So what are you doing here?
We're down at the Milwaukee Regional event for FIRST Robotics. We just brought
down our PCNC 440, just to help out the machine shop was the Sussex High
School. So we're hanging out making parts and helping teams repair and build their
robots. We've done some pulley lightning, we've done some brackets, we've done some
custom plastic brackets, and pulleys, and honestly, I don't know what everything is
for. They just kind of bring us a DXF file or they just bring us a
handwritten little drawing, and they just ask us to make it or fix it the robots.
All the teams have weight limits. So one of the teams needing to lighten up their
machine a little bit. So they brought over their gears and they were just
about a three and a half inch round, and they just wanted to lighten it up. So we
modeled it up in Fusion 360 quick. We put some big lightening slots and grooves in
it. And then, we just machined it all right here on the fly. So it was
definitely one of the more fun parts. I'm Jason Nettessheim. I'm a mentor for
FIRST Robotics, and I helped set up and operate the machine shop every year at
the Wisconsin Region. My full-time employment is as a tool and die maker a
Reich tool and design. I'm the supervisor of the wire EDM department there. And my
company is really supportive of the work that we do here. Any of the teams that
come to the event can come use our services in the machine shop. So anything
they didn't finish building before they arrived here, or if they have a breakdown,
and need a part re-manufactured we'll do it here, and they can make a drawing a
pencil drawing, or something to bring in a broken part, and we just manufacture it.
We do it as quick as we can for them. Here at the regional, we run a pretty
good machine shop. We have a nine-inch lathe, we have bench grinders, and disc
sanders, band saws. We have Milwaukee electric tool loans us a bunch of their
equipment. We can't do any welding but we can make
almost anything in this little shop. By having a Tomach milling machine in here...
it gives us extra capability. We can machine shapes. It would be very difficult for us
to do on a manual machine, and help speed up the process. When we have more complex
parts that have to be made. Also, some of the stuff gets pretty accurate with
bearing locations, and with the accuracy of the Tormach, it helps us produce
those parts. My name is Eric Williams. I'm one of the co-lead mentors of Rockford
Robotics. I'm a electrical engineer by profession, and this is my second job in
life. So Rockford Robotics is a community team. We have students from area high
schools in Rockford...so the Rockford Public School System, various private
schools, and home school students, as well. You guys machined a drive shaft for us
so we put that right into the bosch seat motor that we use to rotate our
turret, which moves our arm side-to-side on the robot. Now I just saw the match
just now, and it was very intense. In just the last second you were able to
lift a robot. We were, we were able to climb. the match ended way
closer than we thought it would be. We were able to get the climb in. We have a
couple issues that we're still trying to work out on the robot. We have like,
about a half hour before our next match, and we have to replace a few parts on
the robot before we can get back to fully operational. We we are very
appreciative for Tormach coming out and providing machining services to the
teams here, and we, you know, want to be out there in the community. That's part
of our mission as a FIRST robotics team is to promote STEM education. And we're
really thankful for you guys for for helping do that. This is my second year
coming down. Last year was my first. It was definitely an experience for me. I
was really surprised and just...I didn't really know much about it
and I was really when I got here, I was really inspired by it. And it's just it's
a really cool program. I think every mentor that I've talked to said they wish they
had this when they were in school. It was just kind of a really neat program and
how it all works. We've got a couple other events coming up. We've got a event
in La Crosse that will be at, another Wisconsin regional, and then we have a...
Detroit, we're gonna be out as well. So we'll go to the Detroit Championship event
and help out in the machine shop as well. If you guys don't know, or aren't familiar
with FIRST Robotics, you should definitely check it out, and look into it.
If you have the opportunity, I would highly recommend becoming a mentor and
helping all these kids learn about manufacturing and robotics and just the
whole process is really a wonderful program so, I definitely recommend
looking into it.