At our most recent weigh-in, we were 7 lbs over. Considering everything had already been 'lightened,' we were faced with a tough decision. We ended up having to sacrifice a bit of functionality to get us under, but things may change today (mmm hole saws....) and we may be able to regain the part.
~another cryptic post trying not to reveal our strategy ;)
good luck everybody

This is addressed in the rules:

M1. All robots must be entirely contained inside a 36"x30"x60"x0" box.

So you're out of luck.

:)

It was amazing -- we didn't measure anything as we went, and when we finally finished, we put it on the scale and it weighed 129.3. Talk about luck!

quote:
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Originally posted by Leo M
There may be a topological way out, though. If you start with a two-dimensional Moebius strip, and move up to the three-dimensional Klein Bottle, there should be some way to take the next step to a four-dimensional construct (let's call it a "Kamen Manifold") that would get rid of the mass entirely. Then you can work with all kinds of neat things, like PVC pipe with an OD smaller than the ID so that the inside is on the outside.
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This is addressed in the rules:

M1. All robots must be entirely contained inside a 36"x30"x60"x0" box.

So you're out of luck.


Not really - if you get the parameters right, the entire universe is inside the outside, because the outside is on the inside. But then, there will be nothing outside the box besides management consultants, thinking....................................

We ended up about 8 pounds overweight with our original design. Goodbye steel.

Made weight without sacrficing functionality!
w00t!

Monday morning we celebrated our robot finally working. Monday afternoon we weighed in at 150. Oops. Tuesday at 1 o'clock am I finished drilling my 200-somethingth hole. I don't know how we did it, but we cut around 21 lbs. Unfortunately about 10% of our functionality had to be sacrificed, mainly including a piece that wasn't reallly working anyways and our shielding. Hopefully we're enough under to put on some lighter (acrylic?) shields to protect our innards after we check our weight at the regionals.

They have you put your machine in a Lexan box with one side missing. The robot has to fit without your having to push too hard, and without leaving deep scratches in the box.

AHhaa. Our robot initally (we thought) was 15 lb underweight. But we learned that our 10 year old bathroom scale is a tad bit off.... about 10 lb off ahahaha
Luckily, when we got a better scale and got it's accurate weight, it was only around 2 lb overweight. So we but off the ends of some bolts and took off a sheet of Lexan and it was fine. Did you know that Lexan about 4"x28" weights in about 1 lb?

We are happy we didn't have to swiss cheese this year. :D

silly weight limit...
 

We thought we were done Monday morning. The robot was driving nicely, everything was great. Then, we went to weigh it and ended up being 150lbs.

after about 10 hours of mad drilling/punching holes brought it down under 130lbs :)

Underweight
 

Although in previous years, we completely wore out hole cutters, this year we weighed in at 123 lbs. with everything we wanted on the machine and no real attention given to weight loss. However, we do pay close attention to structure as opposed to materials.

over !
 

we were so overweight that we needed to shred 29lbs with three days left!!!
believe it or not we did it! thopugh it took us a whole day and night we chopped off 29+, that is with about 400 holes and knocking huge chunks of alluminium off our drive train. it was a mess but we did it.


one problem though.. WE FORGOT ABOUT PROTECTION! so wednesday morning we had to of added 5lbs to our overall weight

Lexan, while flexible, makes a great protective shield.

exactly!
 

we used lexan, but there is one problem.....

it weighs a whole lot!
besides it was 1/4inch so it also added to our structural integrity as well.

we drilled holes from the begining so at our final weigh in we were right there at 130 but we needed to drop a little incase the scales are different. our sponsor that donated warehouse and machine use had a scale for weighing heavy objects. Thanks Item midwest.:)