Pit Design and the Pit-In-A-Box

Competition Team Organization
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Foreword: Hi, Delta here. I didn’t find an appropriate place to put a pit post (tongue twister) so I decided to put it here. (If it is in an innapropriate location, please redirect me)

Thanks in advance for reading, and sorry for the length!

Hey all. This year my team spent a lot of effort in creating the optimal pit in all senses of the concept. I personally CAD’ed and mocked up over 20 pit design iterations. The objective of this was to create something called “Pit-In-A-Box.” Pit in a box is a concept pit that would fit inside of a small container. The pit would be classy, utilitarian, and most importantly, highly portable. It is designed for repeated use, comfort and ease of movement.

let me give some background as to how this idea came about. Here in the Portland Oregon regional, many teams come from far away (Hawaii, Mexico California, Washington, Idaho, and even Japan). One of the things they say is very hard to overcome is the lack of a pit. It’s hard (and expensive) to get even critical tools tools in a plane, but trying to transport an entire pit long distances is even worse.

Therefore, Pit in a box strives to fulfill that “market need” of traveling teams. At first, there will be trial versions available for free at the Portland regional. In fact, this year, we got the Lowe’s Toolbox for Education grant to pursue our design. Our pit became the prototype pit in a box, and, Incidentally, we won the Team Image Award. I’d like to say that that is proof enough. However. That is only the first stage of pit in a box. Ideally, we would make the plans for the pit available worldwide for a small fee. Thus, other teams will be able to build and rent the Pit In A Box and bring in some profit.

The pit in a box is made to be very modular, and my hope is that people will come out with their own Pit In A Box “mods” that work especially well for certain designs of robots or sizes of teams.

My objective in posting this frustratingly long post (sorry everyone) is to get feedback, in the forms of encouragement, additional ideas, criticisms and general interest. I really appreciate anyone who read this post! Thanks for everything! :slight_smile:

1 Like
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This is going to be an intresting thread. I’ll message here so I can check back later. Great idea

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I love the idea! I didn’t personally see your pit in Portland, but I’ll be sure to take a look. One recommendation – I don’t know that it would be a good idea to charge for it. Your team benefits from the outreach/team spirit/not sure what to call it (public image) boost if you put it out there, cost or no cost. However, I think if you’re going to do a fundraiser, you should do a full-on fundraiser like a bake sale, car wash, or sponsorships. A lot of teams don’t have big budgets, so that could get in the way of widespread adoption of the idea. So to sum that up, you should put it out for free to get as many teams as possible to adopt it, and not have a half-hearted fundraiser attached to it.

**However, if you wanted to make the money optional (donations), that could be good.

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It would be helpful if you actually released the design. It’s hard to give feedback, ideas, criticisms, etc. without something more concrete, or, at least, a specific question.

As far as the idea is concerned, it seems pretty good. In terms of it being a product, it’d be interesting to explore feature/options to the product to make it flexible enough to be utilized outside the FIRST community.

I know my team is attempting something along those lines. We’re not necessarily planning on marketing it like you guys, but just something like that can easily be packed away.

  • Sunny G.
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I see what you mean, and I agree. The thing is we spent a lot of time and effort so we need to get some return. I really do like the donation thing. I’m sure teams will like it enough to give a donation. Also, I will be posting pictures of it soon. And soon means eventually now that school has started. Anyway, thanks for the feedback!

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As a team that takes a 200 lb (without anything inside of it) crate with us to every competition, I’m very interested to see what you came up with.

If you go ahead with charging for the design (it doesn’t sound like you will, but still), you definitely need to make available plenty of pictures of all built component, as well as a description of what is included in the design and what all dimensions are. It’s hard to imagine anyone buying plans for something they aren’t even sure if they’ll use! Selling a product in the first place is difficult, selling it to the very limited market of FRC teams even more so.

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This idea is one that drove our pit re-design as well. In 2012 we had a very aesthetically pleasing pit that we took with us to the Palmetto Regional, but after qualifying for Championship - we realized it was just too big to take on that long trip. The newly designed pit for this year completely un-folds flat (except for the shelf system we built for the front corner) and can actually be carried by one or two team members. In Baltimore this year we set it up with four students in less than ten minutes - and I think it played a significant part in our Imagery Award at that event. The corners are corrugated vinyl the connecting structure is 1/2" conduit wrapped in pink duct tape.

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Indeed. I’ve been busy gleaning pictures from out media division. Here are some. We don’t have all that many, actually. But here are a few.

One of my CAD models. The box with the curly stick coming out of the top is our battery cart/charger design, it’s not part of it.
http://puu.sh/4qBKl.jpg

We usually had people from other teams just hanging out in our pit. It was pretty cool. Here’s a rare shot with few people in it.
http://puu.sh/4qCqW.jpg

And here is a simpler picture that more accurately shows how roomy it is. The grey stuff on the floor is a floor mat. It was the second thing people commented on, other than how spacious it was.
http://puu.sh/4qCAL.jpg

The List of things included in the pit has not yet been finalized. However, pretty much everything you see is included, save the aforementioned chargercart.
Hope this helps!
–Delta

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Great idea

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What a great Idea! This is a great new innovative way for teams to not only look good, but be more productive! I support this idea.

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Thanks for all the support! It’s great hearing from everyone. :slight_smile:

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The objects so far included are:

5-tier shelving unit (2)
4ft. Comecial Folding Table. (2)
Floor matt Tile pieces (cut to proper shape)
Programmable, chainable adhesive LED rope lights.
Spray Paint. (team colors)
2 in. diameter pvc tubing (34 ft. at least)
Two 2-in diameter T-joints
Two 2-in diameter elbow joints
Your Team’s Banner.
Team color-compatable or clear rope/string
Two Folding chairs.

I will post the cost that we paid for our materials as soon as I can. It was very low though.