I’m sure some of you out there are fans of watching Adam Savage’s “One Day Builds” on the Tested YouTube channel. I always find it to be inspiring to see what a large block of uninterrupted time, with a shop full of tools, can produce. Granted, he’s a professional with decades of experience, so you’d expect cool things.
It got me thinking though, why not see what our robotics teams* can do in “one day” of work? I’ve got a few projects rattling around in my head (one of which is already in the works… it’s a scrap materials cart) that I think other teams may be interested in seeing and potentially replicating. But I didn’t want these to be part of my team’s open alliance post since they aren’t necessarily about the robot.
Of course, we’d need to lay some ground rules, and some recommended content guidelines. I’m thinking each One Day Build post should be:
A complete how-to guide containing relevant designs/code base
Comprised of either a photo+text documentation or a video series (linked to YouTube, Instagram, slidedecks are great)
A project that takes no more than 24 hours of hands-on time regardless of how many days it is spread over.
Useful to teams of a variety of levels and abilities
Tagged with keywords at the top of the post (i.e. Beginner Woodworking, Advanced CNC, Intermediate Machine Repair, etc.)
Comments and suggestions, or requests would be welcome, of course.
*I am including students and mentors in this definition of team. So submissions from everyone is welcome, regardless of participation breakdown.
4’x2’ Rolling Scrap Cart
Category: Intermediate woodworking
Onshape Plans:
Going to break the rules with the first post. Not doing a actually step-by-step. The students did all the measuring and cutting, and I forgot to ask them to take pictures. And then I got restless yesterday and assembled one of the sets of parts to check for issues. And I’ve already got some ideas for improvement before students do the second cart.
Purpose:
Our team has moved into a large shop space on campus, but we have no official place to store any materials. It’s all just piled and stacked against a wall. I wanted a cart that could hold sheets of wood/metal/polycarb as well as sticks/tubing. And it had to be mobile. Most of our scraps of sheet material is less than 4 feet long, so a 4 foot wide cart seemed like a good idea.
Assembling base:
Parts ready to go:
Casters on:
Vertical support stapled and glued:
Vertical support attached with side panels:
Middle supports on with bungee:
Upgrades:
The side with vertical dividers is not going to be supportive enough. Taller dividers with a better “cage” around the front will be needed. Other ideas will be assessed at our meeting tomorrow.
Looking forward to seeing anyone else’s builds if they post them!
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