USFIRST 2016 Stronghold defense pieces

thingiverse

These are the defense pieces for the FIRST Stronghold game by USFIRST.org, released in 2016. You'll find one of each of the nine defenses here: Portcullis from Group A and Cheval de Frise, also from Group A, but without lift gates or movable parts; Moat and Rampart from Group B; Drawbridge and Sally Port from Group C, minus movable parts too; Rock Wall and Rough Terrain in Group D. There's also a Low Bar with the curtain included, however, made of hard plastic instead. These models aim to give you an accurate feel for how the game pieces look in real life as well as a way to test robots on a smaller scale. The defense pieces were built at 1/25.4 scale (where 1 inch is equivalent to 1 millimeter). At this small scale, the defenses are indeed a bit tiny. To see that your robot can traverse them, try building it at the same scale. Keep in mind that doubling up the size of these models does make them print slightly better but also takes a lot longer to complete. They're based on measurements taken directly from both the standard game manual and team-drafted drawings. However, due to scaling up 25.4 times, some slight variations in dimensions can be expected. To see what they really could look like with moving parts (portcullis, cheval, drawbridge, and sally port), I would love to encourage someone to try modifying them so they work properly when printed. **Recommended Printing Settings** No rafts at all; no supports needed. For a clearer print quality, choose an infill setting of 20% or just above. If you're going for more details and less printing time, consider choosing an .2mm resolution, however .1mm is highly recommended. In the case where your printer's ability to bridge isn't quite as strong, I recommend printing either with no supports (it might require a little fidgeting on some pieces though) or you can use supports. Some special things worth noting are that drawbridge and portcullis should be printed well with no problems, unless the case is when your printer is having trouble bridging; at which point using support is the way to go. As for the cheval de frise defense, its unique angles - especially those 23 degree ones can become problematic for a lot of printers; thus a special kind of treatment (ie printing it with support) would likely do better. Lastly all the others have been checked over and appear safe enough that you should just print them out straight away!