Mentoring at high school shop for robotics club

[forhire]

For the last 3 years my younger brother, a software engineer, has helped out with his local high school robotics club. Over New Years he came to my shop and hung out for a few days. We spent a ton of time talking about the upcoming seasonal robotics competition. He wanted to know if I'd be able to make a few part for them. I said sure and signed up as a mentor. I assumed they'd send me prints and I'd build a few parts. After I went to see what they were doing I realized they needed more help. I must be crazy... or have way too much time on my hands. So for the last 6 or 8 weeks I've been making the 45 mile drive to help in their shop for a few hours in the afternoon. It's been pretty rewarding. I figured I'd post up a few photos of some of the shop stuff we've built.

First thing I was asked to setup was the manual mill to drill the ends of long extrusions. I hate rotating the head unless I really don't have another choice. So I dug out an old autodrill and made an extrusion drilling machine. It has worked perfect because any student can use it. They then tap the holes with a #10-32 tap in a cordless drill. Very fast.




I align the first clamp I ground a length of 3/8" HSS blank. It worked like a charm. I also discovered my cold gun works great on the surface grinder.

[forhire]

The shop has two cnc mills. Both were under power but nobody knew how to run them. I've spent quite a bit of time getting the smaller Centroid based knee mill upgraded and have been training the students on it. The larger Matsuura MC-1000V from the late 80's will require more time.

First thing I did was install a USB plug on the outside of the Centroid cabinet because nobody uses floppy disks anymore. The Centroid turned out to be a M39 running the CNC10 version 2.61(linux based). I upgraded it to version 2.72 which is the latest this platform will support. This gave us compression tapping which was my entire goal with upgrading. About 90% of what they do is drill and tap. I also had to flash the mother board bios to get bootable USB support which makes backing it up a lot easier and upgraded the memory from 64 megs to 512 megs. Pathetic by today standards but find me a modern PC with ISA slots.

Setting up the tool library took some time to wrap my head around it. In the end I ground some 1/2" chrome rod and made a reference tool. I then ordered a new cable for the touch tool setter and made a tool rack to help keep their tools in order. The Centroid has proven to be a treat because with their built in Intercon CAM system they can program nearly all they 2D stuff they need. I have one student that can now take a print and turn out a part... even when I'm not there. Including tapped holes.




Also made a speed handle for the Kurt vise. We need to make a second one because we have a second loaner vise on the mill. The handle is great. If you don't have a speed handle for your vise I strongly recommend making one (or buying one).

[Oldendum]

FIRST Robotics?

[forhire]

FIRST Robotics?

Yes. It's crazy what these kids design and build in 6 weeks. Their main robot has been bagged for a couple weeks as per the completion rules. They are building a second robot to use as a practice/debugging platform. I don't have photos of all the parts we've made. Most are extrusion based with lots of holes and cutouts.

[Oldendum]

My older son co-founded the FIRST team at their school for the 2002 season in his senior year. I was a mentor for 5 years and my younger son (who is now a welder/machinist) also did it for 5 years.

It is a lot of work and really crazy with the 6 week build schedule. We had the school wood shop and no machining capability. I was the parent responsible for the basic drive train. Amazing what one can do with some sprockets and chain. Our first year, the robot was mostly plywood. with wooden drive wheels. By the 5th year, a 4 wheel drive basher that received a Motorola Quality Award at a competition. I never had a drive train break.

One year a challenge was to get robots hanging off a bar about 10 feet up in the final minute. In our regional competition at Richmond, we had all four robots hanging off the bar. The crowd went wild! I think it only happened at one other competition.

I had a great time working with all the kids, even if it did consume a couple hundred hours each year. Even got invited as a chaperone on a senior class trip because I was "cool".

I went to two national competitions in Orlando and Houston (on my own dime). Loads of fun. Fundraising to get the appx. $10,000. needed to compete was not so fun.

Our first robot in 2002. (My son in the rag wool jeep cap driving.) One of the Virginia Commonwealth University FIRST scholarships in engineering is named after him. He was on a scholarship in the e-school for two years before he was killed in Iraq.

[forhire]

Awesome Oldendum. I'm looking forward to seeing some of the completion. This year they are stacking totes.

[Oldendum]

... This year they are stacking totes.

They did that once before! Maybe 2003. But with the game and point strategy, not many got stacked. More mayhem, as it often was. Our stacker bot was our first 4 wheel drive. It could climb a ramp really well(with me sitting on it) and could drive pretty well. That year, the school shop was shut down for a week due to snow. I had to get the robot in its crate and take it to work where we had space for the kids to keep building. Tall blue wooden box that looked like an outhouse. Commuted to work in my little Toyota pickup with that damned crate in it all week.

Hey, a good forum site for FIRST is the Chief Delphi site. http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/index.php?

One funny thing. My kids were two of about four kids who could actually drive the robots effectively in competition. They don't exactly handle like a Ferrari. Having some mechanical understanding and having had a hand in building it gave them a leg up.

[MinnesotaDave]

For the last 3 years my younger brother, a software engineer, has helped out with his local high school robotics club. Over New Years he came to my shop and hung out for a few days. We spent a ton of time talking about the upcoming seasonal robotics competition. He wanted to know if I'd be able to make a few part for them. I said sure and signed up as a mentor. I assumed they'd send me prints and I'd build a few parts. After I went to see what they were doing I realized they needed more help. I must be crazy... or have way too much time on my hands. So for the last 6 or 8 weeks I've been making the 45 mile drive to help in their shop for a few hours in the afternoon. It's been pretty rewarding. I figured I'd post up a few photos of some of the shop stuff we've built.

First thing I was asked to setup was the manual mill to drill the ends of long extrusions. I hate rotating the head unless I really don't have another choice. So I dug out an old autodrill and made an extrusion drilling machine. It has worked perfect because any student can use it. They then tap the holes with a #10-32 tap in a cordless drill. Very fast.




I align the first clamp I ground a length of 3/8" HSS blank. It worked like a charm. I also discovered my cold gun works great on the surface grinder.

That's great!

My sons team just competed this weekend in FIRST robotics - they got 16th out of 60

This is the schools 3rd year, with another rookie coach who's never done it before - I think they did great
(We just got back - They are very tired but of good spirit)

Good luck to the kiddos

[forhire]

That's great!

My sons team just competed this weekend in FIRST robotics - they got 16th out of 60

This is the schools 3rd year, with another rookie coach who's never done it before - I think they did great
(We just got back - They are very tired but of good spirit)

Good luck to the kiddos

Congratulations on your strong placement today.

[Oldendum]

If the build is crazy, the competitions are even crazier. Three looong days.

What are your team numbers? My older one was with Team 346 for a season, then co-founded Team 975.

Incidentally, there are college scholarships available for FIRST participants. The other co-founder of our team got a 4 year scholarship in mechanical engineering to VCU engineering. She got a BSME (and later an MBA) and works for Dominion Virginia Power.

[Insaneride]

forhire, Ive been wanting to make a speed handle but dont have CNC. How could I make the hex holes in aluminum like yours? My alternative is to weld a socket to a handle(12mm?). For handle I was thinking an old fashioned bathroom faucet handle but what I have at the moment is a 2" tow ball. The ball doesnt seem like it will have enough torque thou so its on hold.

BTW, thats cool that you can share your expertise with students.

[MinnesotaDave]

Congratulations on your strong placement today.

Thank you What team are you helping?

Ours is the RoboJacks Team 4674 (Lumberjacks being our normal school team name).

If the build is crazy, the competitions are even crazier. Three looong days.

What are your team numbers? My older one was with Team 346 for a season, then co-founded Team 975.

Incidentally, there are college scholarships available for FIRST participants. The other co-founder of our team got a 4 year scholarship in mechanical engineering to VCU engineering. She got a BSME (and later an MBA) and works for Dominion Virginia Power.

Long days is right - the kids are up at 6:00am and don't stop for dinner till about 7:00pm

Thanks for the reminder about scholarships - I will pass it along

[AluminumWelder]

they are lucky to have your help!

[Sharon Needles]

Forhire, what is a cold gun and what is it's purpose? Those kids are lucky to have you there helping them out, I wish I could've had someone like you helping me when I took shop in high school! My school got a little cheapo mill/lathe combo when I was a sophomore and I was the first and only student to use it through my senior year. I had to teach myself to use it and was limited to HSS tool blanks which I had to learn to grind on my own (shop teacher was usually too busy wrangling delinquents). The mill part was garbage (lots of slop in the head) but I was able to get decent results with the lathe.

[forhire]

forhire, Ive been wanting to make a speed handle but dont have CNC. How could I make the hex holes in aluminum like yours?

Mark and drill your 6 corner holes. Drill/bore your 3/4" center hole. Use a file to clean up your flats. Here's a drawing that may help.

they are lucky to have your help!

Thanks.

Forhire, what is a cold gun and what is it's purpose?

It uses a vortex tube to produce cold air using compressed air. It's an alternative to messy coolant. I don't have flood coolant setup on my surface grinder yet so I figured I'd give it a try. It worked great. I originally bought it to use on my knee mill but I generally prefer cooling with my fogbuster which is a lot quieter. If your milling with carbide dry it can help keep your part cooler and maintain better dimensions.

[AlabamaJoe]

Words escape me. Wow. Simply WOW!

[forhire]

Words escape me. Wow. Simply WOW!

Thanks Joe.

I found another interesting photo on my phone. This was Friday's little introduction to cutter compensation. This part was programmed using the Intercon from the print. They were pretty impressed they could use real dimensions and the control would adjust for them. Until now, aside from the canned circle pocket routine, they have had to do the offset math. The profile was then looped to depth, another first. Once profiled it was flipped and milled off to free the part. This is a bearing block of some kind. The second operation required drilling and tapping the base which was also done quickly on the cnc. Sorry I didn't snap a photo of the finished part. It gets pretty busy.

[MinnesotaDave]

Forhire - that's really awesome

Is the students' design complicated enough that machining is necessary to complete the robot?

Or is this just part of the concepts the coach wanted to include for the kids to learn?

[7A749]

That's really awesome Randy!

[JAS]

This is great. How fun to help the kids, and to teach them useful things at the same time. Many high schools are loosing their hands on shops, it was a dirty old welding shop that we had when I went to school, I was always wishing they'd get lathes and mills, later after I got out of school the high school had my grandpa come in (life long machinist) and advise on what mills and lathes to buy, that was 25 or more years ago, now that school no longer has any of it, or for that matter anyone that knows how to run them if they did.
So many kids just take it for granted that parts come from the Internet or the store, it's fantastic that you're helping them to make their own parts. Good job!

[wornoutoldwelder]

You are a true neighborhood hero, Mister. Those kids will remember you and what you taught them forever.

HS shop class is almost as extinct as Home Economics class.

Just hope that shop class remains once Common Core gets fully rooted there.

[forhire]

Forhire - that's really awesome
Is the students' design complicated enough that machining is necessary to complete the robot?
Or is this just part of the concepts the coach wanted to include for the kids to learn?

I'm sure they would have found a way to do it without the custom parts. Another mentor has a nice shop and in the past he's done most of the machine work offsite. The coach's goal is to have the kids machining their own parts, I'm sure that's why the school has invested in two really nice cnc machines. My goal is to get the shop teacher and a couple of students fairly proficient on the machine so when I leave it doesn't sit idle. We've built 2 robots this year. One for practice and one for competition. The competition robot is a mess. A lot of ill fitting parts. I think after they finished making the parts it took a week to hand fit, massage, and coax it together. After the competition robot was finished we started the practice robot using a simpler design to speed manufacture. It was decided to do all the parts on the cnc because the hand layout of many of the parts was so inconsistent. This revealed a number of real issues, like the chop saw they were using wasn't cutting square and the solidworks default of rounding to 2 decimal places wasn't precise enough. Had we discovered those issues earlier the hand made parts may have gone together better.

That's really awesome Randy!

Thanks.

This is great. How fun to help the kids, and to teach them useful things at the same time. Many high schools are loosing their hands on shops, it was a dirty old welding shop that we had when I went to school, I was always wishing they'd get lathes and mills, later after I got out of school the high school had my grandpa come in (life long machinist) and advise on what mills and lathes to buy, that was 25 or more years ago, now that school no longer has any of it, or for that matter anyone that knows how to run them if they did.
So many kids just take it for granted that parts come from the Internet or the store, it's fantastic that you're helping them to make their own parts. Good job!

I about fell over when I walked into their shop and saw the machines they have. I wanted to cry when I learned nobody knew how to run them. Most schools have forgotten the trades. This school has a bunch of trade programs, from automotive, small engines, welding, construction and they are reviving machining.

You are a true neighborhood hero, Mister. Those kids will remember you and what you taught them forever.
HS shop class is almost as extinct as Home Economics class.
Just hope that shop class remains once Common Core gets fully rooted there.

For me it was my junior high teacher Mr. Ford. I swear his goal was to put us on every machine and use every tool in the shop. I have one student that installed the MillDemo program on his computer and printed the manual so he can learn everything. Soon the student will be the master.

[MinnesotaDave]

I'm sure they would have found a way to do it without the custom parts. Another mentor has a nice shop and in the past he's done most of the machine work offsite. The coach's goal is to have the kids machining their own parts, I'm sure that's why the school has invested in two really nice cnc machines. My goal is to get the shop teacher and a couple of students fairly proficient on the machine so when I leave it doesn't sit idle. We've built 2 robots this year. One for practice and one for competition. The competition robot is a mess. A lot of ill fitting parts. I think after they finished making the parts it took a week to hand fit, massage, and coax it together. After the competition robot was finished we started the practice robot using a simpler design to speed manufacture. It was decided to do all the parts on the cnc because the hand layout of many of the parts was so inconsistent. This revealed a number of real issues, like the chop saw they were using wasn't cutting square and the solidworks default of rounding to 2 decimal places wasn't precise enough. Had we discovered those issues earlier the hand made parts may have gone together better.

Thank you for that information - I would not have known a program like solidworks would have defaults like that (I don't know how to run one of those anyway though ).

It is also nice to know some coaches do work outside of the school - then I won't feel bad if I take some parts home and work on them with my kid in our shop next year.

Made a second robot? Nice idea - kids could keep practicing their driving and operating skills

Many kudos for you helping the kiddies out - bet it was fun

[Oldendum]

... HS shop class is almost as extinct as Home Economics class...

My HS didn't have a shop class. But it did have a Home Ec class full of girls, so my buddy and I took that class.

We made some sugar cookies for a teacher meeting. Except we goofed and reversed the proportions of sugar and salt, heh, heh, heh.

About 4 or 5 years ago, our HS gutted the wood shop and turned it into a weight/exercise room. The mechanical drafting room was converted to an ROTC drill room. No more place or tools to work on robots.

[MinnesotaDave]

About 4 or 5 years ago, our HS gutted the wood shop and turned it into a weight/exercise room. The mechanical drafting room was converted to an ROTC drill room. No more place or tools to work on robots.

This should be a criminal act and punishable under the law.......

Beside, ROTC can drill outside - they won't melt