Our sponsorship from a nearby machine shop consists of them letting us use their tools, with the stipulation that they're too busy to make parts for us. All of our parts are student-designed and manufactured, but they're very high quality.

However, if you accuse our robot of being engineer-designed and built, we'd be flattered

Very nice sprocket btw. I count only two bolt holes - that enough? Are the holes made by waterjet too?

[Gope]

thats the coolest thing ever!

[Gadget470]

Please all:

Do not turn this thread into an Engineer vs College vs High School debate.

That has been debated enough.
The two sides of the argument are:
HS Built) Kids learn more by doing.
Eng Built) Kids learn more by seeing things done "right".

Neither can be proven either way. Each individual is different. I've been a student on two teams. One which was 90% "Adult" designed/built, and the other which was 90% "HS Student" designed/built. I won't say which I learned more from because I am a unique person with a unique experience.

As to that specific sprocket, two retro words:
Way Cool.

I'm pretty sure Tytus designed this, as he states he drew the "Eyes" in AutoCAD "last night" from the post date. To my knowledge, Tytus is a high school senior with CAD experience. The piece was cut with a water-jet at BTI (One of 179's sponsors). So your comment about the engineer built product is irrelevent. The water-jet machine (seemingly) loads the AutoCAD file, and makes its cuts where lines are in the drawing file.

1) Was this water-jet cut piece necessary?
2) Does it look really cool?
3) Could they buy an off-the-shelf item that does the same function?
4) If so, does it really matter who manufactures the product?

1) No.
2) Yes.
3) Yes.
4) No.

[sanddrag]

That is very awesome. We just got sponsorship of the largest lasercutting company in the world so we should have some nice stuff in store as well.

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

That is very awesome. We just got sponsorship of the largest lasercutting company in the world so we should have some nice stuff in store as well.

COOL!!!
We got a new sponsor who'll be water jetting parts, field trip for the team to see their autodesk pics being made into parts. We're finally getting better at autodesk.

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally Posted by BillBartell

just wondering who made them? I thought that this was supposed to be a highschool preoject...were the kids design, fabricate, and test the robot all by themselves. On my team..we have mentors to help us with complex problems but for the main part, all of the designs and deciosions are made by the team captains.

The genius of FIRST is there isn't a rule that things must be done a certain way.

Student designed and built? Go for it. One of these years you may decide you want to explore something more and work even more closely with mentors.

Lots of engineers, teams do things differently, and it's all good.

You doing all your own welding? We didn't, til last year. We have 5 student TIG welders this year.

A mentor was doing the web til last year - it was me. *chuckle* I'm no pro. No student was inspired to do it til last year. Our student webmaster is the pro.

I'm doing the public relations. However it's rubbing off on other team members, and now some of our shyest members can walk into a congresswoman's open house, the new school superintendent's open house, and schmooze with the best of them.

There's much more to the FIRST program than just building the robot, and FIRST gives you the freedom to explore all of it at your own team's pace.

[psychoCHIPMUNKK]

Major kudos to you. I can't wait to see what you'll do with the rest of the bot if you spend that much time on a sprocket.

[Gadget470]

Originally Posted by psychoCHIPMUNKK

Major kudos to you. I can't wait to see what you'll do with the rest of the bot if you spend that much time on a sprocket.

Although I bet the whole bot will look cool, they didn't really spend "that much time" on the sprocket. Water-jet machines cut out the design autmatically as per an AutoCAD file which, with Tytus' skills, was probably made in under 5 minutes.

I'll bet it took less time than ordering from any given company.