After being to a few competitions, I couldn’t help but wonder how people managed to make their pits look so amazing. Our pit sadly is always very empty without much in it. How do you guys decorate your pit? Using a trifold or some beams to hold up a banner? Or do you guys have an entire tent set up? Please I need some ideas!! :ahh:
Ours is a simple setup–a work table set on two toolboxes, with a fold-out banner holder. We also add some plastic shelves for extra storage, then plant a small TV on one running a sponsor loop. (Fits nicely in front of a blue banner, we found.)
The best pit running today, for my money*, is 4451. The pit integrates everything–lighting, hidden tools and parts, plenty of room to have people inside. Even without the big hard-sided walls, there’s a lot to be said for keeping your stuff simple!
*Full disclosure, 4451 and 4901 share a sponsor and a couple mentors in their lineage.
We made a frame to hold banners out of 2" PVC pipe and it runs along the back wall and half the right side (looking in) of our pit. Along the back is a custom work bench about 6’ wide that fits FRC bins underneath in 2 levels. To the right of that is our battery cart, which is a tall box of shelves on a hand-truck. Along the left side we have another ‘counter top’ whick is about 5’ long, 18" wide and has drawers under it.
The robot cart is also the tool box. Team ‘stuff’ (jackets, backpacks, etc) go in the space behind the battery cart.
Our design was born from simplicity as well. The corners are corrugated vinyl sign material that fold into triangles. The framework is 1/2" conduit wrapped in duct tape. The whole thing takes less than 10 minutes to set up, and other than the small shelf in the front corner (and the tool boxes and stuff) can be carried in by one person.
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8400/8684230711_0328ac3c70.jpg](https://flic.kr/p/eeoXeH)
I couldn’t find a good picture of it but my team has one of the same sponsors as 4451 ( robotz garage) and we made a pit that had a smiliar concept as theirs but was slightly smaller in the front to create more room in our hidden storage area behind a curtain . We called it our cave and I feel like it really caught the eye of a lot of the other teams , especially since we did manage to get 3 awards from 3 different teams in regards to is having the best pit including at the championship . It was pretty simple to put up and fairly simple to design and build.
For our pit we constructed two 9ish ft columns out of 80/20. They each break down in two parts and are pretty easy to transport and set up. They also have shelves and works good to hold buttons, the driver station, and it a whiteboard to display all our matches.
For the past four years (including this season) we had a panel of 16 computer monitors between the two columns at the front of our pit. This acted like a banner and it ran a video of our team logo and all our sponsors and the ten commandments of robotics for fun.
However, this year the safety inspectors at our second regional got a look at all the chords on the back of the panel and made us take them all out and turn it off. So we are currently in need of a new pit design.
Our pit has evolved over the years. It started with a simple PVC frame in the back to hold our banner, supported on the ground by two cement buckets A few totes, our toolbox, and a set of collapsible plastic shelves rounded things out our rookie year. We’ve since grown and added things. Now we have our battery cart (which doubles as a sturdy work station by using a butchers block for the top, and having a vice permanently bolted to it) and two sets of custom-made rolling cabinets that hold all of our various stuff added to the mix. The cabinets also have built in mounts for that same PVC banner holder, so we could get rid of the cement buckets. We do some pink table cloths and have some other displays (poster board set up on a tri-fold, something set up on the end of the table, etc) set up in various places as well.
Thanks everybody for words of response! Hopefully our team can figure out how to put something together to make an amazing yet efficient pit! 
Here is our pit design guide it shows how we set everything up.
Our pit is highly modular, it breaks into small parts so we can take it to sponsors and the like. We’re working on getting some shelves and stuff so we can get some hidden tools, but I think it looks pretty good! http://nebula.wsimg.com/2ca960446d288f14fd5c41371d1847ce?AccessKeyId=28F0BAAA468E816BA370&disposition=0&alloworigin=1