Beginner team, where to begin?

FIRST General Forum
1

I have the opportunity to pre-purchase some supplies for the next season for a team that is just starting out.

All they have is the KOP from last year and some small quantity of hardware.

They have no metal shop, no machining tools, no metal stock, and no spare parts.

They do have an abundance of wood and wood related tooling.

My budget is just under $1000.

What would be your priorities and ordering sequence? For instance, I might be able to get a used bridgeport mill for 1000$- but that would be it.

Suggestions dearly wanted.

2

Ok,

I would love to help if you could contact me via aim.

-RC

3

I recommend you help them find a sponsoring machine shop. Blowing the entire budget on a mill won’t help with acquiring material. Coming from a team that started out similarly, I recommend getting some hand tools to start with. Good hacksaws, vises, drills, and files will assist in assembling the kit frame. Get a soldering iron, solder, heatshrink, wire, strippers and a crimper as well. See if the students themselves can lend tools. My socket wrench was used for robotics more than anything else while I was in high school. It’s not glamorous, but sometimes, that’s what it takes to get going. On the upside, you can teach them the art of precision work without fancy tools, at least until that time comes.

4

Most of the stuff I would leave till the build season starts. Most hand tools can be loaned to the team, in most circumstances, by the parents. What can’t be loaned can then be purchased. There is not much need to pre-purchase expendables or parts. With a small budget, it is better to wait till you have a better idea of what to buy. (When you do buy, a large quantity of bolts and nylock nuts to fit them should be high on the list.) Our team is a low budget (drill, file, hacksaw, screwdriver and wrench) team ourselves. It would supprise you how much a team can do with just that. Granted we would do things differently with a good workshop, but we have always worked out of a garage. I wouldn’t worry about buying things yet. My 2 cents.

5

Personally before debating on what the 1000 dollars should be spent on contact local universities, colleges, machine shops, and other FIRST teams about using their machine shop(s). If the school isn’t around these type of resources (which I doubt seeing you’re in Rochester home of the Finger Lakes Regional and RIT) or unable to use them spend the money on essentials. Seeing that your beginning team only has the KOP and “some small quantity of hardware”, I’d agree with:

6

1760 started out in the home ec room of our school. We ran our entire first season on about $9,000 ($6,000 entry + $3,000 parts, equipment, travel and T-shirts). All my toolboxes at home have 1760 pasted on them somewhere because that was our stock of tools the entire first year. I would not buy anything until you know what you need.

We built our first robot out of the kitbot and wood because it was cheap and I knew how to work with it. We designed our first robot and then went and bought exactly what we needed. (Save your receipts to return anything you don’t use.)

Pinch those pennies till they squeal.

7

I’m going to agree with the suggestions above about waiting if possible and spending on hand tools first. Look into a set of transfer punches. They can be had cheap and greatly improve precision when locating holes.

We have found that we only need 3 or 4 sizes of wrenches. The size that fits 1/4-20 nuts is the most useful. We have 6 of them.

It’s hard to overstate the value of a cordless drill or two however. As much as I love quality tools, my advice is to buy a value brand from one of the big box home centers. The blue ones are a really good value. If they are used only 6 weeks a year or so, you’ll get a lot of years out of them. Buy multiples of 1/8" and 9/32" drill bits. The 1/8" make good pilot drills and are a useful size for pop rivets.

If you are absolutely dying to spend on stationary tools, a bench drill press and 10 inch band saw are good places to start. We also get a lot of use out of a 1x30 belt sander.

Finally, if you’ve got the time, an “internet classified add site” might be your friend.

Ivan

8

I’ve spent three seasons working with a team in a similar boat–former building construction shop, lots of wood, not always a lot of money. While we never quiiiiiiite had the Saturday afternoon dominator we wanted, I do believe we had some construction techniques that could result in them. Of note are two robots (the third, Speedy Debris, was a lapbot in 2008):

2007: Uppercut

Uppercut had the best performance of any of 1618’s robots thus far, seeding 11th at the Palmetto Regional and sliding into the eighth alliance captain for a brief quarterfinal run. The gripper never played nice with us, but you can see the gist of a stereotypical arm robot here: two pieces of angle aluminum, riveted together at the top, bolted at the bottom to the kitbot. The arm is two pieces of PVC pipe with bolts running into a sprocket on a long piece of 1/2" threaded rod running through the upright angle. (The only thing we sent out to a machine shop was that sprocket to get the bearing pressed in.) Electronics were mounted inside on pegboard (and a piece of plywood on the bottom for a few extra bits), with pneumatics on the front piece you see in order to shift our AndyMark Shifters and potentially run a gripper if necessary.

2009: The Blackout

The Blackout has the distinction of being the only 1618 robot with a working driven manipulator. Past the kitbot, we ran angle up to form a box superstructure which we held in place with rivets. The upper hopper was a piece of whiteboard on top of pieces of angle, while the bottom hopper was all netting to facilitate the signal light. Rollers were made of PVC pipe with wedgetop screwed into it with drywall screws (easy to get out and replace as necessary), and were driven by a BaneBots transmission through AndyMark hubs (500 key hub on one side, 500 bearing hub on the other). The black panels were made of last year’s crate, painted black, and decorated with vinyl lettering cut by a vendor I work with at work for about $75 for the whole robot (including a couple of spares). We ran out of time to paint the aluminum, so we blacked everything else out with a roll of gaffer’s tape (under $20 at a lighting supply store).

Enough background, here are my suggestions:
-A team is best off playing to its strengths. Make use of that pile of wood you have, both in prototyping and where it makes sense on the robot.
-For metal, start with a good power drill (maybe a drill press too), some angle aluminum in varying lengths (1" to 1.5" seems to be a nice starting point until you know you want something smaller; Uppercut used 1/8" thickness while The Blackout used 1/16"), and a rivet tool with a box of rivets in varying sizes to match your metal.
-With time, grow your arsenal; we added a portaband and a Marson Big Daddy Riveter (accept no substitutes) to let us use 1/4" rivets. (We riveted the IFI Kitbot frame in 2008 with spectacular results; $12 in rivets meant we never had to worry about loose nuts and relatively heavy bolts. We haven’t tried the same approach on the AndyMark C-Base; your mileage may vary.)
-You might want to keep some sheets of lexan around; if I had to do it again, I’d probably replace the netting on The Blackout with it for the extra stiffness while maintaining the visibility requirement of the signal light (whose placement we prefer as it sits).
-Get a good set of wrenches, as you’ll invariably have to bolt some things, and be sure to get a set of allen wrenches in metric and standard. (Yes, both; you’ll find that companies using both forms donate to the kit.)
-Don’t forget wire in the right sizes; I believe we used 10, 12, 14, and 16 on a regular basis. I’ll leave electrical suggestions to someone more knowledgeable there. (Oh, and save money for spare Jaguars. You can build a robot with the four in the kit, but Mr. Murphy frowns upon it.)
-Leave a war chest for after Kickoff. You might decide that it’s an absolute necessity to order AndyMark Shifters, or go 6WD, or build an 80/20 elevator, or to build an entirely custom frame in order to be competitive in a game. This will invariably involve ordering things you didn’t already buy; have at least a couple hundred in hand to get things started quickly after Kickoff. (A sponsor check you can only request once the calendar year rolls over does not count, trust me. Have the money in your account ready to go.)

Just my two cents.

9

Jason,
There are a few threads on CD that have some good suggestions. For the cost of a few minutes of research you will be able to get a list of tools and some part numbers for McMaster. My daddy always told me “Don’t go cheap and dirty on tools. They will fail you when you need them the most”. Sears still sells excellent tools sets that carry long warranty times. Screwdrivers and nutdrivers immediately jump to mind.

10

Read as much of the info on chiefdelphi as you can.

11

Thanks Al- and a big thank you to everyone else that has contributed.

I actually am a very skilled bargain hunter- I peruse craigs and ebay with a passion- I figure I bought, on average, most supplies at 40 cents on the dollar last year for our previous team.

The metal working skillset and equipment is non-existent at the new school- and the wood shop is well equipped but very small- I’d imagine I’d like to see 4x the space at least (I guess I’m spoiled).

I’m going to be buying a hydraulic crimper from HF (60$) and I’m trying to get a molex crimper for signaling control (ebay). After that all of the suggestions are valid.

I’ve got to order some 1/4 20 screws from bolt-depot (unless someone else has a better vendor). I liked the idea of a 1/4" riveter - that would be sweet and lightweight for framing.

12

One thousand bucks won’t go too far with a mill less tooling, never mind the know how to use it. I would go in a different direction. Pre-buying some basic stuff will save you some time though during a limited build season.

A good idea for any team is to standardize the fasteners. We use 1/4" bolts for just about everything. You can buy steel ones in varying lengths, say about 1/2" to 4". Or you can splurge and go for aluminum ones to save on weight, but they are pricey. Get some 7/16" wenches and sockets for the heads and bolts and some 9/32" drills. Making the holes larger makes getting the bolts in easier.

Get some 1/8" pop rivets and a gun to fill out the fasteners, with a range of 1/8" to maybe 1/4" fastening range.

Tools:

  1. A nice 18V cordless drill is good to have. A table top drill press will help drill holes more squarely through thicker material. ($250 or so)

  2. I really like a nice belt sander. Here a good and cheap one. Order extra belts that are made for this machine. Regular 48" ones won’t fit! $299.00

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=40643

  1. You can use a hacksaw to cut aluminum, if you have lots of students it keeps them busy:) but a basic horizontal band saw saves a lot of time.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=93762

  1. Try to find a quality used vertical bandsaw.

  2. Hand tools like pliers of various types, mallet, drill index, wrenches, socket set, screwdriver set, measuring tools like steel rules or a tape measure, electrician’s tool, tap and die set, punch set, jeweler’s screwdrivers, chain tool; the list goes on and on…

That’s more than $1000 so look for donations from parents and businesses. Welcome to FIRST!

13

I’ll just toss this out there- I suggest a drill press, just make sure everyone knows how to use it without breaking it (ours has a bunch of zipties on it).

14

i dont no how great the laptop in the kop will be this year but you may want to find a computer for programing

15

Look for stuff on sale. I am floored by the amount of stuff that I see in fliers for half price or better that my team could use, but never bothers to look for. Since you have time, look around for what you can get cheaply. I know it sounds like an obvious thing to do, but I think a lot of people shop during the build season, which constricts greatly what they can get for limited capital.

Make sure to prioritize electrical gear (soldering gear, crimpers, wire, etc.) because the kit usually provides the basics for mobility (AM sent out hex bits last year with their stuff too) but lacks the supplies for setting up the whole electrical system. Make sure you have at least one 7/16" wrench too…

16

I really appreciate the ideas.

As it turns out, with the KOP changes it looks like the money I was planning on spending for team supplies and hardware will instead go to the cRIO and whatever else they aren’t leaving in.

Way to completely derail what I thought was some good ideas.

I’ll keep a running total though and see it through.

17

If you don’t plan on building two robots that will function simultaneously, then you can just use last year’s cRIO and whatnot.

18

It’s a rookie team. Good thought, but not applicable.

Next up: fundraise your tails off so you can have that thousand dollars, and then carry out suggestions here.

19

Ahhh, ok. My bad. I saw the part where he said they had last year’s KOP, and thought that meant that they owned a cRIO.

20

It could mean that…

However, the controls kit could easily be ordered separately. Depending where they got the KOP from, they might/might not have a cRIO and all the other good things. If they got it from another team, it may be that the team kept the control system.