I’ve heard of teams that have sponsors make their robot, and never see it until their first competition. There’s also teams that the students make their robot. I was just wondering whats teams do to make their robot?
The students on my team build ours, our two mentors oversee what we do, but for the most part everything is student built.
Its all us! And of course our engineers help us, that would suck to not even see your robot until your first competition. No fun!
I’d have to say this robot is about 90% student made by the Mech Techs. The only things that were not student made were the gearboxes for the Chiaphuas (our engineer was the only one experienced enough with a lathe to do it) and any welding done with the robot (liability issues).
Well, the students did about 100% of the building, unbuilding, rebuilding, unbuilding, and finally rebuilding again. Yeah, we changed our design about 3 or 4 times, and of course, the frame was already togeter. all i can say is thank god we used extrusion. 
going a bit further with the question, the robot was built by a core group consiting of two mentors (one being Michael Krass), one technology teacher, and 3 or 4 students, including me. even though i didn’t do as much of the physical building of the robot, i did a good chunk of the coding, and had to correct some of dan’s, as he did with mine :p. I can say that all 100% of the coding was done by the students (well, Joe Ross helped me discover a way around a problem, even if he tried to screw up the code :D).
the only parts that we didn’t build purselves were the gears for the atwoods, the delran rollers, the delran/PVC idlers, and the machined alluminum. next year, we should be able to at least machine our own aluminum, cause i believe we’re supposed to get new machines in the classroom where we build. should have lots of fun next year.
We always start our year with a strategy/design meeting involving both engineers and students where we discuss what we would like our strategy to be and how we would like to accomplish it. Then engineers and students present ideas and we work together to create a workable design.
Once we have a design, the team splits into groups of students led by engineers to build the separate subgroups of the robots. I would not go so far as to say that the robot is built entirely by students, because our engineers want us to learn as much as possible. Sometimes this means the students do a job, and other times the engineers do it to teach the students how. This year especially the students were more involved than ever in building the robot. For one reason, we had a larger team which gave the older students a chance to share the burden of teaching the younger students. Also, the facility we used had more tools than we’ve had in the past, which allowed more of the fabrication to be done onsite, rather than in the past when all parts had to be driven to our machine shop. This has been a good year for us, and it just makes me sorry i won’t be around for next year.
We have one Chemstry teacher that has a lot of experience in creating and building things, working with a lot of different tools and materials, and he builds all the robot.
We have one mechanical engineer that gives many good ideas and draws things in cad to be lasercut.
The students can give their ideas and opinions, and sometimes do some things a bit related with the robot building.
Ours is almost entirely student built. Our class broke up into subdivisions (drive system, programming, special teams [which built the extendor], pneumatics, etc). The students designed the whole robot and formed strategy. As the class manager, I must say that this process was costly since some things didn’t work and had to be rebuilt several times (like our $800 extendor), everyone learned a great deal from trial and error and how to fundraise 
Our team captain even missed 3 weeks of school to build all day, something I don’t reccomened personally but he had lots of dedication.
Of course, like someone mentioned before, a company did our welding because of liability. We also had one mentor from JPL but his main job was to nod if we were doing something right or shake his head if we were way off or doing something dangerous.
But the rest was student built and it was worth it even if we had to work from 9am-midnight on weekends and after school on weekdays. Our teacher who basically delegates power on our team didn’t even know what our robot looked like until our first scrimmage, which was a day before we had to ship it off. He says its the best class he never taught.
I’ll definately miss this next year.
99% student built. (There are a few bits that the mentors did on the robot, but during the actual building, they mostly sat around and graded papers.) 100% student designed.
Team 524 had a grand total of one engineer and two machinists this year, which meant the students HAD to do most of the work.
the machinists were there every day, and they did the majority of the teaching to the students.
the control system was conceived and built entirely by one college student and one HS student (me and JT) , while the frame and pneumatics were mostly done by lewis,rigo,mr wyatt and mr curry.
i designed the control system, and built it with the help of another student. i learned that next year, a large piece of wood will suffice. mine’s way to heavy :p.
We just used a sheet of plexi. it weighs not very much.
I think it was really interesting how each team designed their systems, some teams uberarmored their control system, some didn’t, some had their control system all spread out, some had it in one place.
the design compromises are just fascinating to examine.
with only 1 engineer on our team (and some parents) the students build the machine. we go to a machine shop down the road from the school and build it. we have, of course, help by the engineer, but for the most part the robot is student built.
I answered this question a few months back in a similar thread, so I’ll skip the question and refer you to the previous thread.
But I will reiterate a point I made in that post. Before you accuse any team of having a robot where the sponsor does all the work and simply hands the bot to the students, make sure you get your facts straight. Don’t believe what you hear from others; talk to members of the team in question. In most cases your sources are mistaken. And remember in large teams some students never touch the robot because they work on other aspects of the team (fundraising, animation, chairmans, video, etc). If you talk to the wrong person you could get the wrong impression.
As a side note, any team where the students see the robot for the first time at their first competition will not be a contender for the sole reason that the students don’t know how to operate it. Any team who operates that way cheats their students out of inspiration, learning, fun, and a chance to succeed in competition.
Mike
Greatings All!
For the X-Cats on team #191 we have students involved in every aspect of the design and build. Some critical parts may be machined by a few adults but students usually are still involved on the decision process on what needs to be done and are overseeing the actual machining.
As you all can see every year our designs are simple and not as flashy as some of the other robots all for the sake of making it easy to mentor build techniques and functionalities. Our site only has basic machinery so whe stick with what we can make on those. We avoid welding for the sake of safety and irreversible complexities it may involve.
So pending on how the team wants to approach each year’s game, whether to be experimental or not, we may or maynot have the flashiest machine out there. But ultimately our team goal of having a competitive machine still exists.
Either way - I see this program as a great learning experience for both adults and students. As long as the team progresses and each person learned something and had a good time then I consider it a successful team whether or not you win anything.
Ellery
Our robot has been built by us students for te most parts:
We brainstormed all together, selected the ideas we wanted to realize and our engineer came up with the concepts for the most part, we gave him our input and he set us up at the machines to build the individual parts. (“Okay, look here, do this and this, till you’re down to 1.05 inches. Now I’m gonna leave you alone and you do it. Just bring it over when you’re done.”)
It was so nice, we machined all the parst ourselves after he showed us individually how to. It was a big learning-experience for all of us. In the end Mike M. (our engineer) could describe us the measurements of a piece of metal that he wanted and we machined it all by ourselves without further instructions.
And we had a real nice machine shop. We built the robot at Advanced Animations in Stockbridge, Vermont.
Advanced Animations built the Terminator-robots for the Universal-Studios in Florida and while we where there they were just building a 3-story-tall clock tower for FAO Schwarz. Their machine shop is SOOOOOOOOOOO nice, unbelievable.
I believe that MOST teams have the students do the work. I would be surprised if that weren’t the case.
However…
I am curious, for those schools that do not have the manufaturing capabilities (particularly a machine shop), where is the machine work done and who trains the students on the use of the machines?
Our entire team is run by students. Myself and another student started the team and the fundraising last year and didn’t find a mentor until the beginning of this year.
Unfortunately, we were unable to find a corporate sponsor that could help us with the majority of the finances or help us by providing manpower. We are still looking.
We have a retired engineer that helped out somewhat (once or twice a week) and 3 parents that helped out as much as possible. Everything was designed, drawn on CAD, machined, built, redesigned, rebuilt, etc. by students. Much of the building and machining actually happened at a student’s house, often without an adult present, because his garage had better machining facilities than our school (our school is a private school and doesn’t have a shop), and we were unable to find a sponsor that would provide us with machining facilities.
Everything was done by the students (electrical, pneumatics, mechanical (gear ratios, drivetrain, pinning gears, etc.), control system, programming).
We are desperately searching for a sponsor for next year so that our team can fulfill the purpose of FIRST: for students to work beside professionals. The experience is still excellent but learning takes a great initiative on the part of the students and often requires a lot of searching without a professional on the team.
Matt Cuttitta
Team Founder & Student Leader
Team 894 - Powers Catholic High School
Flint, Michigan
On Team 100 everything is built by the students (with the exception of welding stuff, or other things that we dont know how to do). We have advisors that help out and give guidance, etc.