Status Check is a weekly (-ish) thread intended to allow teams to share their progress as build season rolls along. The explosion of Build Threads is a great resource, but not every team has the bandwidth, desire, or resources to maintain a thread over the course of the build season. Others may already share their progress via other means (external build blogs, YouTube channels, social media, etc) and may want to publicize their work on those fronts. These threads are intended to help teams share whatever they want to in a format with more permanence than Discord or social media.
Did your team come up with a cool prototype that you want to share? Post it here!
Do you have a YouTube vlog covering your build season? Link the latest video!
Is your CAD progressing well? Throw a link to your OnShape project or screenshots of relevant mechanisms!
Did your autonomous bench grinder work the first time? Well, I think we all want to see the footage.
1712 is as ready as we’re going to get for build season. As always, there’s plenty of anxiety and nerves coupled with the excitement of a new game and hosting our local satellite kickoff. We’re once again going to document our build progress via weekly videos on our YouTube channel, and here’s our latest video, highlighting our fall off-season competitions (Hatboro HAVOC & Ramp Riot):
Beyond that, we’re working to streamline and improve on many of things that didn’t work right for us during our 2022 build season. One of those areas of improvement is our prototyping process, particularly when it comes to communication, organization, and progress tracking. Last year we had several instances of re-work being done on prototypes because progress was not shared, and people were unsure what had and had not yet been tested, what results worked best, and generally ensuring that all important concepts were progressing forwards. We’re going to implement a Prototype Tracking spreadsheet this year to help manage the process and capture key information.
Exactly five months after breaking ground, 2481 just secured the occupancy permit for our new building. Everyone’s feeling pretty accomplished considering we did the vast majority of the construction work ourselves, and very excited to be having our season here. It’s a mess still as we move in, and we basically replaced all traditional preseason training with construction training for the students, but we feel like the investment will pay off in the long term.
Thanks to those who came first (like the Hemlock STEM Center), you were quite the inspiration. Thanks as well to all the sponsors and countless volunteers who helped make it happen.
Around $250k, mostly for materials (final actual number still TBD, there are some non-critical things we want to do that we haven’t done yet). Square footage is 6240 + bonus square footage on the mezzanine.
We had a number of friends of the team who donated use of construction equipment for the project (skid steers, bulldozer, boom truck, multiple lifts, insulation truck, compactor, a few other things). The only equipment we actually had to rent was a 30” auger bit at the beginning for the holes for the footings.
As far as what we did ourselves, it was mentors, parents, alumni, and students doing the majority of tasks required — big items being excavating, pouring footings and the driveway/sidewalk concrete, setting columns, nailing together the frame and hanging trusses, installing all the exterior and interior steel, hanging and blowing in insulation, installing windows and doors, doing all the plumbing and electrical, installing the fire alarm system, building the interior rooms, installing the in-floor heating, hanging drywall, painting. We contracted out for a few things (trenching the sewer line, boring the water line, leveling concrete for the building floor, mudding the drywall). The building was our team’s overall design, but we leveraged both an an architect and structural engineering firm to refine the design and outline the specific construction parameters prior to beginning construction.
Wow, this is top of the class. Super hyped for y’all to break in your new space this season.
I’m interested to know what when into designing this besides the obvious shop space and practice field. Did you include any kind of “special features” that are FRC specific? (e.g. pizza parlor, CAD room, etc.)
General optimization of an FRC space—classroom, full field with high ceilings, large shop space. CAD and controls are both in the classroom. We also have a large undesignated mezzanine space, a utility room, bathrooms, and a conference room.
This is incredible to see what y’all have built and how you got it in just under the gun. Congratulations on having a long term space for years to come. Can I hire you guys for the future Thriftybot space
