I was just thinking of all the possibilities we have this year to make custom parts! Teams could design and make wheels that don’t lose traction as easily. Frame work out of steel tubing, and even custom gears ect. Anyone have thoughts on this subject?
I’m a little concerned about First opening up FTC to fabrication. Many school districts have very strict policies on students using tools. As FTC was first implemented a team could build a robot in a class room with basic hand tools and not have to fabricate. Our FRC team was forced out of the school district for this very reason. We can not fabricate on school property. Now with FIRST going down this path many teams are going to have problems with the Administration when the go to fabricate with machine tools. FTC was supposed to be a smaller simplified program that resource limit schools could do instead of FRC. Now they are making it the same as FRC but still a smaller robot. In my opinion a bad and damaging move. I hope VEX is smart and keeps fabrication out and focus on what can be done in a class room. There are some in FIRST who are always screaming to open everything up. There are some limits that should be kept in place to keep it safe and keep it doable in the schools. It should be noted that there are plans by the department of labor and education at the federal level that would make it almost impossible for a student under 16 to use any power tool at school. Some times constraints and limits are good. A concept that FIRST does not understand.
There is almost next to no reason to use steel framing on your robot in almost every occasion. Unless your looking for a very cheap alternative to Aluminum there is seriously probably no advantage. Only things I use steel for are hardware, and shafts and shafts is a big maybe to.
I personally like having the idea of a completely custom robot, because I personally like the challenge of starting from scratch. So far my design uses only Tetrix sprockets and bevel gears.
My serious question is can we make a custom rubber grip for the wheels? like an insert that goes on top that has a much higher coefficient of friction with the foam tiles. I think that will be lost of fun with casting… 
- Andrew
Before getting too excited I’d read the rules carefully… if you are basing this on the ability to use “raw materials” note that raw materials cease to be raw materials when they are manufactured into a useful form.
Based on reading the rules, perhaps this isn’t quite what FIRST meant to say… it is kind of hard to tell as the rules are a bit confusing.
Jason
In Game Manual part 1, section 4.2.2 <R02> b 1, it states “Plastic or metal sheet, plactic spacers, and extruded aluminum are not considered to be prefabricated and are allowed with no restrictions on dimension or quantity provided no other rules have been violated.” My understanding of the rule is, aslong as it starts as sheet metal ect. The team can do what ever they want to it, as long as it’s not breaking any other rules.
Doesn’t need to be just sheet, can also be block or stock. As long as its a raw material and not prefab in its final form.
Yep, and I hope someone asks FIRST about 3D printing 
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