pic: 195 Chassis
 

Re: pic: 195 Chassis
 

Is that powder coated? What is the frame made of?

Re: pic: 195 Chassis
 

PLYWOOD!

Re: pic: 195 Chassis
 

interesting ..

how heavy is it??? and how deep is it inside??

Re: pic: 195 Chassis
 

This chassis is made of 9 ply baltic birch plywood.

It was primed twice, painted, *sparkalized* (sorry im not sure on the term), and given a clear coat by a local auto body shop sponsor.

It weighs ~19 pounds, and is ~6 inches deep.

Re: pic: 195 Chassis
 

Oooh...purdy. How strong is that plywood? Sorry, I'm not too up on plywood strength, I don't use it too much.

Re: pic: 195 Chassis
 

thats one sweet bot! what are you doing tank tracks?

Re: pic: 195 Chassis
 

I don't know about birch, specifically, but good woods are generally stiffer and stronger per weight than aluminum. The problem is that its hard to get efficient shapes out of wood, so it loses its strength advantage. If it was possible to make thin wall tubing out of wood, there would be a whole lot more high performance stuff made out of it.

Re: pic: 195 Chassis
 

Yup.

Should look something like this http://www.team195.com/gallery/displ...?album=3&pos=9

Thats our programming practice bot ('03), by the way.

Re: pic: 195 Chassis
 

sweet, same design for the last few years?

Re: pic: 195 Chassis
 

We have been using this tank tread/wood chassis for a few years now, and it has never let us down. We opt to keep it for a few reasons.

1) Plywood is much cheaper and easier to work with than aluminum. We can assemble the entire chassis in one day on readily available machines. We also like the plywood because we have tested it to be not only lighter, but stronger than its aluminum counter part.

2) Why reinvent the wheel? This design is proven, and we know we can depend on it to work again. Plus, every year we can tweak the design to bring it closer to perfection.

3) By knowing a general chassis and drive wheel design from the start, we have more time to focus on whatever armeture we want to put on.

Re: pic: 195 Chassis
 

LONG LIVE THE PLYWOOD BOTS. RAGE also has been using plywood for about the past 7 or so years. We also use Baltic birch, and we have only ever had it break once, in 2003, but luckily a little wood glue fixes that, instead of tearing apart the whole bot.

This is basically our philosophy as well, we usually keep the same red plywood base design from year to year, allowing us time to work on our arm and programming.

Re: pic: 195 Chassis
 

Our wood bot also cracked in 2003, all the pushing and shoving on the top of the ramp did it, Easily fixed though. :)

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95 has used .5 Baltic plywood for several successful bots.

Not only does it have some great engineering properties, it looks down right classy!

-Andy A.

Re: pic: 195 Chassis
 

WOW! I had no idea that plywood was so feasible when used correctly. I generally assumed that wood would splinter into shards when slamming into a robot with an 80/20 extrusion frame. I guess if it's worked before it should work again.

Plus it looks darn spiffy. GJ guys! :cool: