Tools, Equipment, and Software
Hardware
Haas Mini Mill
Our Haas Mini Mill is a 3 axis CNC mill capable of machining most metals including aluminum, steel, and titanium. This machines has been used to make most of the metal components for our robots such as the chassis and weapon.
Features:
- 7.5 HP 6,000 RPM spindle
- BT-40 spindle taper
- ER16 and ER-32 collet tooling
- 10 tool umbrella style turret
- Flood coolant system
- Chip auger management


Shapeoko 3 XXL CNC Router
Our CNC router is useful for cutting large sheets of soft materials such as plastic and wood with a max cutting area of 33″ x 33″. It has a custom enclosure and is located in our electronics lab. This machine has been used to cut polycarbonate panels for our older combat robot.

VersaLaser Laser Cutter
Our laser cutter is used for engraving or cutting 2D shapes out of paper, plastic, or wood. The max cutting area is 12″ x 24″. We have an air filter connected to the machine that removes toxic fumes created from laser cutting. This tool has been useful for rapid prototyping 2D parts like the top plate for our older robot Free Hugs.

Bambu Lab A1 3D Printers
Our 2 brand new 3D printers are an essential tool for rapid prototyping. They allow us to make plastic models of parts for fitment and size testing at a very low cost. We also use them for 3D printing the plastic 1lb combat robots built by the education division. The materials we use in the 3D printers include PLA, Super PLA+, PETG, ABS, and TPU. They are also capable of printing more exotic filaments such as nylon and carbon fiber filled plastics.

Combat Arena
We can use this arena to test our 1lb combat robots (PLANTS). We found it for a good price in Sacramento, and while it’s new for us, we’re glad to have it.

Other Equipment
- Vertical and horizontal band saws
- Drill press
- Welding equipment
- Belt sander
- Bench grinder
- Scroll saw
- Table saw
- Planer
- Wood and metal chop saws

Software
Autodesk Fusion
Fusion 360 is our preferred CAD design software because of its easy to use features like rendering, CAM, and simulation. Fusion 360 is used primarily to design our combat robots, such as Free Hugs, before the files are prepped for manufacturing. CAM, otherwise known as Computer Aided Manufacturing, is how we create toolpaths for CNC machines, such as our Haas Mini Mill, to make parts. Fusion also allows us to run stress simulations on parts so we can optimize the shape of parts to withstand high stress while keeping weight minimal. Fusion’s most useful feature for us is the cloud based collaboration that allows files to be synced between user accounts.

Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks
SolidWorks is known as the “industry standard” for CAD and CAE. While we have access to SolidWorks and can teach people how to use this software, we find that SolidWorks is more difficult to learn how to use compared to Fusion 360, and its OS compatibility is limited (no MacOS). It has all of Fusion’s features and is geared more towards large assemblies which may prove useful for compiling individually designed parts into a full robot.

Google Productivity Suite
We use Google products to organize and do work in the team. We use Google Classroom as one method of communication, alongside Emails or Discord. We prepare presentations with Google Slides and use Google Docs for planning. We may also use Google sheets for purposes including accounting or fundraising.
