T.H.R.U.S.T 1501 Flickr Photo Build Season Archives

[Chris_Elston]

I've been asked ALOT for pictures of our team’s build season process.

A build season process that shows monocoque and the tools the team uses to make the robots. Pictures are worth a thousand words. It's hard to convince people that it's not a difficult process.

In 2005, we built the first bot in the basement of a church. That basement was a workshop for MONKS. We used some of the tools in the workshop the MONKS used to build the 2005 robot.

In conjunction with Wayne, our team photographer expert, I have FINALLY after SIX months of torcher, uploaded most all of our pictures.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/teamthrust1501/collections/

Click on each year, and go to BUILD SEASON. There are in most cases over 400+ pictures in each build season. Wayne has a happy trigger finger for some reason. Thank you Wayne.

[Leav]

Cool!

I like how your team decided that points were awarded if a robot Hurls...

:)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/teamthrust1501/2368006442/sizes/l/in/set-72157604280149704/

-Leav

[Billfred]

These pictures are great for seeing how some of these robots have come together.

Since you brought up past questions about the ease of using monocoque, I'll ask one: How do you go about determining what kind of supports, if any, a part will need? Is it calcuation? Good CAD? Lucky guessing?

[robotguy67]

"How do you go about determining what kind of supports, if any, a part will need? Is it calcuation? Good CAD? Lucky guessing?"

All three to some extent, plus some experience. If you were trying to design "on the edge" and make it as light as possible and no stronger than absolutely necessary you would need to do a lot of calculations and design iterations, but this takes too long for a 6 week build.

We use Inventor to concept and design the robots, starting with block shapes. Once the generic shapes are the right dimensions, we go back and visualize where and how many bulkheads will be necessary. This relies on experience, but the CAD drawings make it much easier to visualize the stresses on the parts. The nice thing about monocoque is that it IS quick to build, so you can easily try something to see if it works. If it doesn't, you're not out much time or material.

Of course, in a rushed build with a design that was hashed out in a couple weeks, there are usually a few, "Whew, I'm glad that worked!" moments at the end. :)

Mike