Re: What's your material
 

we typically use aluminum. For most of the structure we use aluminum box tubing. The base has 1/8inch wall box tubing, and the rest is mostly 1/16 wall. Certain plates we need are usually 1/4 aluminum plate.

Re: What's your material
 

95% aluminum, some steel chains and lexan for the electronics board.

Re: What's your material
 

it depends on the parts of course--but steel, aluminum, lexan we don't use wood though

to bad not duct tape ;)

happy building!! :) machining the parts is fun :)

Re: What's your material
 

Gulfstream Aerospace in Appleton uses this material for bulkheads in the private/corporate jets they customize. VERY pricey but they are willing to donate scraps to our team. We haven't used it on our robots but it makes a great floor pan for a Super Mileage Vehicle. Unbelievably strong for it's weight.

As for what we are using on this year's robot...

- 80/20
- FRP (fiberglass reinforced plastic - see our robot from 2004)
- Polycarbonate
- Aluminum plate
- Aluminum tubing - 3.0" OD with .065" wall
- Steel Gears
- Glass impregnated plastic sprockets - VERY light and amazingly strong - only one small hairline crack on our 2004 robot.

That should just about cover it.

Sean

Re: What's your material
 

I think it's funny that you people actually plan on what materials you use ;-) we have to resort to whatever we find in one of the 4 workshops we have to work in. All in all it's amounted to:

5/8 case hardened Thomson shaft
1/8" aluminum plate
high-speed steel -I used a drill bit for a pin, isn't that amazing? :-)
.500"X.500" steel bar (hell yea!)
.500"X.500" alumium bar
2X4, 2X3, 1.5X2 and 1X1 1/8" wall extruded aluminum
1.5"X1.5" angle aluminum
1/8" steel plate
plywood
kitbot aluminum
1/4" hardened steel dowel
BRASS!!!!
plastic in 3 different forms
roller blade wheels
steel tape from a measuring tape ;-)

in consideration:
composite honeycomb board (fiberglass, not aluminum)
teflon
nylon
baltic plywood
diamond plate
1X1 angle aluminum

Like I said, we work with what we can "borrow" from various companies (NHI) colleges (dartmouth) and the government (I'm not joking about that one) our bot, if it works, will be insane, and your tax dollars will have supported it!

Re: What's your material
 

Lexan + Aluminum + Steel (Pneumatics) = Our Bot. :D

Re: What's your material
 

You forgot the necessities. Oil, grease, bronze, electrical tape, and that heavy copper in the wires.

Re: What's your material
 

oh we do learn!:) Last year we kinda didn't order the steel on time , and ended up using that horrid thick stuff with twice the size of our standard material!:eek:
This year, steel is back , but with our standard size ordered well before the competition. Steel > Aluminium(The proper English spelling :p ), you can't weld ALU easily, we have little equipment here .... steel is nice, stronger than ALU, and easier to weld, and has the only slight disadvantage of weight (ok, the density is about 3 to 4 times more for steel ...) but being so strong, we don't need much of it :P
[conclusion]Steel > Aluminium[/conclusion]
:D

Re: What's your material
 

Lots of aluminum, particularly box channel. Also some steel, polycarb, and the such for various parts, and a couple wooden dowel rods. Other than that, aluminum, lots and lots of aluminum.