I modified the cubic ladder structure into a thin rectangular design, and it turned out to be an excellent filament holder! I cut one of the horizontal triangular poles into 12cm segments. If you’re not confident in precise cutting and drilling, you can also draw and 3D print the parts instead — it works just as well!
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Very cool!
I feel a quick project for my 8th graders to finish off the year 
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Nice!
I love it.
Shared this with the rest of the VEX Engineering Team and there is already a fight over who gets to keep old ladders we have in the office so they can make their own!
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Could you start streaming it live while we start making some 
?
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lucky for our school we don’t have a vex room we have to work in the back of our science room on 1 lab table for 3 teams. we don’t have a 3d printer in the room but we have one in the school. we also only have a $1500 budget every year
You should have plenty. I have no concept as to how all those field elements at worlds get built each year. Have mercy on the souls that had to build all the slapshot dispensers.
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I think we honestly only had 2-3 ladders left together in the office after worlds. We gave away as many of the ladders (and other game-specific elements) used at the event as possible.
Depending on the year, approximately 150+ Field for each competition are needed across divisions, practice fields, skills, the arena, and spares.
Field walls stay assembled in 3-segment long sections and are placed on custom carts that are able to be warehoused on racks. IQ Field perimeters stay complete and are placed on similar carts.
Field Tiles are replaced every 2 years. If one side is still new, they will be flipped and used again next year.
All elements are assembled to some degree in advance. Once at the venue, things go together relatively quickly. A crew of 4 people can reasonably assemble an entire field from ground up in about a half-hour, depending on the year.
Pre-assembly starts months in advance. The assembly crew reviews instructions with the engineering team, and then builds a “Master Field” that other fields are built to match.
A crew of I’d estimate 10-20 work to assemble fields in the weeks leading up to worlds. Periodic check-ins occur to help discuss any modifications that were necessary, and to discuss if any assembly needs to be improved for Worlds. We have the benefit of being able to predict what parts will potentially need to be replaced at Worlds, as we track replacements to customers throughout the year. We get to decide to either bring extra spares, or attempt to strengthen the assembly.
All spares are pre-assembled, and if necessary, elements are replaced at Worlds in their entirety, even if only a small little part broke. It’s just easier to plan to always fix every single problem the same way as opposed to try an predict multiple failures and different hot-fixes for each.
Once assembly is complete and we’re ready to travel, carts are loaded onto 53ft trailers. I’m not sure exactly how many trucks we take to Worlds, but I’m fairly certain its about 15-20 trucks from just our warehouse. There are more for production and other various things.
VEX Worlds is wildly interesting logistics undertaking. It’s still impressive to me, and I’m a part of the machine!
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This is so interesting to hear!
Would there ever be the possibility of a video on the VEX YouTube channel showing the work to set worlds up?
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I know years ago at the EP Summit Bob toyed around with ideas of making carts and risers as a product for EPs, did not come to be. I found moving our fields in 12’ sections on U Boat stocking carts (narrow and hold a lot of load) works well.
Yes Worlds set up is pretty epic adventure!
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We’ve looked into it a few times.
We get requests for our Field Risers, Field Carts, and other proprietary parts we use for Worlds every year.
There’s just no way to make it work for both sides. These were never designed for mass producibility, shipping, or customer-use. They are one-off, designed to work with our warehousing system, our trucks, and have features that customers simply would not need or want.
This creates a product we would have to sell at an exorbitantly high price, in order to make up for high production, material, and stocking costs. That price would almost surely be cost-prohibitive to most of our users.
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Totally get it, as I mentioned it was years ago. Since then, for fields carts - we store four on u Boat carts very practical, easy to roll onto district trucks to move building to building:
For field risers, Robosource rolled out their solution which works well for us.
So, end of the day, EPs have figured out solutions without IFI having to spread itself too thin.
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