November 5, 2025
Last year, we often had a recurring problem. It would seem like no matter what we tried, one way or another, our robot always broke down during the start of high-stakes games in the FTC competition.
At first, we blamed the fact that the robot was, quite unlike many other teams, very heavy. This weight came the cost of a lack of sturdiness, due to the immense number of parts that we had. This is something that we are aiming to improve for the FTC Decode season (2025/26).
However, after researching and investigating our problems further, we realised that we were using lower-quality parts in many different areas of the robot, and that is when we discovered one of our very generous team sponsors for this year: Accu Components!
If you have a look at Accu’s landing page, you will quickly come to realise that they have a massive range of products that can be useful for many, many different niches of the mechanical world, not just for robotics, which is our reason for using Accu’s incredibly diverse and high-quality range of products.
One of the major things that we found to have significantly impacted the durability of our robot, was that, no matter how much we tightened our screws, due to the vibrations produced by the motors and servos (allowing the robot to move and function), they were prone to falling out! Accu’s thread locking screws were the perfect fix for this problem for us, and as soon as we switched our old, screws out for these, we were surprised to see how much of a difference it made, in reducing the number of times that this occurred, and we could go as far as to say that none of our screws have fallen out since!
Additionally, the premium ball bearings available to buy from their website are a key part of our wheels, and can spin at a mind-blowing 6000rpm! The minimal friction of the spheres (”balls”) inside the rings allow for increased efficiency and a much longer lifespan for equipment. You may think that this increases costs, and while it may do for the short term, this actually reduces costs for the team in the long term, allowing us to invest in more parts, that can make a real difference at the competitions!
Also, we are excited this year to be building a parallel plate chassis, to allow for a smaller and lighter robot, which is less prone to breakages.
In order to build this sandwiched-plate design, we will require high-quality equipment, as these form the essential foundations of the robot, which everything else depends on and builds on, and so we chose to go for Accu’s nickel-plated brass standoffs to hold the plates together, which, in our experience have been extremely reliable so far.
As you can see from the very positive experience that we’ve had, we can strongly recommend that you use Accu for your robotics (including FTC) and any other needs that require any mechanical parts!
We would again like to thank Accu for partnering with us this season, and we look forward to making our robot better, little by little, to ensure that we have the best chances possible to win the nationals this year, with Accu’s components!
Visit Accu Components (https://accu.co.uk) to explore their wide range of products!
Written by Moksh Singh, and edited by Akshay Patel
