About

There are quite a few things you will be able to learn from this documentation. However, you could read every single page here, all the linked sources, everything you can find on Chief Delphi, but if you don’t ever do the things you read about, then you will have missed the point. This documentation is not meant to be everything you need to know, it’s only half.

The rest is not something that can be boiled down into words and put onto a website, much less by me. The rest comes from trying all of it. The only way to get the rest is to do the things again and again. You will mess up, I can’t count the amount of times experienced mechanical members have broken drill bits. Mess up, learn from your mistakes and you will be doing everything right. Try doing the things you haven’t done before, and I promise you will get better at things so much faster.

FRC is a very interesting group of people. We build robots from scratch in two months while balancing it with school work. Everyone here is capable of doing the things we do. Everyone here is capable and does a tremendous amount to help the team. Ask questions! You have the capability to do anything anyone else is, the only difference is you haven’t learned it yet. Asking questions can be hard, because you must admit you don’t know. Trust me, the awkwardness of learning is more than worth than the payoff of knowing. Anyone on this team is happy to pass down their knowledge and help you grow. All you have to do is ask, and you shall receive.

Structure

There's a lot of pages in this section, so I've compiled a reading order and summary of the pages below:

  1. Tools and Machines - Getting to know what you'll be using and working with is key to understanding how mechanical works. It also gives you an introduction to safety, and who doesn't like being safe?
  2. Mechanisms - Learning about the different systems we use and we can use will help you learn what to build when.
  3. Materials - Learning about what we build with and when to use those will help you know what to use when and understand and make design choices better.
  4. Chains, Belt, Pulleys and Gears - These 4 things make up the core of how we transmit power to mechanisms. Learning how to use them, when to use them, and the strengths of each, will help you both understand and make decisions on their use.
  5. Prototyping - Making good and effective prototypes is an art. Learning how to do this will speed up your prototyping and design flow.
  6. Motors - With the many motors FRC now has available, its useful to know the strengths of each motor and when to use each one. There's a ton of information available on motors that may not used everyday, but is great to know.
  7. Math - Who doesn't love math? With our use of CAD, less math needs to be done specifically for Mechanical, but knowing the math helps you justify design decisions and modify them if needed.
  8. CNC - Using a CNC tends to be a bit different than normal mechanical practices. Learning how it works, how to use it, how to generate CAM files (and what CAM files are), will help you become a one person CNC army.
  9. Everything about Everything - This page is a repository of information that doesn't fit into any of the other pages and can help answer more in depth questions you have about mechanical.

Until next,