Manufacturing Sponsors

In order to build our robot, the team needs all the parts which we design in CAD to be manufactured. We have approximately 150 unique parts which we can not easily manufacture ourselves (even if we could achieve the same level of accuracy in manufacturing as a manufacturing sponsor can, we do not currently have the space for the tools required to manufacture these parts), and we rely on the generosity of several extremely supportive manufacturing companies who manufacture many of our parts. In general, our manufactured parts fall into two categories: Sheet metal parts, which can be punched, lasered or water jetted and are then bent, or machined parts, which are generally machined on a lathe or mill, and mostly consist of shafts and a few more unsual parts made out of tube stock or blocks of metal.

In the summer of 2012, our previous sheet metal sponsor, Berger Manufacturing, went out of business, and during the fall a group of dedicated students and mentors contacted and talked to many different manufacturing companies, and several companies were generous enough to offer their support and offered to manufacture some of our parts for us. The following companies represent those manufacturing companies which graciously offered their support during the current school year. I have also listed some of the which each company have manufactured for us.

We also received a great deal of valuable help from Jay Critchfield, a team mentor who turned many of the parts which required a lathe.

Past sponsors not mentioned above include:

ScreenTech, Inc., Calmax Technology, EKG Precision Machining, RDC Machine, Whizz Systems, Cortec Precision Sheetmetal, Letech Manufacturing, Machine Applications Technology, MJB Precision Manufacturing, Inc. and WestFab Manufacturing

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