pic: 3992 Sheet Metal Chassis
 

Re: pic: 3992 Sheet Metal Chassis
 

Looks really nice! I like the team branding on the sides for weight reduction. Do you think that all the material removal on the chassis channels near the middle might reduce the stiffness of your chassis? Overall I am excited to see this come to life. What are you doing for ground clearance? Did you design this to go over frisbees or push them out of the way?

Also what are your plans for chain tensioning?

Team 1716 is doing a sheet metal drivetrain this year as well and I will try to post pics soon and maybe CAD as well.

Re: pic: 3992 Sheet Metal Chassis
 

Is this only 4 wheeled? What thickness metal are you using?

Re: pic: 3992 Sheet Metal Chassis
 

It's attention to detail like this that makes me wish we had transparent bumpers :D

Re: pic: 3992 Sheet Metal Chassis
 

I'd guess mecanum.

Re: pic: 3992 Sheet Metal Chassis
 

To answer some questions:

This is a 4 wheeled mecanum drive train. We will be using belts, not chains. For belt tensioning, we will simply slide the gearbox (it's slotted) as it will sit on the holes on the inner length plates.

The metal is 1/8" thick.

As far as whether our cuts on the length plates would reduce stiffness, we weren't too sure, so we have two standoffs there that we hope will do it. Ultimately I feel that any loss of rigidity won't be too significant but it's something we'll see once we get this cut and assembled.

Our design is to have minimal ground clearance; it would push frisbees out of the way. The bigger reason was to have our mecanums just touch the ground though; lower Center of Gravity by doing so.

Re: pic: 3992 Sheet Metal Chassis
 

Good approach. Right now it's impossible to predict how much of an issue this might be, but I can see teams (ourselves included) adding "aero kits" to their bots to reduce ground clearance and keep firsbees out of the way.

Re: pic: 3992 Sheet Metal Chassis
 

In mecanum drives, a semi-loose chassis that can conform to bumps in the field is actually what you want.

With that said, some of those cutouts are quite extreme. Although the shapes look cool, they can be done a lot better with a lot more added strength. A simple truss pattern would be much better.