What tool are you using to make weight?
 

All right, so what tool(s) are you currently planning to use to get your robot to 120 lbs as we go into Week 6?

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

im not sure what we're going to do but we are at 66 lbs right now a few more things will be added but im not sure how much weight that will add

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

The only tool that will work to get our robot done in time will be a prayer rug.

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

HAASCNC Milling Machines (yes, plural) and Amada lasercutting machines. Soon to be a picture of the HAAS on the portal and in the gallery (once a mod approves it).

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

were 115 and proud of it but are container lookes like swiss cheese and my bathroom scale lies, but if you do need help saving weit the best way to do it is to drill holes in your battery and just exersise. or eat at subway :)

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

We call it a drill or hole saw!! To get to weight. :) :)

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

This is only Cyber Blue's second time in our 8 years of history that we have been under weight. It's a nice feeling knowing that Thursday of our first regional we won't have to spend the day finding places to drill and cut like the past several years.

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

Actually most of our frame comes in at 60 lbs. We need to add a bunch still but we only need 4 motors for the entire robot (no pneumatics). 80/20 was much lighter then expected. I think in the end we will weigh in a little under.

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

We have already used three mills and a lathe to help drill plenty of holes. It's a great team 40 tradition to spend one really late night (5 PM to 5 AM) drilling holes in the frame and weighting the gears and sprockets. A CNC machine also comes in handy from time to time.

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

w0w 6 people say their robot are 10 lbs under in week 6? Guess they don't have everything done yet or they don't have enough features.
Load some heavy code in their. That'll add some weight.

We are at 120 as of now, without one main system weighed in and a few motors and safety covers over pinch points/various other things.

Looks like we will be taking the parts to a miller to lose some serious weight.

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

I think we're just going to build(with wight in mind) and then weigh at the end and then have an all night drilling session at somebody's house. yay! lol

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

i dont know what our weight is now, but i know its going to be too heavy (5-10lbs over) with 9 motors :S, last year we were 5lbs overweight before competition

some things we found helpfull:
circle holes in your lexan electronics board, underneath rc / breaker panels :'(
saw off ends of long bolts
shorten your 6gauge leads going to switch and breaker panel

and we managed to be 119.95 lbs when we got to the regional with stickers.

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

It looks like we are on target to be 3-5 lbs over right now.

We try to approach weight reduction in as logical a manner as possible. Some rules to keep in mind;

1) Steel first, then aluminum, plastic last.
2) start at the top of the machine, 1 lb at 4 ft is worth a lot more than 1 lb out of the base.

Good luck everyone.

Matt B.

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

I spent a whole day milling some pockets in our drivetrain saving us about 3 lbs. We are about 119 lbs right now, we arnt quite done yet so we will probably have to be cuttin out some more fat the day before ship.

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

Our robot last weighed was only 90 pounds. So no need to worry about that yet :)

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

well team 1745 weighs in at 73 lbs now . . . I have no idea if this is bad or good.

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

Depends on how much of a robot you got. If you just have a chassis that can move around, then that seems pretty good. If that is your near finished robot's weight, then I am amazed... and its time to add a few pounds so it doesn't get pushed all over the place by other robots.

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

thats the near finnish weight . . with a shooter, a basket that can hold 20+ balls, and a 320 degree rotating turret(auto tracking of course).

so how much does lead cost?

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

Well. we haven't been that concerned woth weight, but we are usung our Bridgeport and CNC to drill/ mill lightening patterns in our parts. We will probably add weight later.

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

we use good ol' unibits as seen here. it does the job.

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

2" Lincoln Bit and a revamped pneumatic air tool.

Whine and Cheese party. After the whine of the drill, everything looks a HOLE lot like Swiss Chees.

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

The only tool we use is good design practice and a really annoying person who's job is to ask constantly "How much does that weigh???" It looks like we will be 10-20 lbs under when we get done, so we've quit worrying about what things weigh. My biggest concern right now is that there is no good place to put the lead...

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

So far, 57 pounds. We just need to get everything onto the drivebase that we weighed and we'll be over. I'm hesitant to guess by how much.

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

Used brass where we are is $1.50 lb it cuts easy and has far less safety issues than lead. BTW it is more dense than the cast (iron) weights on the back of our studio cameras a 16 lb chunk is about 1 x 4 x 6 unless my memory has lost it again.

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

Wow, our team is over the weight limit year after year. We have to drill holes in the sheet metal to lose weight, and you guys are adding weight? I never knew other teams had it like this.

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

One letter: H. We plan to use lots and lots of H. Seriously, my team... okay, I've pretty much ignored the wieght limit (can't speak for the launcher team) since we're going to be pretty small this year (under 3 feet most likely yay!) and the bigger parts are aluminum. But, if worse comes to worse, I'll leave it up to the launcher people. I'm going to wire the robot for neatness and order (I hope) while maintaning shorter runs. It is the lovely convergence of things needed: order, lower resistance, and weight. Nice organized, short runs helps them all... and gives me another thing to do. (I don't have much to do right now since the drivetrain's done and it was my sole responsibility)

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

Team 222 has drilled 352 holes tonight alone. All holes were at least 9/16" of an inch in diameter ranging up to 2.5."
That does not count any of hundreds of previously drilled holes.
We have hack-sawed a decent amount too.

This is going be fun getting under weight :)

EDIT:
Add 27 to that number (the night goes on.) 377 total holes. 1 night.

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

I don't have any words to explain what i feel after reading all these posts. Luckily our team seems to build the heaviest robot in the world, and than throw away 4 robots worth of parts to finally get the weight reduction we need. Our ball holder weighs 1/8 what it weighed earlier! Now it weighs something rediculously low. Our ball launcher was like 50 lbs, I was cleaning up the new launcher and I can guarantee it only wieghs about 5-10 pounds now! As far as I know, our team never needs more weight, we need less weight and more time!

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

Team 11 seems to have always had problems with being over weight from what i've heard. being my second year, i can't list all the examples of over weight robots in the past 10 years of the team. but i can say that last year, our telescoping/articulating arm made completely out of cnc'd lexan side panels and foam filled lexan tubing came in at 16.6 pounds to heavy, and since it was already completely milled out for maximum weight savings, there was no change of using it. luckily, we had a back up arm made of aluminum, with no articulation, that still had to be drilled out to save weight. learning from last years mishap of people drilling off centered holes and sacrificing structural integrity, when we came in at 116 without electronics, we hole sawed our gator board (top secret sign making material that has been implimented into a robot), and i was put in charge of drilling approximately 300 half inch holes in our aluminum frame, 1 inch apart, dead center for maximum strength. we've come in around 110 after switching from pvc rollers to foam filled lexan rollers, and after sawing away any excess aluminum on our frame. now its time for electronics....... hopefully we won't need to drill anymore..... my wrist is still sore from all the drilling and center punching.....

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

The lead comment was a humorous reference to the poll option for being over 10 pounds under. For safety reasons I would never recommend lead, as it now seems to be considered a hazardous material in almost any condition. In the past we have used barbell plates, and that is probably what we'll end up using again. The trick with this year's design will be finding a good place for them that doesn't get the CG up too high. Maybe I can convince the students they need to add the air compressor :)

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

We're going to be close, as usual.

As a programmer, I am trying to use more 0's than 1's to save weight ;)

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

My team is really close to the limit. We had to drill a buch of holes in th top control board. Needless to say it now looks like swiss cheese... :rolleyes:

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

indeed.. lead is not cool.. . .i was shocked when i found out that i was using leaded soldier the other day ( and that explains why it made me feel sick).. .. in canada, i always use unleaded at home... but the states doesnt have that law in place against leaded soldier it seems...

Abwehr: very funny :) lol

a note about swiss cheese: the bees team acually does an amazing job with their lexan! they cut all their lexan into BeeHive *octogon* shaped holes.. . looks like they did it on purpose but we all know it was weight issues ;);)

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

I always feel like our robot is a wrestler. "here, wear this rubber suit and run around. You have too much water weight" :eek:
Crazy stuff.

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

we were over by about 30 lbs so we used a drill press on the wood and hacksaw, jigsaw, sawzall, drill combo in metal. grinder on bolts = 10ft. sparks!!!

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

why isnt a plasma cutter one of the choices??? thats what we resorted to.. and hole saws. and just taking off some pieces... we weighed 157 the night before shipping.

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

I'm not sure yet, probably a drill or holesaw. We are so close we aren't sure what we'll weigh (over or under). I wish they'd let me at everything before they put it on, so I can see what is causing us to have the most weight and what has weight to spare.

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

We used a sawzall, replaced our air actuators, and remade our pillow blocks to make weight on the last day.

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

we took ours to the mill to drill holes just search for pictures of the Robonauts robot and you can see the holes

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Good ol' Bridgeport mill, drill press, and jigsaw. Yup, we took about ten pounds out of our robot on Saturday night before ship. The four team machinists (me being one of them) worked late into the night and managed to get the robot to about 118 lbs.

Re: What tool are you using to make weight?
 

Everything - Primarily, we drilled and/or holesawed just about everything with a flat surface (using four or five different drills). We also used a jigsaw (not such a good idea), angle grinder, dremel cutoff wheel, hacksaw, and files.
Also compressed air and a shop vac, because otherwise most of the stuff we drilled would have stayed on the robot.
All the removed material ended up in a "feel good pile" on a scale so we could see how much we'd lost.