Robotics Awards

My son’s Robotics team had so many victories this year but, fell just shy of advancing to the World Championships. They brought home so many trophies and awards. I wanted everyone on the team to have something with all their accomplishments so I made 5 of these to hand out at our season retrospective next week. Congrats to all of them. They made so many laser cut parts on the Glowforge. I wonder if they can pack anything else in this little robot.



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What a cool idea for them! Nice work on those :sunglasses:

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That’s a really nice thing to do for them.

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Congratulations to them. Their accomplishment listing trophy is well deserved and beautifully crafted.

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Now that is a Major Award, for major accomplishments! Very nice, and I’m sure they were much appreciated.

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that anodized hardware looks really nice against the acrylic

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Those are snazzy!

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Impressive year they had … Such a nice way for them to be rewarded!

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As a fellow FTC member, I know exactly how they feel. This is a great way to celebrate. Is the robot made of acrylic?

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That’s all delrin. Acrylic would shatter. Those tracks were simulated to 10,000 kg load with no elongation. It’s really strong material.

I have started a rookie FTC Team and SkyStone will be our first year - FTC #16072 - Quantum Quacks. Any advice for a rookie FTC Team?

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Congratulations and good luck this year. You’re going to have a blast. Here’s a few things we learned the hard way this year.

  1. Batteries, you’re going to need at least 4
  2. Gobilda.com, they make really great gear
  3. Andymark neverest and gobilda motors are vastly superior to Rev and textrix motors.
  4. Prototype in cardboard and draft board (mdf) , then build in coroplast (corogated plastic, much stronger than cardboard) and delrin.
  5. Don’t use acrylic for anything, it’ll break the first time you use at competition
  6. Polycarbonate is strong as he’ll but you can’t cut it on a laser
  7. If you think you have raised enough money, you haven’t, you’ll need twice as much as you think
  8. Have at least 1 backup for every motor, electronic, sensor and structure on your robot. Something will fail on competition day.
  9. If the kids don’t have CAD skills yet, make them prototype everything in small scale with Lego technic before they build. It’ll save them a ton of time and frustration.
  10. Be helpful to other teams and everyone you meet. You’re going to need their help before the end of the season
  11. Don’t expect to be picked as an alliance partner by experienced teams. They have scouts and friends on other teams. You need to make friends as well.

Hope that helps and good luck!

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Thank you! This is great!!!

Where do you get Coroplast and delrin from?

For anyone interested in following along the adventures of a rookie team, we are at:
http://twitter.com/ftc16072/

–Alan
Coach FTC 16072, Quantum Quacks

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Hi @alan!

Welcome to the wonderful world of FTC! I would first recommend joining the FTC discord and reddit pages. They are incredibly supportive of new teams and have many good resources.

Good documentation makes or breaks you. Keep an engineering log and insert CAD printouts and code snippets as you go. Judges and even other teams love to see how you designed your robot.

I would also highly recommend creating a branding standard and creating a website. Having good branding is a great way to create and strengthen your sponsor-team bond. I noticed that you guys ordered rubber ducks. There are many services that will print your team name and number on them. Assigning the role of branding and outreach to one person is a good way to ensure that tasks get done quickly and efficiently.

If you have any questions or would like to speak further, feel free to send me a message here or on twitter.

-Techniack
PR & Outreach Manager FTC 8490, Mamaroneck Robotics.

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not sure what size you want, but signwarehouse is a decent source for 4mm thick 18"x24" coroplast, if you don’t have a merchant account with a specialized provider like Grimco (which is where I get mine).

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You can purchase it online and they ussually have sheets available at home depot and lowes. It’s about $7 a sheet (2’x4’ if I remember correctly) in store.

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I’ll second the recommendation on Gobilda. My team (Schrödinger’s Hat 3595) has used all the major build systems and Gobilda is the hand’s down favorite.

Also, don’t ignore the engineering notebook. There are very specific requirements laid out in Game Manual Part I and they must be followed to the letter.

Best of luck in your rookie year. It is a lot of work to get a team up and functioning but also extremely rewarding!

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Home depot has them as well!

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home depot price for a 24"x36" is $9.58, shipping is 8.99. they do have free in-store pickup.

signwarehouse price for the same is $2.65, shipping is 9.99 or free shipping for orders over $199.

you can do your own math based on how much you need and how far you might be from a pickup location.

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