garyhlucas
Stainless
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2013
- Location
- New Jersey
I became a mentor for the local FIRST robotics team Mercury 1089 last season, because my grandson joined the team. I casually mentioned I could make parts on my home built CNC mill if needed. What I didn't know was that a mentor that had been with the team for many years had always made the machined parts, and he was now team leader at another school. So I wound up cutting and machining virtually every part on the robot! I also spent one weekend slicing up sheets of plywood to build a playing field to test the robots.
At the end of the season the lead mentor for the Design group also left. So now I am lead mentor for Design. I worked with the design team last year and they were using Inventor. I knew the school had an Inventor class. what I didn't know that was that none of the students on the team were in the Inventor class. When I said I'd make parts I told the students I would only make parts, they had to draw or model them, and my grandson would program them for our machine in CamBam. The lead student was showing me a part and I recommended he move a hole over to make it easier to machine. He got this funny look on his face. I said "Whats the problem? Just change the dimension". So we opened the file and my draw dropped. Not one single dimension or constraint in the whole model! Took us 45 minutes to fix it.
So this year I am moving the team over to SolidWorks, what they did in Inventor is useless. Not because I use SolidWorks, although that does help. Because these kids will be looking for jobs soon. What do you want on your very sparse resume? A program with 3% market share or one with like 35%? Getting SolidWorks for the team took a huge effort. SolidWorks sponsors FIRST with free student licenses. The licenses specifically EXCLUDE installing the software on school computers! So I raised hell with SW about this as it essentially says rich district where every kid has a personal computer gets to use SolidWorks. Poor districts with only school computers don't. I finally got written permission to install on school computers only for use by FIRST.
I also have a summer project for the team that I have almost completed. All the better teams are getting CNC routers, lasers, and such. The advantage isn't in being able to make better parts. It is all about getting parts made very quickly during the 6 week design from scratch, make parts, build, program, test season. So I am making parts to build a very special metal cutting CNC router. An old customer donated $3500 worth of 8020, I acquired linear rails and large stepper motors for a project I abandoned. I got a large metal coolant pan to go under the table, a large electrical cabinet, sound proofing materials, an industrial shop vac and other parts at the local junk yard. I cleaned and cut up all the metal and machined every piece for the fasteners. So when school starts and team has little to do until January we are going to build our own router. A fabulous teaching experience they can brag about.
However the point of my post here is that FIRST is a fabulous way to pass on your knowledge in any field to students who are motivated. You know they are motivated because this program is a huge amount of after school work for the students and we worked lots of late nights getting to the competition last season.
There are over 7500 FIRST teams so likely one near you. You don't need anything more than a desire to mentor students. So who here is already involved?
At the end of the season the lead mentor for the Design group also left. So now I am lead mentor for Design. I worked with the design team last year and they were using Inventor. I knew the school had an Inventor class. what I didn't know that was that none of the students on the team were in the Inventor class. When I said I'd make parts I told the students I would only make parts, they had to draw or model them, and my grandson would program them for our machine in CamBam. The lead student was showing me a part and I recommended he move a hole over to make it easier to machine. He got this funny look on his face. I said "Whats the problem? Just change the dimension". So we opened the file and my draw dropped. Not one single dimension or constraint in the whole model! Took us 45 minutes to fix it.
So this year I am moving the team over to SolidWorks, what they did in Inventor is useless. Not because I use SolidWorks, although that does help. Because these kids will be looking for jobs soon. What do you want on your very sparse resume? A program with 3% market share or one with like 35%? Getting SolidWorks for the team took a huge effort. SolidWorks sponsors FIRST with free student licenses. The licenses specifically EXCLUDE installing the software on school computers! So I raised hell with SW about this as it essentially says rich district where every kid has a personal computer gets to use SolidWorks. Poor districts with only school computers don't. I finally got written permission to install on school computers only for use by FIRST.
I also have a summer project for the team that I have almost completed. All the better teams are getting CNC routers, lasers, and such. The advantage isn't in being able to make better parts. It is all about getting parts made very quickly during the 6 week design from scratch, make parts, build, program, test season. So I am making parts to build a very special metal cutting CNC router. An old customer donated $3500 worth of 8020, I acquired linear rails and large stepper motors for a project I abandoned. I got a large metal coolant pan to go under the table, a large electrical cabinet, sound proofing materials, an industrial shop vac and other parts at the local junk yard. I cleaned and cut up all the metal and machined every piece for the fasteners. So when school starts and team has little to do until January we are going to build our own router. A fabulous teaching experience they can brag about.
However the point of my post here is that FIRST is a fabulous way to pass on your knowledge in any field to students who are motivated. You know they are motivated because this program is a huge amount of after school work for the students and we worked lots of late nights getting to the competition last season.
There are over 7500 FIRST teams so likely one near you. You don't need anything more than a desire to mentor students. So who here is already involved?