VEX parts purchasing advice for new teams

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1	Item	Quantity	Priority (1 is high)	Additional Notes
2	VexNET System Bundle	1	1	Includes Cortex, one Joystick, 2 VexNET Keys, USB-USB Cable, Backup Battery Holder
3	393 Motors	10 + spares	1	Rules this year allow for up to 10 393 motors, but we recommend using a maximum or 6 or risk blowing the circuit breakers in the Cortex. For reference, the 393 is about 1.6 times more powerful than the 269 motor.
4	Motor Controller	8 + spares	1	There are two 2-wire ports on the Cortex - the other 8 motors all need a 3-wire to 2-wire motor controller each
5	Power Expander	1	3	This allows you to use a second battery and contains a third circuit breaker (along with the Cortex's two), so more power if available, batteries will last longer, and more total current can be drawn before circuit breakers trip
6	4" Omniwheels	4	2	Almost all designs will require the use of omni-wheels, although some designs may only use two. Buying 4 gives you flexibility. You could use 2.75" omnis (the double rollered version) but would need to gear them higher.
7	Wheel Kit	1	2	The robot will need wheels of some sort, but don't get too many of these wheel kits - you only need one, at most two per robot (depending on omni-wheel usage).
8	Metal Kits		1	We recommend steel for the base, aluminium for arms and lifts. It's better to buy longer pieces of metal, which can be cut down to the right siGes, rather than buy lots of shorter pieces and get stuck when you need 18" pieces. Advanced Metal Kit is a good place to start for steel, while both the Long Aluminium and Normal Aluminium Structure Kits have the right sizes of metal. Start with those kits, then buy some more specific pieces of metal later when you need them.
9	Standoff Pack	2	2	Standoffs are very useful, and very rigid when used properly. Having the packs gives you a variety of sizes which can be used all over the robot.
10	Advanced Motion Kit	1	1	This kit provides all the shafts, shaft collars, delrin bearings, and spacers that you'll need for the robot.
11	Screws and Nuts		1	You need screws and nuts to hold the robot together. We recommend at least 1 pack of 100 of the 0.25", 0.5", 0.75" 8-32 screws, and 1 pack of 50 of the 0.5" 6-32 (motor) screws, as well as 2 packs of 100 of 8-32 Keps Nuts, and 1 pack of 100 of 8-32 Nylock Nuts and 8-32 Hex Nuts
12	High Strength Sprocket and Chain Kit	1	3	High strength chain is very useful to transmit power over longer distances on a robot than you would normally use gears for. For example, all the drive motors can be located in the middle of the robot, then all four wheels can be chain-driven from there. Also, many new ratios are possible that are not possible with the gears due to the range of sprocket sizes in the kit. Low strength chain is prone to popping off the sprockets but this happens very rarely with high strength chain.
13	Tank Tread Upgrade Kit	2	4	The main reason for puchasing this kit is to get the rubber flaps - you don't need tank tread to use them (can just use high strength chain). The flaps have proven to be useful in many games, but they aren't very useful for some games so it might be useful to buy them if the design requires them
14	High Strength Gear Kit	1	2	These are great to have in high stress situations like on arm pivots, but are generally not a necessity unless lifting heavy loads. The same effect can be achieved by doubling up on standard gears if there is space.
15	Gear Kit	1	3	If you're using the high strength gear kit, then you might not need this kit, but it can be useful to give you a larger variety of gear ratios (these gears are also thinner so they take up less space). The most useful thing in this kit is the 84-tooth gear allowing a 1:7 ratio which is common on arms.
16	12T Metal Pinion Gear	2	4	These already come with the high strength gear kit, but if you're not getting that kit, then you will need these. The plastic 12T gears are not very strong. These metal gears are near impossible to break.
17	Pneumatics		5	These are expensive, but they give you "free power" above your motor and battery limit. Most of the most competitive robots use these somewhere, and they have good educational value, but they're expensive.
18	Advanced Sensor Kit (or equivalent )	1	2	A good competitive team will use sensors, and this kit gives you most of the ones you need. You may need to buy some limit switches and/or bumper switches separately, and may need some more potentiometers if you break the ones from this kit.
19				If you aren't going to use the light sensor (and few teams ever do) then the advanced sensor kit only provides about a $5 saving compared to buying the ultrasonic, encoders, potentiometers and line followers separately. Teams may be better off just buying the sensors individually that they think they will need.
20	Batteries	4	1	The robot needs power.
21	Joystick Batteries	2	1	The joystick also needs batteries, and it uses AAAs. You don't have to buy VEX batteries, but we do recommend rechargables because they run down reasonably quickly.
22	Robot Battery Smart Charger	2	1	For recharging the robot batteries, these don't overcharge the batteries so they're safe to use. Remember to buy the ANZ power cords as well.
23	8-bay AA/AAA Smart Charger	1	1	For recharging the joystick batteries. Again, you don't have to use the VEX ones, but in this case this charger is probably cheaper than any AAA charger you can find in NZ, so it's a good deal. It also charges relatively fast compared with others we've tried.
24	Extension Cables			A variety of extension cables should be purchased so that you can mount motors and sensors anywhere, and then worry about connecting them to the Cortex later. 3-wire extension cables are used much more often (all sensors and motor controllers can use a 3-wire extension), although the 2-wires can be useful at times (only absolutely necessary for motor ports 1 and 10). The kits usually include Y-Cables as well.
25	Programming Software	1	1	Any competitive team will be writing their own code. The two options are EasyC and RobotC, and we recommend having a look online to see the different interfaces, but will recommend RobotC at the end of the day.
26	Programming Hardware Kit	1	4	While it is possible to program the robot with just the USB-USB cable in the VexNET System Bundle, it can be extremely inconvenient and waste a lot of time. This kit is also extremely overpriced considering what it actually is, but it will allow you to program the robot via VexNET via the Joystick, so that you don't have to keep plugging the USB cable into the Cortex and re-pairing the controllers.
27	Performance Tool Kit	1	2	This will go a long way in helping students work on the robot - they are much easier to use than the normal allen keys, but do have a higher risk of rounding bolt heads so be careful. Make bolts tight, but not over-tight.
28	Rubber Bands		1	Must have. These don't have to be bought from Vex but check the size.
29	Cable Ties		1	Must have. These don't have to be bought from Vex but check the size.
30	Advanced Hardware Kit		5	This is a good way to stock up on some of the useful nuts, bolts, standoffs, but it's quite expensive and you can get the specific parts that you need individually.
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