New FRC Rookie team, asked me to help them what things they should to prepare and buy before the new season.
I will appreciate if your team can:
this team in Northern Israel small village, the broblem that they have long trip, border, TAX…
So what looking for robot parts or tools? With tools, a good band saw is priceless as well as cordless drills. Wrenches of all sizes and some Allen wrenches, pliers and wire strippers. transformer from 220 volt AC to 110 AC.
Hi! First of all, nice to hear that there are rookies in northern Israel 
AFAIK, most (~90% if not more) of the teams in Israel order their robot parts from Yarok which is the official distributor of AndyMark, VEXpro and REV Robotics products in Israel: http://shop.yarok-hok.com
Their prices already include shipping, taxes and VAT. They can actually ship your orders to your shop as well but we found that it’s faster to just go there (they’re at 2630’s shop) and pick them up ourselves.
Other than that, I know that timing belts and pulleys and some transmissions can be bought from G.G. Yarom - http://gg.co.il. They have options for shipping but I believe they have a branch up in northern Israel. We’re from central Israel (Tel Aviv) and so we buy most of our stuff here - bearings, nuts and bolts and the like - so I can’t recommend other stores up north because I don’t know of any.
As for what they should buy, I’d suggest on some VEXpro VersaPlanetary gearboxes with different configurations for powering different mechanisms, VictorSPs (if they’re still sold) or VictorSPX’s as motor controllers (you can buy TalonSRX’s but they’re going to be more expensive, and if you don’t use their added features it’s not worth it IMO) and some CIM/775pros for being able to prototype in the beginning of the season with actual FRC hardware. I’m assuming here that the rookie KoP already includes the needed parts for a complete control system and that they’re using the KoP chassis.
I hope I helped somewhat. Feel free to contact me / our team (3316) about anything. I’d also try and contact teams in the area for help - MisCar 1574 comes to mind.
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This is not a wrong answer, but it does merit evaluation by the new team. My (American) team has started noting its go-to parts, and by that lens I will throw a few questions:
- Is the 57 Sport cheaper than the VersaPlanetary for a given ratio over there? If so, you can do an astounding number of things with just 20:1 and 100:1. With a 775pro or Redline, that is an output speed of about 1000 RPM or 200 RPM, respectively. If that is not a perfect answer to most situations, you can very often nudge it to perfect with a chain or belt run.
- It is worth cross-shopping the 775pro and RedLine A motors. They have comparable performance (the RedLine A has a little more power), but here in the States the RedLine is a little cheaper ($19 vs. $19.99).
- I would not purchase a Victor SP at this point, though I’d have no problem using one I got for free. The game is pretty clearly shifting towards CAN-based controls. The Talon SRX and Victor SPX are safe bets on that front. (While the SPARK MAX appears to be solid as well, we’re holding off on the brushless front until we see if/how Cross The Road and VEX respond to the NEO.)
- Related to the SRX, get two or three. Pandamaniacs hadn’t wired an encoder to anything in years, but the ease of connecting CTRE’s magnetic encoder to an SRX made it too easy. Give your programmers something to sink their teeth into. Three would be enough to control each side of your drivetrain (with SPXs on other motors) and some critical manipulator item like an arm shoulder or a flywheel ball shooter.
- Some Mini CIMs will be nice to have as well. You usually get one in the Kickoff Kit, though obviously we can’t guarantee that’ll happen again in 2020.
- Start making a plan now for how you’ll get not-metric hardware, because you’ll end up using it. You’ll see a lot of parts (CIMs, Sports, VPs) designed for 10-32 hardware.
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Spectrum 3847’s first $1000 and first $10,000 tool lists are probably a good place to start. We have found tools from Israeli suppliers which is usually cheaper than importing from abroad, but we’ve had help with procurement from our school’s machine shop so I don’t have any sources to share.
In general though (as you probably know), everything from tools to parts to game pieces to travel is more expensive here than in the US. So if they want to be competitive they’ll need to start fundraising early and often.
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Looks like you misspelled spectrum in those links. Might want to update that so they work.
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Wow rookie mistake, thanks for catching it
Well, Vex seems to have responded pretty well to the NEO
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