Choosing a machine shop (Re: How important is a machine shop

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Posted by Ken Leung at 05/24/2001 10:52 PM EST


College Student on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Henry M. Gunn Senior High School.



The machine shop can be seen as a tool for the team to have meaningful experience in the competition. There are different kind of teams that will need different size of machine shop for building the robot, ranging from first years to experienced teams, and different degree of engineers support and budget.

The amount of machine shop usage should be determined at the beginning of the year when the teams are planning ahead for the competition. First year teams usually have to go looking for a machine shop, while some experienced teams have to find another shop due to some difficulties, and the others continue using their old shop while considering possible upgrades.

Now, the question between need and necessity¡K Couple of questions should be considered before getting into specific tools are: How big/complex of a machine shop you can afford? What kind of people will be operating the machines? What kind of robotics we are aiming to build? How much designing can your team do?

I consider hand tools and supplies to be needs for a team in order to build a robot, so the rest of the question is about what kind of power tools teams needs. As I said, it all depends on the team. There are teams like my old team 192 where their objective is a robot build by the students, and in the process the students will learn the usage of all the power tools. So in their machine shop students are the operators of the tools, which mean training in the beginning of the year of simple tools that high school student can easily learn to use. There are also rookie teams like the one GRT mentored who have access to a fine machine shop, but ended up only using some simple tools to build a simple robot because of the lack of experience in the group.

I believe teams should first look for places where it¡¦s most convenient for them. Then look at the available space and money to determine if additional tools can be bought. And make sure there are people who know how to use them. The size of the shop can be determined by many variables: Maybe the place isn¡¦t big enough for many tools, maybe getting new or used machines are too expensive, maybe there are all these machines but on one know how to use it, maybe as a first year team they will never design a complicated robot, etc.

That is why a lot of people have different answers about what kind of machine shop they have and what machines they think are necessary. It¡¦s because different teams have different ways of running their programs. Some have professional shops such as the Delphi teams like 45 and 47, some have their own shops like 237 and 192, and some have really limited access to shops like 419.

And you know what? Those teams all have competitive robots from time to time. So, my opinion is that teams should not push to have high-end tools just because they see some teams have great looking robot. They should choose the right shop and the right tool base on location and condition of the team.

Well, these are just some of my believes after doing FIRST in the shop for three years¡K Please feel free to correct me.