Top items you want close to your workbench during build season

FIRST General Forum
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We are in the neverending cycle of organizing and reorganizing. We are trying to create a dedicated workspace for building our robot. What are the top 5-10 non-tool items you want near your workbench when building/prototyping your robot?

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  1. Part Trays/bags to organize parts. This works for assembly and disassembly. McMaster sells some awesome parts bags that are super cheap and much more durable than a Ziploc.

  2. Lable Maker. We use are lable Maker all the time to keep track of finished parts to prepare for assembly. We actually use labels on the part bags so we can reuse them.

  3. Sharpies, many uses.

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Clean paper towels and a notepad.

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this but with shop towels instead of regular paper towels

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First aid kit and fire extinguisher.

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A whiteboard and markers.

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Non expired baking soda.

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Trash can (like for zip tie cutoffs)

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Edit: trying to think of top 5 non tools… That’s harder definitely if you don’t count measuring devices.

Calipers, tape measure, carpenter pencil/sharpie, multimeter, first aid kit

First aid kit, Pencil/Sharpie, paper/notebook, walkie talkies if you meet across multiple rooms, shop rags

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Sanity and a first aid kit,

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Large Yeti filled with Diet Dr. Pepper.

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You need what seems like a vastly unnecessary amount of sharpies but will actually never be enough sharpies lol

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My old team legitimately had a dr pepper minifridge :joy: (to be fair, it was the coach’s and he doesn’t drink coffee iirc)

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Can’t forget the safety glasses!

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A notebook/pad and pen/pencil

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  1. Whiteboard with a half dozen different colors of marker

  2. Extra ways to get light on things

  3. 2x4 and 4x4 blocks of a few lengths (or similar) to elevate robot or hold it at a tipped angle

  4. Blanket, towel or other thing to catch aluminum shavings when drilling over wiring

  5. A large number of sharpies

Handy tool no one seems to have around: strong magnet on a stick to find and pick up dropped fasteners, clips, allen keys and drillbits.

High speed phone camera is useful in prototyping too.

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I dont know what the general name for these specific pliers are, but these are so nice.

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“Water pump pliers”

As for the original question:

  • electrical receptacles (preferably installed and functional)
  • space (so you can move around and not bump into things)
  • tape (masking, gaff, maybe spike)
  • bins (for putting pieces into)
  • gloves (both the anti-goo variety and gardening/gripping)
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patience and a brain

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Fire extinguisher for my credit card on kickoff day.

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