I’ve been having discussions with teammates and a few mentors and coaches on how we wanted to build our new pit. We would like to keep the price relatively low, but build it out of some sort of metal. Currently all we have is an arch made of 2x4s that displays our banner and has few other functions. We definitely need to have an arch up front on this new pit, and would like to possibly have another wall that we could use for shelving and storage. Some materials that we have mentioned are conduit steel and connectors or metal fencing posts. Has anyone’s teams done anything interesting or have any ideas? Any suggestions are appreciated.
First question, what will you be using to transport said pit area to the competition?
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How could I forget to mention this? It will need to be collapsible enough to fit into the bottom of a coach bus.
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If you don’t mind carrying lots of pieces, we got years of service out of a heavy duty aluminum steel shelving unit, for totes, combined with a PVC banner holder.
We used to use the plastic shelves on 4901 at roughly half height with shoeboxes we carried in totes. 1293 also did a full-height shelf in 2018.
Whichever way you play this, it’s critical to get some shelf locations on things. It was bad enough on 1293 that we spent so long setting up and unpacking, but it was even worse that we spent longer hunting for stuff because nobody knew where it was!
If I was designing a new pit for going under a bus, I’d probably do a pair of carts with room for two KoP totes as a base layer. You could even do this out of lumber–our base cart is made entirely out of lumber and plywood, and it has served us well since 2019. From there I’d figure out how to stack on small parts and tool storage so it can come off for transport. Then, if it works out, throw a work surface on top. If I need to style and profile, add a photo backdrop bar on the back.
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As long as what your hanging is just light decorations, banners, and team stuff, Georgia Pipe and Drape is our best friend. Would recommend. Designed to be lightweight and transportable, and easily set up by just one person even.
Are these shelves easily collapsible? They appear to be only a few pieces, might work perfectly.
Thanks for the organization ideas! Definitely important to minimize the time we spend assembling pits so we can get to the important stuff.
Yes, those shelving units come apart into a (heavy) box about 6 ft x 2 ft x 6 in. It takes fifteen minutes or so to set up, but they’re bulletproof.
Remember that any collapsible shelving needs to be emptied and its contents carried separately making it much more time consuming to set up and much easier for things to get misplaced. I’d want to have a relatively small number of pieces that just wheel into place (and stack if they need to go into a coach). I’d recommend looking at OpenPit. You could certainly build something similar from metal, but good quality plywood is an ideal material for pits. Usually you end up wanting walls on a pit structure and with plywood the walls and structure are combined maximizing usable space at a relatively low cost and weight.
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It is not a universal take (and the world is better because 4451 takes a contrary position on this), but I’m of the opinion that the best pit is the one that lets you roll it in and get to work immediately.
OpenPit is one valid way to get there (especially for a coach bus constraint), but there are others. A bit of CAD work will take you far in figuring out what works for your team.
(I should note that 4451’s engineering of the garage is impressive. Everything in that setup rolls in on a cart, and it’s up before I can think to check back by their pit.)
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