Help-Robot Art
 

I was wondering how to do the side-art for a robot. I am using plexiglas sides, and I was wondering how to add "art" to them. I know there is a way since just about every team has some for of "art" on there robot. I am looking to put things like the name of the bot, etc. onto plexiglas.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

-Greg The Great

We had ours cut out of vinyl on a machine you hook to a computer...it's called a plotter.

Basically it takes a vector image file (like you'd make in Illustrator, etc etc) and plots all the points onto a material (we used vinyl...you can use a plotter with various things). This allowed us to make our "wings" last year look like this:

http://firstubergeeks.com/gallery/vi...d=team_pho to

I know it's not fancy, but we didn't have our own plotter (then).


Anyhow, if you have more questions I'd be willing to help you out, but I'm sure there are ways to get much cooler looking art onto your bot than this.

I know there is an easier way to do it, I know I seen a team doing some work at Grand Rapids (can't remember the team) that had printed out pieces of paper and they somewhow put them in like a static-cling thing, that then attached to the plexiglas.

-Greg The Great

I think i have seen that before.. but it was just a printable static cling
a quick search on google yelded this
http://www.visiongraphic.com/Inkjet1.html

i think what 668 has done in the past is use sticker paper. you know, the kind with the peel off backing that you can run thru an inkjet printer...
so get your image the size you want it (test on regular paper first!), print, cut, and stick on the plexi

Do you know where I can get this paper?

-Greg The Great

i think you should be able to buy it at any office supply store e.g.: office max or office depot, or equivalent for your area. perhaps you might even order some online. i don't have any links for you, though...

Thanks for the help.

-Greg The Great

our team cut out stencils, and spray paint onto lexan for our side panels. Very durable, lol.

Hey, whatever works................works!

-Greg The Great

Our team used sticker paper, it came in sheets of 8.5 x 11 and then we created our images in powerpoint and printed them off. This was easy for us since we wanted a background image, rather than a clear bkg with letters/numbers on it.

You could always just go buy paint made for lexan (readily available for r/c cars) and paint somthing by hand **gasp**

I am going to stay away from that, if you seen my artwork you would know why. Let put it this way, last year I flunked art.

-Greg The Great

http://www.gideontech.com/guides/etching/
Basically what you do is use a dremel with various attachments and etch what you want into the lexan. You can put images behind the lexan to give you a guide if you want. People use it mostly for modding computer case windows on the side of their cases. Once done, you can paint it, or just let the etching do the work, although you wouldn't be able to see it from far away.

Just an idea

We just made the signs with Photoshop and printed them out on paper and laminated them on the inside of the lexan.

http://www.team340.com/gallery/album...2003_02_16_230

Really sharp looking.

We're kind of lucky in this end of things.

We have a full sign and paint shop as a sponsor (3 kids in the family business are on our team!!)

For the lexan parts, we had vinyl stickers made for our sponsors from a plotter as mentioned above.

As for the sides, problem solved. We used very thin tin sheet metal and painted that and attached those on our robot.

Both have proved to be very effective!!

Attached is a pic with the tin painted sides and the vinyl graphics on top for our 2002 robot.

You can't see from this picture, but the actual frame underneath the tin sheet metal had been swiss-cheesed beyond belief.
That's the reason for the tin covering!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the paint is a ppg candy apple paint, and the swirl effect was done before painting with a harsh wire brush technique (I think!) lol