Hello Everybody,
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I think a goal of many home hobbyists (besides building deadly dangerous weapons) is to create robots that could enter the competitions (have the ability to) although they won’t, as they can’t afford entrance fee/plane ticket/hotel fees. It gives us something to strive for in a world full of idealess boredom.
Anyways, it seems that for many of us enthusiasts that whenever we buy parts, we’ll need to purchase more to use them.
So I have a few questions that will hopefully help all of us teamless folk to build high quality robots with actual purposes. Competition style robots can always be used for games around the house, and can actually be useful in the fact that they are able to lift items to carry with them.
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So to the Questions (assume that you have the starter kit for all of these, also assuming that we are in remote control):
Which parts do you value the most for increasing a robots usability, and what would you make sure to stock up on? is it motors? is it more gears? more wheels? more add-on kits (rack/pinion, treads etc.)
If you had to choose the top 3 fasteners to buy the most of, which would they be? How much of each? For buying X product, how many more of fastener Y will you need?
If you had to choose the top 3 most used/useful metal pieces for building a chassis, what would they be? What pieces do you consider essential to your builds? What are some metal plates/channels/rails you rarely use? What metal provides the most usability, as it can be easily changed to your needs? Do you buy size-specific parts or buy larger and cut smaller? How much of X metal would you stock up on?
If you had to choose the top 3 most used/useful metal pieces for building an arm or other mechanism commonly used in competition, what would they be? What pieces do you consider essential to your builds? What are some metal plates/channels/rails you rarely use? What metal provides the most usability, as it can be easily cut/bent/changed to your needs? Do you buy size-specific parts or buy larger and cut smaller? How much of X metal would you stock up on?
Besides fasteners, what parts do you always want to have a lot of in stock? How much of said item should you buy?
How much of each motion item do you need for your robots? This includes motors, servos, treads, chains, omni-wheels, leg wheels, etc. Which do you use for transportation and which for mechanisms?
Do you like to use wire ties/rubber bands/velcro wrap/vex foam/latex tubing/servo extension wires in your builds? How much should you stock up on?
What axles/standoffs should you purchase? How many? What size?
Are there any other things you recommend to stock up on in order to build a competition style/size robot?
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Thank you all so VERY MUCH for your feedback. I am creating this thread so that future vex teams, and hobbyists who wish to build competition style robots will know where to start parts-wise. I know that there are a lot of questions to answer, so I will reward you with a completely unrelated picture to the topic.
However, the picture proves that the cake is indeed not a lie. It also makes the science get done. When consumed by vex users, it makes a neat gun. For the people who are still alive.
