REEKON Tools Products as part of First Choice?

[reekontools]

Hello everyone. My name is Christian Reed and I founded a Boston based digital tool company REEKON Tools. Having been a long time follower of FIRST Robotics competitions, I was interested to learn more about the kits and the FIRST Choice website for the ability of teams to get parts and tools they need and can use for competitions.

My current company REEKON Tools has been exploring the possibilities of becoming part of this process and donating tools to FIRST Teams through Kits or FIRST Choice. I would appreciate any feedback from active teams, mentors, or anyone else in the process on what tools, from us, may be useful to you. REEKON makes a variety of digital construction tools that help with data capture, measuring, and other digital needs. You can read more about some of our products and workflows here as well as some photos below of our core products that may be of use.

Thanks!
Christian

[reekontools]

[asid61]

I like the look of that rolling measurement thing for chop saws. Could be very handy for 2x1 tubes. What is the cost of this?

[Drakxii]

First, I want one of these as a robot inspector.

Second this tape measure plus the app and a printer would be great to make an inventory for all those random lengths of metal teams have tucked away in their shop.

[mjmayer]

I found it on Home Depot’s website its $150, definitely an interesting product. https://www.homedepot.com/p/REEKON-M1-Caliber-Digital-Measuring-Tool-for-Miter-Saw-RKN-M1-001/317486776?NCNI

[reekontools]

Its $150 but the idea would be to make these available free to to teams through the FIRST Choice website or other method to donate. Were trying to evaluate which tools might be useful for what applications so we can better support the program!

[s-neff]

It’s surprisingly hard to figure out what the list of products are for sale and where to buy them from. Lots of “find out more” and “get on our contact” buttons and not a lot of “this object for this many dollars on Amazon”, even on the “Tools” tab that I’d expect to take me there.

It looks like you’re in Beta for the tape & App still? So it’s kinda okay that it’s hard to buy those on your website. The saw attachment is in full Production, I want it to be a lot easier to slap that “buy now” button!

I’d want the saw attachment, not necessarily the tape for FRC applications. I can see how the tape is designed for a jobsite. I think our jobs are small enough to not need a QR printer?

[ElliotS]

These would be awesome! I second @Drakxii that using the tape measure and the app to inventory all the random stuff we have around the shop. The QR code label maker could be nice for labeling sheet goods to keep a better inventory.

[Akash_Rastogi]

Funny enough I often get videos of your chop saw measuring tool on Instagram and Facebook! Always seemed super cool to me.

[cbale2000]

@reekontools

I’m not sure how wide of an appeal your T1 would have, but I can say it would be absolutely wonderful to have for anyone setting up a practice field (or even a regulation field at an event). Trying to keep lines straight when marking out the floor and positioning field elements can always be a pain (especially with how awful FIRST’s field layout drawings tend to be). I went out a bought a laser square this past year to help with setting up our practice field, but an integrated tape measure like this would be event better.

I can’t speak to the M1 very well since my team doesn’t really use a miter/chop saw much anymore (at least not for precision/repeat cuts that would require something like this), but I could certainly see some teams getting a lot of use out of this one, given the right shop layout and workflow.

The P1 labeler and the phone app are probably too niche for most FIRST teams. Don’t get me wrong, someone would find a use for them, but I’m not sure it would be enough to justify putting units of them into FIRST choice.

Regardless, always happy to see a new supplier donate to first, more options are always welcomed by teams.

[AdamF]

The T1 is the most appealing product to me. I didn’t see if it had this feature, but I would buy 5 in a heartbeat if it could display decimal inches in 0.001 inch increments, or heck even 0.005 inch increments would be a game changer for us.

[cbale2000]

I agree that decimal inches would be a nice feature, though I would point out that if the tolerances on the T1 are similar to the M1, it might not be able to go down to 0.001"/0.005"…

What you’re basically looking for sounds more like a pair of calipers in tape measure form, a level of resolution construction tools would have no need for, generally.

[AdamF]

I was thinking of the caliper decimal values, but intended to remove a zero. So values of 0.010 or 0.050.

[Zackahackk]

Personally I would love to see this! Is it possible to put a digital cut-list from robot CAD into the tape measure or chop saw?

[gerthworm]

Crazy cool stuff! Those are some unique tools I hadn’t thought of before, and could definitely be of benefit to an FRC team. I see usage both during wood construction (building prototypes, field elements, etc.) as well as some metal construction too.

I also liked the one picture where the wheel measurement tool (M1?) was used to measure out lengths of rope. We use similar rigs for measuring lengths of wire at work.

The label maker was also cool. Not sure if it could be used for wire labeling (my favorite application), but even if it was used for keeping track of cut metal/polycarb pieces prior to assembly I could see some good “process” gains that teams with lots of members could get.

Really, I’d say you’ve got two target audiences - the bigger group is teams just looking to get a few nifty things around their shop. But there’s also a group looking to invest in your whole ecosystem to help track and guide their robot build process.

If you haven’t seen, that second audience has enough people and enough copies of their robot involved that they usually use some tracking system internally to achieve good flow through the CAD->design check → manufacturing → assemble cycle. Providing something that plays nicely with that scale or environment would definitely help teams looking to improve process.

Of course… if you’re willing to donate anything, I’m certain teams will want to snag it out of first choice, if nothing else than for the “cool” factor. It’s a phenomenal contribution you’re considering, and that’s absolutely excellent that you’re willing to turn your company resources toward helping to make it loud!

One additional advantage of FIRST Choice - It’ll get your products in front of a lot of eyes of both students (read: future job applicants) and engineers (read: people who buy things). No promises, but I bet merely having a small quantity of things available will have some payback for you in the first year.

[sanddrag]

Hi Christian and welcome to FIRST Robotics. We’re glad to have you as a partner in this awesome sport. FIRST Robotics teams often undertake rather sizable construction projects with a substantial amount of lumber right in the beginning of January every year as they work to build the basketball court sized playing field that our robots operate on. There are often different ramps, obstacles, goals, and other elements that we build from wood, and we have to do it quickly as we concurrently develop our robot designs. Maybe someone else can find a picture for you.

These tools look awesome. I can truly appreciate the cost and development effort that goes into bringing products like this to market. And I think it’s very smart for companies like yours to get involved in FIRST Robotics as a way to get awareness of your products out there.

Personally, I like this miter saw rolling measurement gizmo. Your timing is superb. I have a project at work that likely would benefit from this. I’ll probably have them order one. I agree that I hope it can do decimal measurements. I see that as kind of essential. .020 inch resolution is okay for wooden playing field, maybe not good enough for aluminum robot chassis for some teams. .010 resolution would be better if it’s possible.

I’m wondering if you have any sort of cut list optimization software. Like, say I have a list of all different lengths of lumber I need to make. I want to know how many pieces of stock I need to buy and how to arrange my cuts in each piece of stock to reduce waste. There’s a few programs and websites that do this, but there’s something lacking about each one of them. If you were to work with FIRST on this and have a cut list and cut sheets for their field ready to go on Kickoff Day in the beginning of January, the teams would remember and love you forever. Just make it easy and brainless for people to access and use. Other software vendors have tried convoluted and brainless registration, license, and sign up processes with various softwares in the past and it’s been a struggle for teams. Make your goal getting your name out there in a positive way and making your stuff easy, not trying to lock people in, lure them with gimmicks, or hold them down with restrictions. Teams don’t have time or patience to jump through hoops, they’ll just write it off.

Anyhow, on the website, I agree with other posters above: Less hype, more substance. And get rid of the popup/overlay on the home page. My popup closing reflex is so fast I don’t even know what it was for, but I know it was blocking what I wanted to see and get to. It’s a big turn off and needs to go away from your website.

Anyhow, I think it’s very cool you reached out here on CD, and I look forward to seeing this stuff in FIRST Choice.

[mfbrechting]

I have to disagree with you there, If we are using a chop sawon the robot I have to believe you cannot be expecting to get better than .020 accuracy. That may not “cut it” for teams using routers and stuff, but is plenty good if you even considered using a chop or horizontal band saw.

Cool stuff! The storing tape measure would be awesome in every field setup trailer and many teams that build large game elements would greatly benefit from having one in house!

Thanks for trying to be a part of FIRST!

[thefro526]

Want to straight talk on this:

Whether or not you offer this in FIRST Choice: You would be the Hero of a Generation to donate (2x) of the Digital Tape Measures and Whatever other Relevant Hardware you come up with to each “Official Playing Field”.

The ability to suddenly layout a field via a series of digital (TAPE) measurements, removes a HUGE amount of discrepancy between events. If we look at - field markings exclusively - the ability to perhaps use (2) Digital Tape Measures (with all the fancy lasers and smart phone connectivity) makes it very hard [for someone who cares, and is trying] to miss a marking by a “real” (1/2" or more) amount.

With the General trend to more sophisticated and precise autonomous modes in the (Post-Covid) couple of years - the ability to “know” that the field tools are precise and constant across events removes a lot of variables.

(Note: this isn’t a knock on field staff, I know many of them, I have helped lay out fields - doing it with a standard tape measure, which may vary from event to event - along with it’s interpretation - introduces a series of variables into the equation that quite honestly, shouldn’t be there**)

(**If you want to debate the point, please contact me on the side. Yes, the real world is full of variables we cannot account for, but when teams are given 10 minutes to measure a field, and it takes 2 minutes to get the robot “in a state to measure” - who benefits?)

Otherwise, there are a lot of products in your portfolio that are of use to - some teams - probably not all, though we forget how many teams are still working with “Tape Measure Tolerances” on Pre-Machined Extrusions.

Beyond that - it’s kind of a no-brainer. You give away (1) unit of Free Stuff to a Team that is nominally (20) People? It’s Product Placement, it buys a lifetime of loyalty, if the stuff is good.

I know for a fact that had you handed me one of your Digital Tape Measures, 10 Years Ago, It would have changed my Professional Career. I “Grew Up” (First 11 Years or so) in a “Tape Measure Tolerance” Fab Shop. We liked to say we could “Hit a 1/16 inch on 20ft.”

That 1/16" was all about how you looked at the tape measure.*******

(Also yes, Digital Tape Measures have been around since forever, my point is that making people aware of them, and getting them using them changes the baseline expectation for “What can be done with a Tape Measure, In the Field”.)

Also also, I’m here for Free Stuff.

*******Funny: Once, we were off by (4") on 14’ Across 12 Units of Product. Try to explain that inside of a 1/16" on 20’… (Read the Spec before you build…)

[Andrew_L]

While donations are always nice, I would love to see FIRST support this company (and potential FIRST Choice donor) by buying sets of these tools for the fields. They can afford it.