Pit design

[Erro]

So, I am researching pit design as part of my senior research project for school, and thought I'd see what all the FIRST people out there have to say. Note that when I say pit design, I mean the carts like the nifty ones MOE and many other teams use to carry parts to and fro, as well as in our robot lab. I do not mean to restart the two-story pit discussion. Can anyone think of problems/improvements to some current designs? More efficient use of space, materials, cash, etc. Safer pits, better design, etc. Anything thoughts on the topic are welcome for the benefit of all teams.

[Billfred]

One thing I think that anyone involved with 1293's pit learned is that these things are going to be dragged, bumped, hit, whacked, and assembled under tight timetables by people generally on very little sleep. Whatever you're going to do, make it durable and easy to assemble.

[RyanN]

Make sure it fit's through all doors!!! That is the biggest problem with Fusion's current cart and we are going to rebuild it from scratch. Make sure its easy to disassemble if you have to do tight packing. Also, this year because of the bumpers, it was hard to keep the robot on the cart while moving, and would fall off if someone ran infront of the cart while we were moving.

[Erro]

Ah, good thoughts so far. One thought I have is that many pits, including ours, have electrical systems to some extent; ie. a few lights, outlets, and extension cord or reel. Perhaps these systems could be redesigned for more efficiency or safety. Also, we transport ours by truck, and it takes about 8 people to lift, which is too many in my mind. Anyone else have similar experiences?

[Jack Jones]

To our mind, the ideal pit would have 3 battery chargers, one backup charger, and a coffee pot. That is, we strive to build bots that are good to go on day-one and don't break. We're still striving, but we're getting close.

[Bill_Hancoc]

in the same token as makle sure it fits through doors make sure its not too tall...yes that still is sorta covered under the door "umbrella" but is still something to keep in mind when you need to get a 60 in robot through a door it doesnt allow for a tall cart...i remember at GLR (i think it was either that or WMR) there was a team that had a cart that was too tall to get through the tunnels to the field so they could only go along one side of the isle cause the cieling was slanted....so to finish....watch out for that

[Alexa Stott]

This year, our team actually had a coat rack in our pits. It helped to keep it a lot cleaner without everyone's coats/jackets/sweatshirts/sweaters lying around everywhere. The judges also thought it was a good idea.

It's something that no one really thinks about, but it worked out really well.

[sanddrag]

We put up a set of plastic shelves at each corner. It worked really well for storing stuff and doing displays. While this pic doesn't show all the signs on the front, you can get the general idea of it. http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/s...es/slide10.jpg
One thing we still need to work on is getting the robot off the floor.

[Dan Petrovic]

166 has two crates that we ship to competitions.

One carries the robot, and another approximately the same size opens up and it has a tool chest, some shelves, a vice, a small work area, and a bunch of extra space to put any boxes that we might need. It also provides some space on top to put decorations and coats and stuff.

It's obviously more expensive to ship two crates, though.

One
Two You can kind of see the the openness of it and a very glorious picture of our robot at no extra charge.

[Nica F.]

three things ive definately learned
(might be things you thought of already, but its just my 2 cents)

1. easy to trasport, something that breaks/folds in to pieces but not too many or else that will be not good

2. good support for the top if you decide to create a "roof"

3.easy to assemble

[Doug G]

Okay after 5 years of experience, I think we've finally got a simple Pit design and system down. 10'x10' frame made of PVC (we painted it Green) with no segments larger than 45" for fitting in the crate with a robot. Plastic shelves hold many of small bins of fasteners and spare parts (heaviest ones on the bottom of course). Rolling Tool chest on opposite side of pit. And the plastic shipping bins you get each year are used to pack the tools and parts can then be stacked on top of each other and place a table cloth over and whalla you have a couple of nice end tables to put out buttons and handouts. We also had a projector running video highlights from the past competition. I've seen some way cool pit areas, way cooler than this, but this was cheap (excluding the projector!), easy to setup and transport, and made the area look nice and still functional.Here's a pic

[dhitchco]

I have put a bunch of photos of good pit designs onto our team photo-sharing web site at http://rollingthunder.smugmug.com/gallery/1414921 from the 2006 Atlanat world championships. In our 2nd year, we created a really cool pit which won us the imagery award at the Boston regional (along with our team camouflage uniforms, etc). See some pics here: http://rollingthunder.smugmug.com/photos/67064497-S.jpg

Some thoughts:
1) Portability and easy-setup is critical, especially if you're going to Atlanta championships via public transportation.

2) Abide by the rules as defined by FIRST and expect the rules to improve year-after-year. FIRST now mandates a maximum height of the pit. There is now a "typical" 10'x10' maximum footprint for a pit, but not all regionals have this (yet).

3) Safety is the next consideration. Pits should be stable, and some regionals get a bit fussier about flameproofed fabrics, spotlights in the pits, power strips, etc. Your team needs to have EASY egress from the pit with the robot on the cart (height clearance?). Therefore, side curtains, etc are a real pain in the #$%^&.

4) I strongly advocate NOT putting up side walls nor a "roof" since a) it blocks out a lot of light and b) is somewaht unfriendly to your teams next-door.

5) Many teams use PVC pipe (electrical schedule 80 or plumbing sched. 40) which is OK, but only in shorter lengths. Consider cutting sections into easy-to-handle lengths and then use a "coupling" and a bungee cord at each break such that the pit poles can be dismantled like a mountaineering tent. Go check out camping stores to see tent frameworks.

6) Be sure that your pit does NOT stick out into the aisle. Think creatively about making shelves, organizers, out of fabric with pockets instead of rigid materials in order to ship them. Here's an example of a collapsable shelf unit: http://rollingthunder.smugmug.com/photos/67064483-S.jpg

7) Additional thoughts:
-- Make pit components fit into the robot crate (along the side; securely-mounted with Bungee cords) as long as it doesn't make the crate weigh too much
-- Re-use the doors of your robot crate as folding tables. There are leg kits available on the Internet which can be mounted to the inside face of your robot crate doors. be sure they're stiffened to use as tables, not just 1/2" plywood....
-- Figure out a way so that your tool boxes become "bases" for table, etc. Same holds true for those big plastic tubs.
-- make sure that you have a way to show-off your team's literature out front, a dispenser/bin for button hand-outs, display stuff for judges walking by. Just go to a real trade show and benchmark what they do...have fun.

[anna~marie]

I'm currently in the middle of working with our mentors and redesigning HOT's pit. It won't be changing too much though.
Thanks for all the pic's everyone! Gives ideas

[FourPenguins]

This year's MORT cart had two (IMO) important upgrades over the previous version.
1) Magnetic tool/hardware trays. Cheap and incredibly useful, putting a couple of these on a cart/table give you a secure and easy to find place to store hardware and tools so that they can't roll away or fall. (Like This or this .
2) Slotted cart-top to hold the robot. Our robot frame fitted securely into two channels on our extruded aluminum cart. No risk of rolling and also about a foot above the work surface of the cart allowing more space for tools, etc. underneath.

Our pit isn't all that sophisticated. Keep extras of everything and don't forget the zipties. (both learned the hard way) We keep our spare hardware, serial cables, electrical parts, and other small parts in plastic organizer boxes. (A bit like fishing tackle boxes.)
It's good to have some form of tool organization, but ours is just a husky tool chest with drawers. It works, but I've seen other teams with entire walls set up with hooks for tools and countless other organization systems, many of which are probably more effective than our toolchest.
Our batteries and chargers are kept in a wheeled cabinet filled with power strips that is plugged into the pit power supply and with a shutoff switch. All chargers (robot, drill, backup, laptop on occasion) are kept out of the way in this manner. It also gives us a lot of free outlets for tools.
Don't forget to tape down extension cords. Loose cords are a major hazard with so many people moving so fast.

Overall, I think that your pit crews direction and training is more important than your organizational system. You can be as organized as you want, but it will all fall apart if nothing gets put away. Make sure everyone knows where everything is and how it should be put back. Pick a couple promising freshmen and make them pit monkeys. They're in charge of the "get me this tool" and when the robot goes to queue, one of them stays behind to man the pit and clean up for after the match, when it'll get crazy again. The freshmen will be honored to have the job (I know I was) and it'll keep your pit clean and organized.

[SgtMillhouse648]

648's shipping crate unfolds into a workstation with a countertop to work on parts, we put plastic tables on the sides, and then we have more places to work, and we can put our part crates underneath them. there is just enough room to park the robot and the cart in the middle, and still have room to work around it. the cart has an elevator/jack system, so you can raise the robot up to chest level to work on it, but you can lower it to move it to and from the field.