My Robotics team is just starting up this year and I saw a post about MCC robot designs. We bought the VEX Competition Super Kit and I was disappointed to find that 2 out of the three designs used more metal than the super kit offered. Does anybody have any MCC designs that would use the Competition Super Kit parts as a minimum?
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Really, taking those designs/ideas and modifying them to fit your needs is what many of us consider to be the fun part.
I’m sure you and your team(s) can find ways to cut down on the metal used in those designs to fit your needs.
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The competition super kit should have plenty of metal for each of those designs, they don’t randomly use more than the competition super kit since the competition super kit is so huge and contains so many parts. One important bit I think is that the others cut metal, while 13709 did not as much. You should be able to cut your metal, and given that you only have a competition super kit you just need to plan your robot well.
Additionally, if you need a guide to a robot, I would recommend building VEX’s robots. This doesn’t have to be the clawbot–notice this, which came out for last season. These can be found at this page, but I’m not sure when this robot was released last year. It was certainly there by early season I think.
Also, I really want to emphasize that ALL OF THESE ROBOTS can definitely be built with the competition super kit, you just won’t have some parts that are helpful such as polycarb. The competition super kit almost certainly has enough structure–24 35 by c channels is no joke, that’s how many c channels some clubs have in their entire stock.
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I found out that 2 of the designs could not be built by the super kit when I was scrolling through the comments section. B-Kinney asked:
Do any of them require parts that aren’t included in the V5 Competition Super Kit, other than the standoffs on 13907A’s design and the anti-slip mat on 1961Z’s design?
Then VEX_MCC replied:
the 1961Z design uses a little bit of lexan that can easily be changed out for plate or cut out of a sheet found at https://www.robosource.net/plastic-sheets/16-polycarbonate-sheet-12-24-00625.html using tin snips or a good pair of scissors.
The 6007R design is intended more for a freshman team starting off at a school with supplies, the bot is a built more rigidly but offers room for innovation in the intake as it can be much better (this was done intentionally).
neither the 6007R design nor the 1961z bots can be built from only the super kit.
The 13907A design is built entirely from the competition super kit without cutting anything the only part that is not included in the kit are couplers to put the standoffs together. (the super kit includes the mesh)
VEX_MCC Specifically stated in that post that 2 out of 3 of the designs could not be built with only the super kit.
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Pulling from your quote it says
I’m assuming you’ll have leftover plates you can use.
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I am aware that they noted that you cannot only build it with the super kit. They seem to have simply mentioned this because neither of those robots were explicitly designed with the competition super kit in mind. In addition, there are two "super kit"s. There is a v5 classroom super kit and a v5 competition super kit. These two kits are VASTLY different. 13907 was designed with the v5 competition super kit explicitly in mind, but the other two, I assure you, can be built from the competition super kit. For best results, you can also buy some polycarbonate to cut for the sake of the cube holder. A good place to do so is from robosource. In addition, 13907 was made to have parts used uncut. The other two are not, which is part of why they mentioned that disclaimer.
If you are building that robot, I’m willing to bet if the competition super kit does not have enough parts the parts you need to order will be worth under 20$, including the polycarbonate, as it will likely entail buying a couple extra flaps and maybe one or two gears. If a team has more than one competition super kit, or has a classroom super kit in addition to the competition super kit, I am very confident they will not need to order anything at all, even for the worst cases. Someone can do a thorough review of the designs, but, again, I’m also willing to bet both of them can be built (excluding the polycarbonate) entirely from the v5 competition super kit.
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Just make sure that you don’t literally cut down the metal, only to find that it’s too short. Especially if you have limited parts. But yes, following step-by-step instructions is not as fun as creating and learning for yourself.
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That makes a lot of sense. Thank you.
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The 6007R robot uses a good bit more metal than what is in the competition super kit. However, you may be able to modify the design so that it fits your needs. The 1961 robot also uses a couple parts that arent in the super kit on its intake besides the lexan. You could fix this by using 2 motors on the intake. I’d also like to point out that the robot I designed needed standoff couplers in addition to the super kit, but those are very cheap if you buy from vex and you may even be able to find them at a local hardware store. Good luck this season!
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we would like to emphasize the fact that
means that they use more parts then what is in the super kit, the 6007R bot requires a few more C-channels, 1961Z bot only requires a little bit of lexan which can be replaced with the plates included in the kit as well as some low strength gears which you would need to purchase or modify,
the 13709A bot is designed to not have to cut as that is something teams with a much lower budget end up restricting themselves to, many times not by choice.
All the bots only use 6-7 motors leaving some room for teams to improve upon.
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that was exactly the point. well said M8R.
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The title for this post is a little harsh don’t you think?
Might not be helpful for other new teams, it’s very rare for anyone to just post a full cad model much less one with an explanation attached
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One of the points for doing a challenge between us (1961Z) and the other two teams (6007R and 13907A) was to spark creativity into new beginner teams on the different ways this game can be played. While mine focused on scoring cubes in goals quickly and playing defense for the rest of the match, the others chose to do well in both the floor goal aspect along with the tower aspect. Our designs could be easily made from a v5 competition super kit with some creativity on how different parts in the kits could fulfill certain roles that we had. For instance, the 1961Z MCC concept uses lean to hold cubes in its tray, but it could be easily swapped out for a flat plate or using 1-by bars to serve as a makeshift tray.
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