I'm sick of the ways people use Vex parts around here

See? Only had this a few hours and already two rants. My poor friends...put up with this for so many years...

Vex parts are an infestation in this school.

I've got a friend in a lab upstairs. His "senior project" is sitting near his desk. I think he did a second one. He's a brilliant guy. He did the electronics on that project, and they're absolutely beautiful. I'd hate to think that he has this project representing him forever and ever, because his partner did such a bad job on the mechanical side that it turned the whole project into a total piece of shit.

The machining is mediocre...well maybe that's being a little generous. By "mediocre" I mean to say that somebody waved a ruler somewhat in the vicinity of some stock tube aluminum and then threw this stock in a bandsaw. Then it was bolted together. I estimate each arm weighs at least a few pounds and is about a foot long on each of two links. These arms support a several pound body.

And its moved with Vex sprockets and chain. I'm sorry what? These little plastic pieces of shit? The ones that came out of a box of children's toys? You put those on a professional project and expect to be taken seriously?

These people spend tens of thousands of dollars on classes every year and sit through countless hours of lectures and homework. Then they come to their senior project. They could calculate the forces required and spec out proper parts... just like they spent four years training to do...

...or they could pick up some pieces from children's toys and bolt them on, call it a day, and stand there stunned when it doesn't work.

Another thing I can not stand is when people demolish Vex aluminum because they are too lazy to cut their own scrap pieces. They bend it up...rip it, break it...whatever...take a rather Its pretty absurdly expensive stuff to treat it like scrap. Its just not cost-effective. Nobody cares though, because its handy and its "not their money." (God, that's another rant in itself: the words "its not my money" make my blood boil.) This stuff gets picked up by students (they never buy it themselves) and just chucked on...everything.

I've fielded plywood robots. Fuck, I've fielded two competitive robots with cardboard on them with pride. But I was pretty ashamed to stand next to a robot with Vex used on it as temp scrap on it and said "yeah, that's ours."

That said, I'm not ashamed of my team, those kids are great. I wish I hadn't gotten the flu twice that competitive season so I could have spent more time mentoring them. They are really good kids. I'm proud of them.

I'm pretty not-proud though of that action. That action was basically somebody saying "well, I'm feeling pretty lazy right now so instead of slicing up 25 cents worth of stock aluminum on the bandsaw and putting a hole in it with a cordless drill I'm going to bend a rather expensive piece of metal so it will never be usable again." I'm definitely not proud that somebody did that particular behavior. S/he is still a good person, but s/he is still acting like a moron.

At least my high school kids? They'll admit they were being lazy when you call them on it and say sorry.

Some of the kids here? They just don't give a fuck. These people are going to make equipment which people's lives depend on: cars, tanks, airplanes, machinery, medical devices...the list goes on. You're going to spec those out right? You're going to suddenly care when you graduate and start doing your job right when you never did as an undergrad?

Nah, lets go get some kid's toys.