5484 just completed our half field this afternoon. Year 8 kick-off in the bag. Coming out of day two with half a field isn’t a bad way to spend a weekend. The team is more energized than ever, we’ll real charged up for this season! Howl to the Wolf Pack!
And a huge Shout out to Cryonics 1555 for spending the day with us and helping assemble the field. We couldn’t have done it without you.
Some pictures of our annual kickoff Lock-in
Awesome work!
Do you have any thoughts about the wooden charging station and how it moves?
We’re having a debate as to weather we should screw the two halves together or keep them separate. We are afraid that the weight would be incredibly heavy with all that wood. At the moment they are screwed together. Otherwise is moves pretty easily.
Quote from my team “It must be easy enough if they got it done halfway through day 2”
Lets see how long it takes us to regret saying that
Really appreciate the quick insight. Thanks!
It’s always impressed me to see a team have a field in a day. Good job.
Did you all use a set of plans for wooden field elements or did you all develop the parts on your own? I’d love to have a materials list if you have one.
I posted it here.
Just got back to my computer. Here is how we did it.
We ended up needing an additional 6 2x4s and didn’t use the 1/4-20s. The charging station does need the 1/4-20s though.
I have a really dumb question. When building your charging station, to what angle did you set your compound miter saw to cut the angled pieces within the base? I can’t seem to find that detail in the instructions.
Got it. Thank you!
That is a ton of material but looks amazing!
Nicely done.
Questions:
Thanks!
Thanks,
Answers:
We did, just after the picture. we just used a 2x4 for reference
We are adding it right now, just need the material to come in.
We have not added the 60 ish pounds but will once we figure out a way to do it.
We just used 1" Square dowel from Lowes.
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Madison-Mill-Square-Wood-Poplar-Dowel-Actual-36-in-L-x-1-in-dia/3041531
My pleasure
Thanks!
I saw that at our Lowe’s, but I couldn’t convince myself that poplar was strong enough (I’m a “recovering” overbuilder 
) so I bought oak at a stupid price and milled my own.
Seems like a way to ensure that this will never fail. I think overbuilding that mechanism is reasonable.
The “official” AndyMark set is aluminum, but as much as the price of oak hurt, I just can’t see spending ~$300 on those (which I would definitely classify as “overkill is just the right amount of kill”).
The only reason I was thinking about it is because I want to make sure our sensors are able to handle the real tilt.
I was very sad to find out I couldn’t buy the entire Charging Station from Andymark like we could the Upper Hub from last year. Once the game was released I went to AM to use our KOP opt-out money to buy the real charging station and was shocked when I came to the realization they weren’t selling it.
The hinges alone are ~$300, so I would think that a full charging station would be so expensive that hardly any team could afford one.
