How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

Since the start of 2228 we've been relying mostly on the kit parts and 8020 (a prototyping building material) to build our robots, and I'm starting to see more and more problems with building this way. 8020 is a prototyping material and it allows you to make quick changes and to guesstemate a lot of things and still be able to get it right. Which at first sounds good, but I've noticed more and more that because we can do those things we've become reliant on them and we don't design as thoroughly as we should be.

So my question to the FIRST community is how do you guys build your robot, do you do what we do and use 8020 (or a similar material), do you make it out of sheet metal, if make it out of sheet metal do you send the designs out and get parts back, do you make the parts yourself, do you weld your frames out of square stock, what?

I'm trying to figure out what are some of the things we can change to improve ourselves and get an idea of what other teams are doing. The only other solution I have in mind right now is to do something similar to the Thunderchickens (217) and Robowranglers (148).

There's a poll included in this thread, but I don't think it will be able to grasp the scope of the differences between teams.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

It all depends on the year/game...1023 useually uses 8020 but last year we needed something lighter, so we used sheet metal (welded togeather).

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

2022 for the past two years has been almost entirely angle aluminum and bolted connections. This allows us to build quickly with our very limited machine shop. (2 saws and couple drills)

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

We generally use Bosch-Rexroth aluminum extrusion (very similar to 8020). We use the 20mm cross section profile for just about everything, but we have been known to use 30mm where we need the added strength.

We bolt (or rivet) everything - we seldom use welding if we can help it, since we don't have the equipment at our main shop.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

For the past 2 years, we have used lasercut plywood. We have a special tabbed design where all the pieces interlock like a 3d puzzle.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

Team 2410 has been using a square tubing frame since it's beggining. We ussualy have a polycarbonate electronics board to go along with it. We have been known to use a bit of al plate when needed aswell. (this year was for parts of the kicker and ball magnet complex, last year was supports for shooter and spiral)

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

I will have to admit, this is a very kewl way of building chassis. I came by their pits in 09 and man it was a very slick way of making a wood chassis.

1323 uses 2x1 box tubing and we weld everything.

-RC

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

We use 80-20. It's nice, and it lets us make major changes fairly easily.

But we feel that 80-20s holding us back. It might be, it might not. But we're going to try something new next year. Of course whether it's wood, sheet metal, some of the sort of hybrid, will depend on many factors.

- Sunny

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

Our team has used welded box and angle aluminum for our frames for every year we've competed, as far as I remember. Our primary sponsor (UTC) usually does the welding for us, as well as some CNC work on the robot, and powdercoating. The CNC is usually used just to create complex designs in the aluminum. For example, our mascots are the 4 Aces, so we usually have the 4 suits (Spade, Heart, Diamond, Club) cut into our aluminum.

Here you can see some of the CNC work, as well as the welding on our 2004 robot, which used mostly angle aluminum
http://www.aceshigh176.org/gallery2/...serialNumber=2

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

A quick little history on 1726's robot materials:

2006: Almost completely fiberglass pultrusion, jigsawed to shape and bolted together. Weighed a ton.
2007: Beefy pultruded fiberglass drivetrain. Arm constructed with aluminum tube, with second limb constructed from polycarbonate tube. Sheet aluminum ramp.
2008: Fiberglass/Aluminum plate chassis. All upper structures built with aluminum angle/square stock and rivets.
2009: Almost completely plywood and plumbing supplies.
2010: Almost completely welded steel tubing. Plywood electronics board.

Our most successful year: 2009, by far. (yes, the wood and plumbing one)


The biggest thing I've learned through these variations is that there is no universal best material to use for building a robot. Our material selection was based heavily on what the robot had to deal with for each year's particular game.

The other big factor that comes into play is the short time you have to build and test your robot over the 6 week build period. It is crucial to get things built as fast as possible. We were so successful in 2009 because our sponsor's shop (IEWTD) is loaded with heavy duty woodworking tools and we were able to get things built quickly. Build to your strengths!

That said, my favorite materials to work with are plywood and steel. Both are relatively easy to deal with, cheap, and fast to work with. I would never use 80-20 style extrusion for structural robot parts since it's the wrong material for the job. Use what works for you.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

We use nuts and bolts and c-channel, aluminium angle, square tubing, windsurfer booms, and whatever else we can get our hands on.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

We use a lot of box and angle aluminum, lots and lots of rivets, and our "signature" .035 half inch aluminum tubing... :)

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

It's been sheet metal since day one for 2815 (and, this season, 1398).

1618, for my three years with them, met with the most success using the kit frame and angle aluminum construction. (There was the PVC pipe structure in 2008, but that was ultimately mostly for holding up the side panels and flag holder.)

1293 has been mostly sheetmetal over the years, with 80/20 in a supporting role where it made sense. (They've been known to bolt their two drive pods together with it, then attach their superstructure to it, or for a lift mechanism.)

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

330 uses the KOP frame... for prototyping and code testing.

For the competition robot, it's always been either box or angle aluminum for the drive frame, and then angle aluminum/box aluminum for the superstructure, with the occasional dose of PVC or fiberglass pultrusion in the manipulator area.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

I'll let someone else from 1714 talk about the robot. I tried to figure out what they made the 2010 one out of but I couldn't see it.

If all goes to plan, Shaker will have built 3 robots with 3 completely different materials. In 2009 the robot's frame was made of pultruded fiberglass. I-beams with cutouts for wheels made up the drivetrain, c-channel all around for bumper mounts. Some aluminum channel and box tubing for the tower, a fiberglass intake, and then lexan for the rest. Pretty cool.

The 2010 frame was made up of 4 1/4" aluminium sheet as side rails, assembled with standoffs. Some 80-20 connected the sides together and formed the rest of the frame. The bumper mounts were a bolted on rectangle of pultruded fiberglass.

Sheet metal is the way of the future...

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

the past 4 years team 1086 has used a bent sheet metal frame, this year using our sponsors new CNC laser cutter to cut the hole pattern. in years before we hand punched the holes.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

We start with the kitbot frame (it may be heavier that some other solutions, but it's the quickest thing we can get going, and it have everything you want in a frame). From there, it's pretty much all sheet metal and angle stock. We usually end up having the machine shop at our primary sponsor do a few small things for us (lightening holes or complicated patterns), but 99% of the work is done in house, by the kids.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

This year 397's robot was quite literally 2 KOP frames stacked on top of each other. We used 80/20 in between them. This made our frame quite heavy but incredibly rigid. It also gave us the benefit of letting us play with the mounting height of our kicker until we liked it by sliding it up and down.

In the past we have used the KOP frame and 1" square tube to build the robot. We bend the tube in house using a standard pipe bender. This can then be bolted together (or welded). The only time this method was a problem was in 2008 when the force of the launcher changed the shape of our frame as we fired. I'm sure someone has a picture of 397 hitting their frame with a hammer to make it go back square. I personally like the bent tube construction method. But as always, you work with the resources you have.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/27139 2007
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/23321 2006
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/30277 2008
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3348/...cd2aa38f_b.jpg The fun bent parts in 2009. That PVC ring was a prototype, the final one was made of aluminum round tubing and bent by hand.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

In years 2005-2009 we used the kit frame and aluminum angle and box for the other assemblies. In 2008 we used a smaller version of 80-20 on the speed racer robot and had some 1x1 80-20 in the upper frame work for our 2009 robot. This year we decided to use 80-20 for our robot frame as it was great for prototyping, moving stuff around, and very, very strong. However like many teams it ate up weight, parts shifted (a lot), and was a hassle when we ran out of sliders and brackets. Team 234 said in their swerve drive implementation conference that 80-20 is a great prototype, but aluminum box is better for the final as it is lighter and parts don't slide around.

I hope our team uses more aluminum box in our construction to help save on weight and parts moving, but a strong rigid frame was desired in our first meetings of the season which 80-20 accomplishes until parts move around.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

Did you guys drill through the extrusion when you finalized part locations? That basically keeps all the advantages of 80-20 and takes away the sliding problem.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

Yes, that was one of the solutions we had. Specifically with the wheels we took angle supports and bolted them to the frame to keep the wheels from sliding if they came loose. Loctite was another useful tool, but we also had problems with vertical frame members moving horizontally which we fixed by placing bolts vertically from one frame member to another. But adding more bolts just increases one of its disadvantages: weight.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

95 has used plywood frames with angle aluminum brackets frequently, and with great success. Recently we've started welded the kit chassis together which makes it both lighter and stiffer than using the bolted connections. Every year we've used the kit frame we've always dropped a sheet of something in the middle of the kit frame to strengthen it up.

If you have easy access to welding, a welded frame could work out very well for you because it is such a flexible fabrication technique. Be careful with welded aluminum frames because if you weld 6061 it loses its temper, 50xx series (that the kit frame is made out of) has no temper and so does not lose strength with welding.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

We have a mixture of square tubing sub frames, machined plates and small parts, sheetmetal/sheet plastic fabricated brackets made using our shear and brakes, round tube, COTS, purchased sheetmetal shapes from IFI (now called VEXPro), welding, and whatever else we can think off. We pretty much do whatever we can to make what we need.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

Most of the teams I work use a press fit Aluminium tube system like this one http://www.mcmaster.com/#press-fit-f...ystems/=5bymjz
Systems like this are light-weight, fast to assemble, easy to modify, strong, and relatively cheap. I wish all my teams would use something like this.
I think welding is a great and fun skill for kids to use but it can be prohibitive to use during the build season if the welders don't have much experience.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

We have used the kit frame and 1' square tube or 1/2'-1.5' angle for nearly everything on our robots, from 05'-10'.

We have been very successful with this method.

Each year we have built the fram in two pieces(a drivebase and an upper structure for everything on top) then either welded, bolted, or welded and bolted(07') the two pieces together.
It's easy, cheap, reliable, quick, light, and very strong, plus we dont really need any machine other than a saw and drill to build everything* ;)





*welding was done by a parent or mentor

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

Team 2062 uses item normally, its a strong, lightweight, and durable aluminum. This last year though we used kit of parts for our frame.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

Did you guys use ITEM for the rest of your frame, or 80-20 extrusion? It seemed very strong in preship videos when you guys had mentors doing pullups on the sides; I didn't think 80-20 could do that.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

We have used water-jetted aluminum plate for our frames, with other assorted aluminum and polycarbonate machined pieces for mountings and other parts.

Before that we used 1" welded aluminum box. We stopped using that system because it tended to be heavy and it's hard to modify if you need to change something.

The water-jetted parts are perfect and light but do put a lot of pressure on the CAD operator not to screw things up.:rolleyes:

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

The structure of the robot varies every year depending on how we decide to approach the game. We generally have an aluminum frame made from square stock that can be drilled through so additions can be attached. Team 116 also uses sheet metal, plexiglass, carbon fiber and other materials all depending on the purpose. This past season we made a rectangular bot with a kicker, vacuum, and hook attached (frame made from square stock). Last year we used a rectangular frame from aluminum square stock with a large cylinder on top made from plexiglass and aluminum that was used to guide orbit balls up to our shooter.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

You mentioned some of the pros of this material can you list, if any, it's cons? Also what version do you typically use? For instance with 8020, 1010 is the most commonly used, to my knowledge.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

2006: Welded Aluminum (box, angle, 1/8" plate); 1/8" plate and 1/2" tube for mechanisms
2007: Welded box aluminum, and it took the welder 3 tries to get it right without warping; 1/4" thick honeycombed fiberglass for the ramps with KOP U channel for structure bolted to the frame
2008: Welded box aluminum, simple design; 80/20 for elevator and it was heavy, too much to maintain, and very innefficient
2009: Welded box aluminum frame; riveted plate gussets to mechanisms; used honeycombed aluminum for the floor of the bot
2010: Welded box aluminum for the frame; waterjet plate for precision mechanism parts;

2011: Most likely we will use box aluminum, welded by a sponsor again. However, during the offseason we will experiment first. We've toyed with prototypes that use C-Channel and cantilevered wheels since 3" C-Channel provides a perfect mounting channel for the AM SuperShifter. However, we like our 2010 direct-drive system, so we may to 1" box Aluminum and some waterjet plates. We have excellent CAD students this year and a potential sponsor with a waterjet so we will see what else we can do with it and 1/8" or 1/4" Aluminum plate.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

Team 1306 uses mostly the C-channel from the KOP and 80/20, but also angle aluminum, flat aluminum (1" width for both), plexi, aluminum plate, a bit of PVC, and (as a last resort only) plywood :P

This year's robot contained all of the above (I hated having to use the wood to mount electronics and penumatics, but we were short of time)

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

Just a quick comment; Wood, when used properly, can be an effective solution to a problem.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

One of my firends favorite quotes:

Wood, its natures carbon fiber!

When you look at it that way, it is a much more attractive option.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

For us it has changed every year, In the begining we welded 2mm sheet metal aluminum to make our frame, the we used 5in think 2x4, then the last 2-3 years we've used 80-20, sheet metal, Polycarbonate, even steel once.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

Since 2001 our team has used welded aluminum square stock with lots of bolt on arms and manipulators.

Lately we have been powder coating and experimenting with sheet metal.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

Yes, I guess so, I'm more worried about looks (I'm the teams *unofficial* lead graphic designer, and I'm terribly OCD about things like that)

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

Im going to have to question your comment about wood not looking good
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo...eat=directlink

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

Say what? Can you tell me which parts of those twins are wood and which aren't? Looks pretty good to me.

Eric reminded me, http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/31598 Quite possibly one of the most visually appealing frames I have seen in a while.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

Can you tell what parts of this are wood/not wood just by looking?

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/32851 http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/32671

And, does it not look good?

I don't think there are any pictures out there of 330's underside in 2007, but if you looked at it, it was wood, hogged out to reduce weight. (Areas connecting fasteners remained at full thickness.) Other robots used wood baseplates; 2005 had a built-in notch to help interface with the frame.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

Ok, that's fair, I see what you mean.... It's just that whenever we use wood, it looks like junk. We only use it when we really don't have time to put together anything else, so we definitely don't have time to finish it and make it look that pretty...

And maybe I's just my personal dislike for it :P I much prefer aluminum and plexi.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

How FIRST-typical of you :D

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

We use welded aluminum T-Slot extrusions.

Re: How Do You Make Your Robot?
 

How do you make your robot?
Re: With Fun!

For those looking for a more pragmatic answer:

My team used 80/20. Now I can't completely defend the use of this product because I myself would much prefer the use of customized sheet metal parts, but the reasoning behind its use was for its easy configurability and ability to reconfigure if necessary. So basically it saved building time, maintenance time, and was overall easy to use and assemble.