Under or over weight?
 

I was just wondering how many teams are under weight or over weight as of now? It seems that many teams that have posted teasers have said there weight is low.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

make this a poll ?!?!

Re: Under or over weight?
 

What we have planned of our robot is overweight...
But what we have built it underweight, we'll see when we get to the competitions after the fix-it window..

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Right now the robot is under weight but I have a feeling we will be drilling holes 2 days before ship date, so the real question isn't are we going to drill holes, but how many holes we are going to have to drill. :ahh: :ahh:

Re: Under or over weight?
 

As of right now we're underweight.................but it's not fully assembled and all parts aren't machined yet so that may have something to do with it. ;)

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Inventor 8 says we're underweight :D

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Kinda early to tell. A lot of teams aren't even close to finishing. We currently haven't finished machining all our parts. In the end everyone is going to end up underweight. Nobody can participate if they are overweight. The judges at the events won't pass you on inspection if you are overweight. Or, if you are passed any physical dimension.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

We are projecting that we will be underweight

Re: Under or over weight?
 

At our meeting saturday, we looked up weights for the part we needed to order still, and weighed what we have. We are running overweight, but the machining of metal to remove weight has already begun, lol

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Our team is underweight so far. I think we projected that we would end up underwieght too, which is always good... :)

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Our team was over weghit last week. We had to design the arm all over again and fortunately we came up with the lightest design possible.
Our transmission system only account for 35 pounds, and 4-wheel steering is on top of it.
Our arm is only made out of alluminun and instead of chains we are usuing simple cable wires to rotate it. i think we are going to end up between 120 or 130.
lets see.......................

MADI
---------------------------------------------------
"Think in terms of what you can think by not thinking what you can't think, but you can also think about the fact that you are thinking about something which somebody has already thought off."

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Our weight (over)estimates put us at about 10 pounds under. We don't really have resources to add additional functionality to our design so we will probably just add reinforcements and excessive decorations with this weight.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

I added a poll to the thread as per Kyle's request

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Be careful with this. Not all VKOP items have the correct weight. For example, Inventor thinks that the battery weights about 5 lbs. You may want to double-check the weight of all of your components.

-Daniel

Re: Under or over weight?
 

OUr weight will end up being exactly what we designed it to be :D

Rob

Re: Under or over weight?
 

The battery doesn't weigh anything this year.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Right, but I was just using it as an example. I checked it because I knew it weighed around 13 lbs.

In addition, the missing 7 or 8 pounds make a big difference in a center of gravity prediction that can be made if everything weighs right.

-Daniel

Re: Under or over weight?
 

wait.
is it ever possible to include everything we want
and still be underweight?

i hear them drills spinnin'.

our team's wishful thoughts are that we're underweight.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Our robot is underweight right now but I want to see what the weight is in inventor. How do you see the weight in inventor? :confused:

David :D

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Right click the name of the assembly or part that you want to weigh, click on physical, then click update.

-Daniel

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Well lets put it this way ...... we are goin to be putting 25 pounds of couter weights on our robot and we will still have 10 pounds left over so we are WAY UNDERWEIGHT!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Under or over weight?
 

In the end, ours will weight 119.9 lbs. As of right now, our teacher thinks we are overweight and parts will get taken off and functionality will be reduced. I think we are right about there. One thing that worried me is that one "joint" section of our arm is 13 lbs, and we have two of those and that does not include the arm "segments" :ahh:

Does anyone have estimates on how much all the electronics and wiring will weigh?

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Very nice, now i can confirm that we are underweight from all point of view. :D

Re: Under or over weight?
 

People can't put everything on a robot and excpect it to be under 120 lb.
I think a lot of teams' "underweight-ittude" is due to better planning, and experience.
My team is currently underwieght...we are close but still good.
Hoo-ray for plannig :p

Re: Under or over weight?
 

We weighed our electronics box saturday (we don't have lexan for a mounting board yet) and i beleive it came out to arouind 5-6 pounds (just the standard stuff in the box). But I'd have to double check this week at one of the meetings...

*makes mental note to get a copy of paper listing weighs to put into an excel spreadsheet*

Re: Under or over weight?
 

So, far, our Drive/Chassis and what we have of our arm assmebly is weighing in around 63 lbs. I expect to add another 15-20. We will probably reserve the rest for counterweight.

So, um...We'll be under. :D

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Right now we're estimating our robot to be about 100 pounds.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

So far our robot is over weight for about 10 pounds. But we probably will solve the problem by drilling holes to reduce the weight of the robot.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

That's approximately 4200 holes with a 0.5" diameter, assuming the material is 1/8" thick. Better get busy, and I'd get a few extra bits as well.

A better option is to take a close look at your robot and figure out where you have large areas of material you don't need or where you can use thinner material. A spreadsheet listing all of the weights of the parts can be very helpful here. It can identify the "heavy hitters" so you know where to start looking early.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Last year at the end of week 4, 1114 weighed in CONSIDERABLY overweight. It was a major setback to say the least.

Bosch extruded aluminum frame, bye bye
hello 1 x 1 x 1/16 square tubing

gearboxes- 1/4" plate was milled out to 1/16 where possible. Drive shafts drilled out down the center. Gears, drilled out. Aluminum hubs made for larger ones. Steel shaft collars replaced with custom made aluminum ones.

Arm - see my signature. Also double chains on shoulder pivot, reduced to one.

turret for arm- it was nice knowing you

ball herding arms- you never had a chance

This year, everything was built ALAP (as light as possible) the first time. Spending even a couple days lightening cuts into invaluable practise time, which can be the difference between a regional championship and a quarter finalist.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

The Friarbot mkIII is currently 58 lbs, leaving half the weight limit for the arm that we have yet to fabricate.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

I think we might have found a hard hitter. But we stil aren't sure if we're over...

Re: Under or over weight?
 

right now team 1388 is approx. 20 pounds under weight.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

The team 1208 completed (we think) robot is six pounds under weight.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

What robot? :rolleyes:

Re: Under or over weight?
 

The kitbot transmission and chasiss really helped us out with a fast start on designs and weight. The nearly complete robot is in around 75 lbs. We are very much a single function robot with only a two segment arm at this time. We are using four CIM with a four wheel drive and then a window lift motor with a roller chain gear reduction for the arm. If we add a pnuematic extension to give us more reach we will be over a 100 lbs and closing in on the 120 limit. ;)

Re: Under or over weight?
 

I was concerned today about what I thought was an overly heavy camera "cage". Then I found that the robot had been weighed with all pieces (not all assembled, but all present) and was significantly underweight.

I fear something major has been overlooked, though I can't imagine what.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Our "SECRET" drive train this year will weigh around 65-70 pounds so the rest of the team made me swear that my arm would weigh less than 30. :ahh: I'm just hoping I come somewhere near that goal. So this year team 114 is keeping to KISS, except for the drive train, and electronics box, and grabber... Okay mabe just the arm. :rolleyes:

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Jeez! What did you make your trannys out of? Depleted Uranium?

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Our team's ideology is to remove all the weight possible before assembly. We are cutting out triangles out of our arm like crazy. Weight reduction is a major thing this year for us, since last year we had to cut down 10 lbs with a drill and dremel tool. If you have a cnc router in your shop, it would be a good idea to engrave your team number or logo ( or even your sponsors) onto wherever :D .

Re: Under or over weight?
 

How does 25-30 lbs over weight sound to people....kind of scary, huh! <yikes> :ahh:

Re: Under or over weight?
 

We are currently 10 pounds under but are adding more that wasnt planned. Its gonna be close. :(

-The Mode

Re: Under or over weight?
 

I took 177 to cover the spread and the under... err um we'll be 120 lbs by the end of inspection on Thurs of the UTC. :D

Re: Under or over weight?
 

our team is trying to be underweight by 5 pounds so we can add counter weights so we won't fall over when lifting tetra or tetras.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Well 50 1" holes that are 1/8" thick alluminum equals 1 lb
hope that trivia helps

Re: Under or over weight?
 

We are currently at 111, we have some extra weight for an awesome shell, hopefully they can keep it under 120:)

Re: Under or over weight?
 

You wish. Actually, that only comes to about half a pound.

Anyway, our frame currently weighs only 11 lbs. But each gearbox (there will be two) weighs approximately 14 lbs including motors. Each joint of the arm weighs about 12-13 lbs including motors. Then we have to add wheels which are 5.5 lbs for all of them, then axles, pillow blocks, sprockets, chains, electronics, pneumatic tanks, the actual pieces of the arm, something to mount the gearboxes on, some lexan for electronics and a battery mount.

I have no idea what we will end up at. I know we will be close, but I don't know if we'll be over or under.

Perhaps we should pile everything (I mean every thing that is going on the robot) in a big box, and head down to the local pet hospital to borrow their scale.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

my team made a slight miscalculation...our robot complete without electronics weights 86 lbs...max is 120 without batt right?
should we put some weight son the bottom to bring down the center of gravity?

Re: Under or over weight?
 

At this point were about 85lbs. All of the physical stuff is done minus the camera. The other day i was putzing around the shop and found a piece of .75" thick high carbon steel laying around, The sheet is about 2'x3.5' and weights 50+. So were going to have a sponser cut it with the oxy torch, add 4 bolts, and bam, you now have a light weight robot with a steel belly pan, just incase i decide to take it off roading on my next jeep trip, if i hit any rocks, it wont matter ;->

Re: Under or over weight?
 

we have 2 competing arm designs, one will leave us with about 20-30 pounds to spare the other with about 60 -- Post pictures saturday =)

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Well, we got blindsided yesterday and found out that our robot will be 10 pounds overweight when we finish :ahh: . What we're gonna do is we are cutting a large truss pattern in two of our arm components, which saves around 4 pounds, and bore the heck out of the kitbot gearbox (2-3 pounds each probably). Beyond that, I don't know

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Yeah, the good news is we actually have time to do this before ship. I remember in 2002 we found we were overweight while at SoCal which lead to the most frantic lightening of a robot I have ever seen. I'd rather not repeat that experience.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Did you know welding the kit bot frame save over a pound! ;)

Re: Under or over weight?
 

B.O.B. is just about done (maybe Saturday). 101# and change. What do you do when you are under weight? I feel like we should cut out circles and weld them to the frame......I guess we will wait until 4:30am on February 21st for that! :) ....Did I say B.O.B. is done?......wait lets add something!

I hope all is well for you during build season.

Steve Yasick

Re: Under or over weight?
 

We are seriously considering adding cinderblocks to one side to compensate for the torque and because we have soooo much weight to play with. We are already using diamond plate for our electronics mounting surface to add weight. 12ft @ 55degrees. THATS A LOT OF TORQUE.

Yea we love tipsy robots.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

I suggest steel. It's denser and easier to attach.

We ballasted/reinforced our robot with steel last year. We had plenty of weight to play with after removing the arm.

Pete

Re: Under or over weight?
 

i found something yesterday that surprised me...instead of using 1/4 aluminum plate it is 1000 times easier to use 1 inch thick lexan, it is also just as strong and about the same weight (plus its see through!) if i had known this from the start many of our mounts would be lexan, which would actually drop us 10 lbs according to my math. right now without battery and without a few electronics (just the board and speed controls) we are 86 lbs, but we used large wheels and even though the bot is very stable (almost impossible to knock over as i have found out) we are going to add some steel weights to the bottom to bring down our center of gravity. maybe a spinning light display too :)

Re: Under or over weight?
 

wow...underweight....ours is probably 5-10 lbs overweight...we know its .5" too wide, but we are fixing that....

WE LOVE WEIGHT HOLES!!!!

Re: Under or over weight?
 

It hasn't been weighed yet, but our chassis/drivetrain with motors is in the area of 35lb. I'm not sure how much everything else weighs though. We're sure that the robot will be under weight before it enters its first match though. :)

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Hmmm..... our robot is at the border line right now, and yes we will end up drilling holes, me thinks that the swiss would make a lot of money if they started to sell swiss aluminium, as they sell swiss cheese

Re: Under or over weight?
 

I agree! It happens all the time ... you're trying to drill as many holes in your robot, trying to just loose a pound or so.

Our robot is right there, it's going to need some "tweaking" but I definitely think that we'll get off all the weight that needs to be out of there by competition time. As a matter of fact, its getting worked on right now :) ... don't ya love the late nights!

And I think the poll needs another option:
WILL be under weight ... eventually ... just get me a drill. :D :ahh:

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Well I think our robot is perfect its going to work our crate is huge i believe i made it like 4x4x5''9.999999999999999999999999999" Don't wanna pay for shipping a 500lb. huge box.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

we are over.... as usual :)

Re: Under or over weight?
 

I am honestly suprised at our bot.

When we went to weigh it yesterday, it was at 81 pounds *including* the battery. Chassis + electronics + battery was 63 pounds, and arm was 18. We still have to add a shell and the van door motor, but we're considerably underweight.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Right now, it looks like the robot will be about 10 lbs underweight. Unheard of for us. But don't worry. I'm sure that we can find about 10 lbs of stuff to add on between now and nect Tuesday.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

In the middle of last week, our robot was MASSIVELY overweight, but thanks to, as one mentor put it, "an aggressive weight loss program", we're only about 10lb off target. I have no doubt that we'll end up with yet another swiss cheesed robot.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Originally, when I voted in this poll, I voted for "underweight".

Is there any way to change your vote?
Right now, our robot is breaking even, at 120 pounds. However, we are planning on adding more, such as outriggers, arm bracing, etc.

The big question now is this: where can we take out weight? A few days ago, our robot was 9 pounds overweight, so we drilled like crazy, and managed to lose it. But there isn't much left to take weight out!

Andy Brockway took home the gearbox for our arm last night to lighten up the gears, which should take out a tenth of a pound (I think).

We are using a telescoping arm tower, with a rotating tetra arm mounted on top. The outside towers (fixed) are made of aluminum, and the inner towers (which are raised and lowered) are made of UHMW plastic.

We are going to deepen the "rabbit" groove that we put into the UHMW plastic arm towers with a router. We are also contemplating the removal of some of the arm braces (currently there are 4, with 2 on the front, and 2 on the back, and we are thinking of just keeping the ones on the front.). We are also thinking of replacing some of the lexan shielding we are currently using with something thinner.

We have lexan bumpers spanning the front and back ends of our robot, but we are nervous to take weight out of them because of the high force impacts we expect them to take. We have already drilled out alot of our arm, and are concerned that drilling the UHMW any more will make the plastic bend too much and warp (leading to binding issues).

AND... we are wanting to add angle aluminum reinforcements to our UHMW arm, because in testing we found that it would bend under the weight of the tetra arm mounted on top of it. This will add about a pound of weight, but is necessary.

And there are the outriggers, which haven't even been built yet, but will add a minimum of 4 pounds. Our current plan of dealing with this is to build everything else first, drive our robot around, push it to it's limits, and see if outriggers will be necessary. If they are, we will need to figure out a way to add them. If not, we will leave them off.

I am sure we are not the only ones with this dilemma, but boy is it frustrating! Sometimes I feel like it is almost hopeless, but I know that we can pull through it, as we have in the past. We will find a way to do it... because that is what this challenge is all about.

Good luck to everyone!

-- Jaine

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Somehow we're 20#s under. We wooped with glee and started adding compressors and other cool stuff.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

We put the robot on the scale today and put everything we had that is going to go on the robot and we came out under so far. The key words there SO FAR we might not have to drill holes after all, but then again we have 8 days to change that. :ahh: :ahh:

Re: Under or over weight?
 

You mean to tell me there's a weight limit this year?!?!?!!?

Kyle, of all people you should have let me in on that.

All joking aside, our MOE v 2k5 is turning out very well. Less green than in past years, we are tipping the scales slightly underweight this year. It's a first in a long time.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

*pulls hair out* underweight? I wish... we're currently balanced precariously between two pounds under and about a bazillion pounds over, what with all these 'extra' bits that, in the grand scheme of things, are actually pretty necessary if we don't want our 'bot to end up twisted ten days to sunday. (looks pointedly at the smoking sheet metal carcass that was last year's rookie 'bot). *goes on bended knee* Alas, poor BenzBot, I knew him well...

It also doesn't help that we've already swiss-cheesed the thing to death. Ah well. Official weigh-in is as soon as we can drag the 'bot over to the FedEx offices in two days. *crosses fingers*

Hope y'all are having better luck than we are!

~kat

Re: Under or over weight?
 

for the first time ever. Our robot has wieght to spare. The thing is almost completly done and it still is 5 pounds under. I dont understand how this is happining :yikes:

Re: Under or over weight?
 

By writing that here you just ensured that by the end of the UTC scrimage on Saturday, I'm assuming you'll be there as usual, you will need to add ten pounds to compensate for something you didn't think of. :D

We're just praying that we don't need to entirely rebuild our robot because we're so grossly overweight that we have to rethink our entire frame design. Not like that happened last year or anything. :rolleyes:

Pete

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Oh, we have too much weight to spare...our bot's pretty much anorexic.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Our robot still isn't finished in entirety, but we have already been shaving off bits and pieces due to the weight. Our arm takes up 1/3 of our total weight, without any pnuematic pieces added to it! We're in trouble.... or are we... :]

Re: Under or over weight?
 

We'll end up at 119.8, but at least this year it looks like I'll get to put about 20 pounds of lead where I want it to counterbalance the arm.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

We weighed in tonight at 113.2 pounds - with the compressor, all the pneumatics stuff that we originally weren't going to include, the new mobility system - and the battery. 100 pounds even without the battery.

And people thought we were kidding when we made this post!

Time to put the lounge seat back on so the freshmen can ride around on the robot... :)

-dave

Re: Under or over weight?
 

So far, we are underweight. Our chasis, drivetrain, battery, compressor, electrics, etc, weighs in at 83 lbs, or 70 lbs san battery. So far, all of the arm components weigh about 35 lbs.

Last year we found we were 19 lbs overweight a week before ship. The solution, starvation diet. Also, for those of you overweight, 12 AWG is heavy, especially over long runs. Last year we saved ~4-5 pouns by trashing our beautiful neatly laid out electrical system which must have wasted miles of wire. It really is possible to lose weight in the electrical system.

On a side note. We were vastly undereweight rookie year (due to an arm that got chainsawed). Although we were out of town, one of our mentors had a 25 lb bag of steel buckshot in his truck. Buckshot + HVAC zipties == awesome ballast.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

We are 90% done and we are 19 lbs under weight, :ahh: :ahh: That is the first time in 3 years we have been underweight. All we have to add is some lexan on the sides and a few more 1/4 20 bolts and we are done.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

We are underweight so far this year. Reason being our base is a lot lighter than previous years, but I'm glad we aren't the only team considering ADDING weight.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Surprisingly team 1493 is looking pretty good in the weight department. We evaluated all designs in cad for their weight properties, and added known weight components. Once we realized that all of our components would be about 20 lbs overweight, we began having our cad program drill holes in our frame, arm etc... We drilled the holes, and used the light weight materials along the way, as not to have to do that at the end. The bot weighed in happy 5 lbs underweight. Come competition, we will be right at weight after we add our siding boards and cosmetic accessories. Good luck at making weight, as it's not much fun getting to competition and running back and forth from the bot to the scale with handfuls of aluminum chips.

How far overweight are you?
 

How far over weight were you guys? How badly does your robot need slimfast?

Our robot weighed 168lbs..... bring it on Trimspa!!!


GO 1403!!!

Re: How far overweight are you?
 

We're overwieght by only 2 or 3 pounds. Couple of speed holes, it wont be too bad ;)

-Mode

Re: How far overweight are you?
 

We just weighed or robot tonight and we are at 100 lbs. With the extra weight, we're planning to make a simple mechanism to knock down the hanging tetra

Re: How far overweight are you?
 

We're about 5 pounds over...and we keep adding to our robot....the rest of the buiild team was replacing steel setcollars with alluminum ones when I left today :)

Re: How far overweight are you?
 

Hahaha speed holes. Were at about 110 with battery, so we should be...okay....

Re: How far overweight are you?
 

We were seriously over, but with a few switched parts we should be alright.

Re: How far overweight are you?
 

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=33671

Search before you post please

******I have now merged the threads. Thanks for pointing these things out.
Steve ******

Re: How far overweight are you?
 

We were 8.5 lb over. We are now about 1 lb under. 10 lb of weight lost almost entirely with holes.

Re: How far overweight are you?
 

-25 lbs overweight...:D

We have plans to use that 'free' weight also...

OR that -25 lbs can be sent to the hightest bidder....:)

Re: How far overweight are you?
 

None. Ours is anorexic at the moment. Lets see if the building people can come up with a simple tetra-knockdown mechanism.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Over Weight. What else is to be expected? There is still time for the diet team to perform miracles. Meanwhile I still keep adding parts.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Still under, and a mentor just yelled "We need more weight"

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Under. We just measured it (with battery, but no electronics covers) at 118.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

For once, we're 30 pounds underweight. Means we can actually add some counterweight for the arm to get it turning better....

Re: Under or over weight?
 

We are currently battling with our weight, sometimes we are overweight and sometimes we are underweight...it all depends on who is weighing it...funny how it works...

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Just today it was understood that we are 10 pounds overweight.

i suppose we will be taking off out break plates and some muffin fans

Re: Under or over weight?
 

Well, our final weight is in. We finished our robot this morning at 12:30AM. At our Practice competition we weighed in at 134 pounds. Thats without the battery. So in the next two days we need to drill 14 pounds of holes.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

We've currently strapped diving weights on our robot.

Re: Under or over weight?
 

I'd hate to jinx us right now, but we are setting quite comfortably underweight. Working on a final mechanism/device, and should be good to go without any "speed diets".


Good Luck, All.