Today is one of the first days this season that the Robotics team has met up on a weekend instead of a weekday! This day is being utilized to complete our new pit project. We’ve got some progress done on the pit so far, see for yourself! Keep in mind, there are also parts of the pit we haven’t been able to start on yet, these are only the two main parts.
What We’ve Done
The first picture is one of two main parts to our pit:
The Tool Section
This pit is where we’re going to be putting all of our tools as well as some things we can use to fix or modify the robot if needed. It includes space for two tool boxes, which will store all the smaller tools. The two things in the middle of the cart are our vacuum, and air compressor with a hose reel. On top of the cart will be a vice, metal bender, belt sander, band saw, and a drill press, ready to be used when we need it.
The Storage Section
This is the second main part of our pit. This is going to have space for 4 storage totes, which are large plastic boxes that we can put things into. (for example, the camera used to take the team’s pictures is always stored in a single tote when not being used) This cart is also going to be used to charge the batteries our robot is using. The space is going to be a 3×3 bank charge, which gives room for 9 batteries at a time. Another very important feature of this pit is going to be the garbage can, which we can store our garbage in. Another feature of this cart is a 2′ x 4′ plastic sheet storage container, as well as storage for aluminum extrude, up to 7′ long. This cart also has 2 folding chairs for our programming team, which will be able to use a sliding table to place their computers on. We also have electric wiring in this cart, a pneumatic hose, and 15 hardware storage bins.
What We Plan to do
In the future, we’re going to be working on additional, smaller parts for the pit. These parts are going to be able to showcase things we’ve won in the past, hold our First-Aid kit, as well as hold monitors which may display where we are in the competition, previous projects, and anything else we wish to show on the monitors. With the two mentioned carts, we’ll be making a Robot storage cart, which will be able to hold a few plastic tool containers.
Additional Information
A few things about our pit!
One of the important things about our pit is that is has to follow certain guidelines set by FIRST. One of those is that the pit has to be 10 feet by 10 feet. This is one of the things we as a team have to work around, especially with a project like this. We’re able to combat this because of how we split up the pit, into parts. We’re also able to move the pit around into a configuration we like because of how flexible it is, testing out what works best.