First year mentor
I have run into a tool list, and I have spent a little time searching for a forum that would give me a leg up. I already have a “things I will do differently next year” list. Are there lists of things mentors or teams wish they knew their first year or even second year. I know so little, I don’t even know what I don’t know.::rtm::
Also, are there parts that are the quintessential parts, ones I should stock for next year because you know you are going to use them.
Parts we stock because we know we’ll use them:
Wish I had known:
Intakes, intakes, intakes… They exist and can be used on boxes too!
Thank you! If you think of anything else.
Where? Andy mark is out and we do need one now that I see what it is.
The tooling build up that we’ve followed has worked quite well:
Hand tools + cordless drill
Drill press + disk sander
More hand tools
Band saw (combined horizontal + vertical)
More hand tools
Lathe
CNC Router
We’ve built quite competitive robots even in the years we only had up to the drill press/disk sander.
The other thing is to build up a good stock of parts. I like to always get 150% of parts we need, this gives us spares as well as stock on hand to quickly prototype/build things in the future.
IMO if you build stock around the Versaplanetaries and hex shaft/hubs/bearings, you’ll be well prepared for future games.
I think they meant intakes as a generic statement. You design your own intake system based on your robot config. Very few teams I know buy an off-the-shelf intake system
After 12 years, I still would advise that never (ever) think you are ahead of the curve, so always act as if you’re way behind. Keep the kids moving and productive best you can.
Oh, and 100 hours of driver practice with the finished robot “is not enough”, so get them driving ASAP. Good drivers win matches. Good drivers without practice embarrass.
The lists of tools are here on CD. One of the things we’ve found that improves our situation is standardization. Our team standardized on 10-32 and other SAE coarse thread sizes a couple of years ago, and the number of stripped nuts and bolts has dropped greatly, and we don’t have to bring as big a box of nuts and bolts to the pits. Just last night, we formally standardized on 1/2" hex for driven shafts and 3/8" round for dead shafts. This will reduce the number of different shaft collars, hubs, and bearings we will need.
Standardizing doesn’t mean that you never purchase any parts that do not meet these specs, but that any time we make the choice, this is what we use unless we have a very good reason to do otherwise. Counter examples include all of the KoP hardware, pneumatic hardware mounts (which are almost always fine thread), and motor mounts. Standardizing on fasteners also means that you can have all of the tools you’re likely to need on the robot cart.
We’ve also standardized on electrical connectors – anything between 2A and 40A is connected with Anderson Power Poles. Smaller stuff is usually molex (light current) or dupont (aka 0.1" pitch headers) connectors. Again, standardizing on connectors minimizes the number of crimp tools we might need.
Learn the wonders of rivets an rivnuts and do a little reading on design for manufacturing. Reducing the number of loose fasteners and special tools can make changing parts go from a competition ending set back to 5 minutes in the pit with no mentor involvement.
Next: Strategy First, then robot. Dont try and build a robot then figure out what to do with it.
Always order team branding items early during build season. Pins and T shirts are a lot cheaper and better when you dont have to shop around for the one place that can get the shirts to you before the first day of competition.
Buy lots of drill bits in the sizes you commonly use, but dont tell the kids you did that. Put them in a closet somewhere and dole them out as needed.
Bring tylenol/advil to the competion. You and the other mentors will need it.
Also, bring water and your caffeinated beverage of choice. And food, the event food usually sucks and has long lines to get it.
Dont plan on sitting down for more than a few minutes during your first competition.
Teams that do all the cool “extra stuff” and have a cool robot probably have a cool robot because the do all the extra stuff, not the other way around.
If you’re going with the kitbot chassis and/or don’t have a lathe than it may not be as important… but we use a lot of 1/2 inch hex shaft, 1/2 inch round flange bearings and 1/2 inch hex bearings… we use the shaft for our drive axles, collectors, shooters… anything that turns. Our first year we used round or keyed shafts, we did not know the wonders of hex shaft.
If you plan to put bearings in anything and don’t have access to much for tools beyond a drill press, our world changed a huge amount when we got a set of annular cutters. They are fragile and have their odd things to figure out for use, but having a true, actual round hole that is exactly the size you want it to be (i.e. 1.125 for bearings) is priceless.
Rookie Coach here too… here a few things on top of my head after a FTC and this FRC season…
-small drill press, cordless drill, bandsaw, chop saw, sander…
-invest in a few good dewalt hex driver set.
-standardized with gearbox system you like… we are going all in on VexPro. Small store locally and the owner is the best. Very helpfull and always willing to give a hand in explaining some of this stuff.
-Standardizing on 1/2" hex shaft.
-We bought 2 computer station for 3d modeling…
-Got a Solidworks sponsorship… dont overestimate
-2 more for business purposes…
SO much more… my head has been cloudy for the last 6 months…
lol
I’m from the Electrical/Programming side of the house, so…
In general: Standardize your part & tools, regardless of what part its for. This helps reduce parts counts and tool count. Where this helps is that you don’t have to keep a lot of different parts on hand or take them with to competition. It also means you get good at telling the difference between what you have. “Gee, is that a 7/32 or a 1/4?” This saves on cost & time in the long run.
Electrical:
Learning how to make your wiring neat:
Programming:
You may already know this but the biggest thing I have learned is that, if there is a task without a person dedicated to it, it won’t get done. It is very difficult for young teams to have enough ‘get-it-done-itude’ for people to autonomously transition from done-task to undone-task. Having a higher level structure to make sure each tasks is being worked on is critically important.
If there is something that “needs to be figured out” it isn’t going to happen until you either put someone on it or do it yourself.
I’d have to disagree with most of this for a 1st year or even a second year team. Most rookies are tight on funding and while power poles and parallel bonded wire (it is not zip cord that is for lamps and other home appliances) is great it is best to use what you have and save that money for something else in your rookie year. Ditto for making your own PWM cables, again that is nice but they should have what they need to make the robot run w/o the extra expense of the tools and parts to make your own.
Yes better lap tops would be nice but again $1000 is a ton of money for a rookie team. Better to stick with the classmate as the driver’s station for now and if students have their own lap tops or if there are school ones available use those for programming.
I do agree that if they have the bonus gyro that was included with the 2nd round FIRST Choice then try and use it IF and only IF they have everything else under control. Ditto for sensors, IF and only IF they have everything under control should a rookie team try to mess with sensors. I also agree that sticking with one language and perfecting it is the best plan of action. Now once the off season is here then have programmers that are returning next season play with Gyros and sensors if they didn’t make it that far in the competition season.
I also agree that they should find a language that works for them and stick with it, once they have identified that language which may mean trying different languages. Many times teams start with Labview and that is great for a rookie team with inexperienced programmers. However once there are programmers that have experience or if you have programmers that have previous experience with Java or C++ then starting and sticking with one is best. Most likely Java as that is more commonly taught in high schools.
There are lots of good responses here, but here’s one more:
The parents want to help. They may not know how they can help - many of our team parents didn’t - or even that you need help, but if you reach out to them, they can be an amazing resource, whether or not they have engineering experience.
We’ve had engineering parents helping for years, but when we started doing serious outreach to non-engineer parents, they came to the rescue in so many ways: helping with communications, guiding students on the business side of the team, helping the students make reversible bumper covers, and building field elements were just a few of those ways.
Extra controller, during the heat of competition controllers sometimes break and as we found out in 2014… Best Buy doesn’t open until 10 and no matter how much you knock they will ignore you until 10. 
Everyone has already posted a whole lot of great advice when it comes to the Robot and tools.
When at a competition what I wish I knew when mentoring younger teams, and also see now as a Volunteer is how important a cohesive look is when it comes to being remembered, both by Judges and by teams who might be an alliance captain. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just something as simple as everyone wearing the same shirt, and if possible not white, as then you might blend in with the volunteers.