For every “teaser” picture I’ve seen, and for almost every discussion in the robot showcase forum, someone has always asked about some material or component shown on the robot or mentioned in the discussion (and I’ve done some of the asking). This is very useful information and it has given me and my team a great deal of ideas, and I think that CD users could benefit from a library or database of the cool materials and components used by other teams.
This database could include information like:
-Whether the part is a material, component, or tool
-Customs specs that the user can choose to report: name of part, manufacturer of part, vendors of part, part #, cost, weight, dimensions, description, etc.
-The team or teams that have reported using the part
-Thumbnails of pictures or links to discussion that show the part in use (this should be mandatory)
-A rating of the part open to all CD members, similar to the poll system
-Maybe a discussion of the part?
-The name of the user that reported use of the part
The reporting of data to this library would be completely voluntary, and might come at the request of fellow CDers: “Hi, I saw you were using a really cool material for your ramp, would you mind if you added it to the materials database?”
The database would of course have to be searchable or sortable or tag-able. Far from just advertising cool materials, I think this could be of real benefit for many teams.