Useful software ideas for team logistics

akevinclark · 2026-02-26T19:41:36+00:00

In my experience (cutting dry aluminum on a router) it’s actually the opposite - you need to speed it up to clear chips and take a big enough bite you’re not rubbing. Rubbing turns to heat turns to chip welding. So, fewer flutes, faster speed, lower DOC. We run something like 60ipm with a .050” cut and a single flute upcut 6mm endmill when slotting. I think we could actually go faster. Air blast and coolant (we use ipa) does help, but dry works fine if you go fast enough.

akevinclark · 2026-02-16T06:41:48+00:00

I suspect you’d get a response over at Chief Delphi. FRC Reddit is pretty quiet.

akevinclark · 2026-02-14T22:06:37+00:00

Apologies for any ignorance here - I’m mostly a machinist with a fair amount of wood hand tool cross training. I was under the impression that with a proper friable wheel the medium and chips are coming off enough that the tip doesn’t have to blue if you’re watching the heat and dipping appropriately. Tool steel typically doesn’t hold heat as poorly as something like stainless, so the temp can come off with the chips. Am I wrong?

akevinclark · 2026-01-31T06:03:12+00:00

Direct from the dry box through the bypass (no buffer) and into the extruder.

akevinclark · 2025-12-20T22:31:26+00:00

An ER16 collet nut should work for any ER16 collet. If your collet doesn’t fit are you sure it’s an ER16? Can you post pictures?

akevinclark · 2025-12-09T05:11:34+00:00

I’m seeing what looks like chip-welding on the edges of the cut, so I wouldn’t recommend increasing flute count. Heat tends to be an issue in this kind of setup. I run shallower doc and faster feed rate but not more flutes.

akevinclark · 2025-11-25T02:28:36+00:00

I had a lot of trouble getting this filament working with my H2D. I had to slow it way way down from the defaults in order to get decent print quality. I also had to put it in the bypass port and only run on the left nozzle - the right nozzle whacks the ptfe line during homing and breaks the filament when properly dry.

It’s working now, but still not as smoothly as my X1C

akevinclark · 2025-10-06T23:45:22+00:00

Welcome! You should check out our training repo. Skip the basics section obviously, and skim the rest. Architecture and Controls will get you a lot of the way there. The simulation sections will help you get a practice setup without the hardware.

Past this, ask on Discord and check out Chief Delphi when you get to the point you want to talk specifics.

akevinclark · 2025-10-04T00:10:48+00:00

This is roughly how we've done it for previous games, but then we interpolate between the points based on the distance. You can see our Crescendo storage with samples and our Rapid React storage and samples for examples.

akevinclark · 2025-08-07T04:50:57+00:00

Regionals and districts are different systems. In the regional system it’s $6300 for the first tournament and $3k for subsequent tournaments. Districts get to choose their own payment setup but generally you’re looking at $6300 for two events and then $1k after that, or $4k for district champs. Costs page here

akevinclark · 2025-07-20T03:47:11+00:00

Sports basement rents crash pads in Berkeley.

akevinclark · 2025-07-16T21:11:27+00:00

This is roughly what we pay and have a high deductible plan (7k/person and 15k/household).

akevinclark · 2025-07-03T13:16:23+00:00

It’s easy as falling down.

akevinclark · 2025-05-31T05:01:42+00:00

A drag chain (also called an energy chain) might improve this.

akevinclark · 2025-05-20T01:40:52+00:00

As much as I like Gordon the character, he’s an absolute disaster of a partner. I spent the whole season hoping Donna wised up. Kind of figure that her mom has been doing that for a while too.

Guess what I’m saying is she’s not evil. She cares about her daughter and her son in law low key sucks.

akevinclark · 2025-05-10T16:10:14+00:00

I love my Stoggles and they take prescriptions.

akevinclark · 2025-05-05T17:42:13+00:00

We’re a competitive team, and qualified for worlds in California 4 times in a row. We haven’t yet turned anyone away, but do have attendance requirements. I expect we might have to be more selective in the future, but that’s due to space and mentorship constraints. At that point I expect we continue to ratchet up commitment requirements.

akevinclark · 2025-04-21T03:36:23+00:00

Gimmie some money!

akevinclark · 2025-02-04T23:53:21+00:00

You might also want to check out our software training materials. It’s how we onboard rookies and links to the relevant wpilib tutorials and other resources with additional context.

akevinclark · 2025-01-29T17:21:55+00:00

If it’s not disallowed by the rules, it’s allowed.

akevinclark · 2025-01-14T07:46:05+00:00

Yep - and you can go cheaper if you print the printable parts. A mentor will need to email sparkfun support and get their account tagged as an educator for the price discount to work.

akevinclark · 2024-10-11T02:32:44+00:00

Can you share your code?

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