Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile? Many top teams do it, and yet I can't shake the feeling that consuming a whole days to send parts to the powder shop is a huge cost, when you could have that extra day for driving.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

Our manufacturing schedule is such that not everything is ever done all at once.

We make our frames and gearbox plates before we have all our shafts, gears, etc finished, so time spent waiting for anodize/powdercoat to come back usually does not come into play. Sometimes it does however, and you're already committed so you just have to live with it.

We've been lucky enough to have a powdercoat sponsor who normally turns around our parts in under 8 hours and an anodize shop that usually is able to do our parts fairly quickly as well.

It definitely makes a huge difference in terms of making your robot look more professional.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

Yes

Whats the point of driving well if you don't do it in style!

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

I guess it can depend. Is image a big thing to your team? If yes, then probably yes.

UPS has an anodizing sponsor, and image is pretty important to us. Gotta rep the brown and gold.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

I do my best to run my team as if we were a real engineering firm, making real products. An important part of that is creating a product that looks good.

Also, it seems to help immensely when it comes to impressing sponsors, prospective students, the community, etc...

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

To add on what has already been said:

A big part of the competition especially at the national level is having your robot be memorable in some way. The robots that look stunning even when they struggle, end up in the eliminations more often than those that perform at the same level but don't look as professional.

The satisfaction of having an awesome looking robot also has its plus in that it motivates your team to have the robot perform at the level it looks like it should.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

It's not necessary to the functioning of the robot, and over their lives, our robots are not subject to any hazards from which power coating and/or annodizing will protect them.

Then again, as Billy Crystal used to say in his impersonation of Recardo Mantalban on Saturday Night Live: "It is better to look good than to feel good" :rolleyes:

On yet another hand, there is nothing that looks as shabby as a powder coated robot that has been banged around, chipped, etc. And as noted in a previous post, unless you can turn your powder coating/annodizing around pretty quickly, having your robot out for a few days to make it look pretty can really hurt in a 6-week schedule.

In the end, like most other decisions a team makes, its a trade off. If looking pretty is important, and you like the look of powder coating and/or annodizing, and you can protect the robot finish as you work on the robot, and it doesn't impact the schedule negatively, go for it.

Personally, I like the honest, functional look of bare metal.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

I don't know about powder coating, but I know our team used to anodize most of our frames and astructural components, but we stopped, I think just because the pros: spiffy robot, matching with team colors, just wasn't worth the time and delay it took to get it done.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

Well, it all depends. You have to look at WHY you're having a robot powder coated and/or anodized. If you're like us, who each year end up taking parts from the old robot to use on the new one, then there's no use. If you keep each robot, or you plan to be using it after competition, then you can have it power coated and anodized. Team 256 has never really had a robot powder coated or anodized, but when we need color, "we do what we must, because we can", by means of spray paint and colored duct tape, which not only makes our robots look good, but makes them 30% more functional!

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

How would we go about getting sponsors who will do these for us? I mean, they must expect something in return if they are willing to sponsor a team.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

One thing I think is standard among powdercoat sponsors is to not ask for colors which are out of ordinary from their production colors (if it is a company that manufactures something). If its an actual powdercoat shop, then you could approach them the same way you do any other company. Offer them advertisement etc.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

i think team guss used a type of paint and fooled everyone into thinking their robot was powder coated. they just painted each part as it came off the machine line, and the next day it was ready to go. minimal time down, and paint can look really really good.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

Us, and many others get same day turnaround with powdercoating.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

Here are the situations I think this is worthwhile in:

1) Your robot is going to be competing on the national stage, and you want to be identifiable and memorable.

2) You feel that having a more professional looking robot will bring in more sponsors/new members/supporters.

In Formula SAE, most teams powder coat their chassis. The reason for this is that the overall basis of our competition is to 'sell' our design for a small production racecar. If we didn't have to sell our design, it would be tempting to ignore it altogether to save a bit of weight and time (every gram counts).

Don't let pretty things distract you from your engineering goals, unless they give you some advantage (if it is a non-engineering advantage, it is just as important).

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

For small parts you can do the anodizing in your own shop... just borrow a bit of sulphuric acid from the Chem lab. There are really good instructions on line for setting up your own anodizing line.

I've never felt it wise to paint or powder coat, however, just in the event that you ever need to make an emergency repair using a welder. With bare aluminum your surface prep is pretty minimal... the paint or powder coat would just be one more layer to be cleaned off. Not bad if you've got a power wire wheel, but we don't pack those to our pit area.

Often, however, we would polish exposed aluminum parts, and cover the unpolished parts with painted polycarbonate that could be removed quickly and easily. There was usually at least one student on the team who really excelled at "making things shiny".

Then we realized that we were being silly making robots out of aluminum and switched to wood, where a couple quick coats of lacquer and a bit of sanding take it from looking cheap to looking awesome... but there's another thread about that!

Jason

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

How about doing it in-house?

Better yet, train students and have those students train other students once they're an alumni. :)

5 years and counting.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

Ask yourself "what are we trying to accomplish ?".

Looking good during the competition is a good reason.

Having a nice 'showbot' after the competition is a good reason.

This year we anodized, did graphics and all the rest. Since our regional we have showed it in front of a total of 30,000 across several events. It helps a lot with the roadshow.

Back to your basic question - what are you trying to accomplish ?

.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

One of our mentors is in the powder coating/dip molding business. It makes the bot look great. We dip coated the claw. Nice grip to the surface.

We also have a mentor that powder coats show car parts in his garage at home. He bought him mom a new stove so he could use the old one in the garage. :)

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

For us, its worth it.

We are constantly complimented on the look of our machine. Most of that has to do with it being anodized in our team colors.

It is not easy to fit the time into the build season schedule, but we have a pretty good idea of how much time we need, and when is the best time to ship the parts out.


-Brando

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

For a team that's really organized, does good, honest design before starting construction, and can stick with the construction schedule, finishing metal is just another step in the process. It lets the judges know you are on top of things.

Either that or. . . Your robot looks like it was built by adults off in a shop somewhere else and wasn't really "kid-built". I saw one robot this year which was done by a veteran team. It had a beautiful anodized finish on parts that had been CNC fabricated. The robot looked great, until you saw the piece of unfinished 1 by 8 wood, held on with some rather ugly right-angle brackets, that was being used as the minibot deployment unit. It was painfully obvious which parts of the robot the kids had built and which had been done by mentors/sponsors.

There are other alternatives which are easy and good looking without having to send the parts out to the pros. One technique I use in my home shop is to bead blast (like sandblasting but with glass beads rather than sand). This removes mill marks, dirt, printing, etc. from the aluminum and leaves a satin finish. Since the satin finish on bare aluminum oxidizes quickly, I immediately spray the piece with a clear paint, either Krylon or Rustolium clear. This seals the surface, keeping the parts looking nice. They still have the aluminum metal look,

Students can easily finish aluminum like this. You might also want to experiment with paint or tinted clear lacquers after bead blasting. This can all be done by students, which is the real goal.

Dr. Bob

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

It is only worth it if you have the time in your schedule to do it. One of the best operations I have seen is making two robots and upon completing the fabrication of parts, send one set out for anodizing/powder coating while you assemble the other set. Unless you are 254/968/233/1114 that is! ;)

Be cautious of whether or not it is something you can do easily without sacrificing your performance. Seeing beautifully painted robots on the field that can't do squat because they either don't work or weren't finished is very sad at the cost of a paint job.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

How much weight does a fully powder-coated frame add to the robot? Anyone ever do the math?

Also, what about polishing exposed aluminum as an alternative? You can make such parts bling pretty well that way.

The only year we powder coated our bot was in 2003. Up close, it looks like it went through a war (given the nature of the game, that is fairly close to the truth). Such battle scars don't show as much on bare aluminum. Our 2004 robot looks much better after the fact.

You can also paint your lexan guarding or use vinyl graphics to add color and style to the bot. We used vinyl coverings this year: Example

3193 uses spray paint for plastic and sprays the inside of their lexan - looks really sharp and doesn't get scratched: Example

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

I agree, but want to point out one observation. You see very few beautiful, well designed, anodized/powdercoated/painted robots that don't perform well on the field. This may seem obvious, but I thought it was worth pointing out.

The teams who are capable of finishing a robot and making it look beautiful, are the ones that are organized and have a solid plan going into the season. These are the teams that know where they need to get to and how to get there to get the finishing touches on the bot to make it look great.

-Brando

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

I don't think this is a debate you want to get into.

Reevaluate your statements and assumptions before you post again please.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

If you have a linear-slide based elevator that uses ABS as its low-friction sliders, powder-coating is TOTALLY WORTH IT. There was a very noticable difference in lift motor load between our practice and production robot this year because of it.

Other than that -- sure it's a p.i.t.a. sometimes, but in the end it's worth it. You have a product for the whole year, not just a product for the competition season. Also, if you're worried about redoing welds (well, that you have to worry about it is a separate issue) -- duct tape adheres to powder coat better than raw aluminum (FWIW).

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

There may be instances where you have aluminum parts sliding on other aluminum parts. You may want to hard anodize one or both of the parts to reduce wear in these situations. I know that teams 2194 and 171 have done this.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

I'd agree if they were "well designed" but I have seen many painted/powder coated robots that performed very poor or not at all.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

It seems that most people are adbising to anodize/powdercoat if you have time. This is good advice, but depending on the resources for your team, it may not be the right choice. My team has reasonable resources, I would consider us fortunate, but we are slow when it comes to building and designing. We've only ever anodized once, and that was for our swerve modules in 2009. For us, anodizing is a ice to have, but we know the build season is short, and until we improve our schedule, we go into a build season assuming we won't anodize.

It's really a matter of what's right for your team. Karthik would tell you to analyze your team's resources, and make sure you don't try what you aren't capable of. This is great advice.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

Here's a point I haven't seen raised. Relationship between practice bots and powdercoating.

The fact that we make a practice bot means there is no stress to start assembly of comp bot early in season, we often won't even start until week 5.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

Some many take this the wrong way or overexaggerate this but: A powder coated robot has an advantage of getting picked over a non-powder coated robot, for me atleast. Depending on the depth of the regional, your third robot may just be playing defense and won't be asked to score much. If the regional is very shallow, you may just want your 3rd partner not to lose you the regional (with red cards this year, this was a factor). So, you essentially want a smart teams that understands the rules and won't get penalties or get in you and your scoring partner's way. If a team took the time and effort to find someone to powder coat and scheduled it, the team is probably more likely to be smart, to read the rules, and think about strategy than an equally good robot but looks messy and sloppely put together. Its a very minor factor in the grand scheme of alliance selection, but there is a practical advantage to powder coated (or just a clean, good looking) robot. (This can also be applied to pit organization, team shirts, team cheers, interaction with team members in the stand...your preformance on the field is not the only thing that matters in getting selected, especially as 3rd robot).

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

According to the wikipedia article on anodizing, the dyes can be screen printed on to create patterns/designs/images. Has anybody experimented with this? it sounds cool.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

Teams that pick partners on superficial criteria, such as paint, are most likely teams that aren't going far in the elims anyways.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

I think you missed his point. I can see what John is talking about.

If I'm about to select a third robot for my alliance, and I see two teams with similar scouting data, and I know nothing more about them, I too would be inclined to pick the robot that looks more professional. It hints at the possibility of a more professional team overall. This leads to the possibility of a better pit crew and overall competition team. More professional looking doesn't have to mean painted, just neater and more organized/polished team.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

I wouldn't consider it superficial.

When it comes to a 3rd robot at regionals, often it's a darn hard choice if you're one of the higher seeds. It's usually less about ability, and more about their chance of breaking down.

Our scouts will track teams via data watching the matches, but myself, the pit crew, and some of the scouts will also make note of our perception of team's build quality, battery setup, tool setup, pit organization, etc. as we walk around the pits.

When you're looking for a robot that can drive from point A to B, and more importantly *finish* the match, these factors do weigh in.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

While I agree that with 2 even teams (through scouting) the better painted might be the better choice.

That said, however, My point is that XaulZan11 talked about teams with painted robots being smarter ...

... when it may have been smarter not to spend the time powdercoating and instead had more driver practice / robot tweaking.

It appeared to me that XaulZan11 assumes that looks = quality, when that may not be the case.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

You posted while I was posting :rolleyes:

Paint jobs are superficial.
They do not score or provide defense.
And it doesn't add to (very many) strategies.
It also has little to do with robots breaking down, and in fact they may be more prone to breaking down since there was less time to tweak the robot (It was at the paint shop geting annodized after all).

Paint jobs are a luxury ... one that many teams (mine included) typically cannot afford (both economically and timewise). The only game I required some paint on our robot was 'overdrive', because I knew that we would not be able to see the robot below a specific level (middle barrier), so I had 2 posts painted different colors (we could see them over the barrier and they told us location and orientation).

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

The paint itself provides no substantial point scoring advantage, but it's more often than not when you see a robot that is just totally decked out and color coordinated, it is a reliable robot made by a team that has their act together. Sure, I've seen powdercoated robots that perform poorly, but it's usually not the case. Especially when you're specifically talking about late round alliance selections at regionals.

The former lead mentor of 973 thoroughly believed that powdercoating had zero competitive advantage, but he loved my introduction of it to the team. Why? Well, before then on 973 getting a single robot done and shipped was considered success. The students on the team, and many mentors, doubted the group's ability to make two robots, and powdercoat the competition one. When it happened, it was a great lesson to the students in setting and achieving goals. Deciding to powdercoat was almost a symbol to the team of the greatness we were pursuing.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

Strangely enough... we've found bumper quality to be an almost 1:1 indicator of robot quality. This year it seemed like whenever we scouted a robot we didn't know much about we could guess how they'd perform during the pre-match just based on how well their bumpers were put together.

Professional tight bumpers = the robot will probably perform well this match.
Shoddy loose bumpers = the robot probably won'r even link up.

I wish I had kept stats on this, but it was a surprisingly accurate indicator (with a few notable exceptions in both directions).

-John

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

Obviously I'm not going to pick a team that can barely drive but has nice powder coated over a team that can score 3 tubes a match but looks like crap. But, if the decision is between two teams with 6 wheel drives and similar driver abilities, the team that has a powdercoated, more organized looking robot, more organized pit is *probably* less likely to not understand the rules, get penalities or break down. Of course I'm not saying a good paint job causes a team to not to break down, but I think it is correlated with not breaking down. If a team takes the effort to make their robot look good, they are probably more likely to understand the rules and have a better built robot.

Midwest last year was very very shallow with a lot of teams just struggling to drive. There were probably only 10-12 teams that could kick balls over 1 bump and only a few more who could consistently score from the first zone. Once we knew we would be one of the top seeds and had the top seeds pretty well ranked, we knew we needed to find a team that simply wouldn't hurt us by breaking down or causing penalties. 3352 stood out as a basic kit bot, but appeared clean and well built and had an organized pit. So, we picked them after picking 16 (who lost Kansas City earlier that year due to penalties by their 3rd partner) and won the regional. 3352 never broke down and never got any penalties and did everything we asked of them.

Again, these factors are like the last resort tie-breaker. Of course, we have extensive scouting data to make our decisions, but when your in a shallow regional/district and your picking the 22-24th best robot, and you simply can't decide between a couple of teams, these factors, such as powdercoating, do matter.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

If teams choose to powdercoat, I see no reason why it should ever be frowned upon, regardless of the lack of correlation to robot performance.
Same goes for neat/clean wiring, nice team panels, embroidered team bumpers, etc. etc. If a team has spaghetti wiring, but never fails to lose connection ever in a competition, do we frown upon the cleaner one?
If its pretty and appeases the eye, and teams can afford to do it at no cost to other areas of the build season, so be it.:)

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

...Or it just made it easy to tell which parts were planned in advance compared to which parts were done later in the process. But of course if you want to keep making assumptions about teams and taking pot shots, you could do that too. I saw some minibot deployments which were made out of wood and ugly brackets that got minibots up the pole kind of fast...

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Karthik again."

You know what they say about assumptions....

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

i think the main advantage to powder coating or painting is that it makes the robot more memorable, and more professional looking. however there are ways to achieve this without spending as much time. i thought that WildStang had one of, if not the most memorable robot this year, and it was not because of the powder coating. a team that has a robot with enough time to think about how the robot looks, and bumpers, typically has more time to practice, unless they have a poor build season and don't finish in time.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

If you are confident that you won't be making any changes to your design, and you have the time left to do so, powder-coating or anodizing could be something really cool to do; however, making changes to parts that are powder-coated or anodized can leave some nasty-looking scars. Because we're constantly making changes to our robot (or fixing things, taking things off, etc), we don't feel like painting/powder coating/anodizing is the way to go.

We try to keep our designs as clean as possible and use transparent lexan to add a little bit of an asthetically-pleasing aspect to our robot, and occasionally (for example in 2008 with the Bullet-Bill themed hammer or this year with our FIRST Team 2337 decals on our gripper and the Pink Team tribute on our Championship minibot deployer) we add some small visual to our robots. Generally, though, tidiness in design and fabrication can make a robot with little to no "bling" on it look just as professional as the next guy; however, I will admit seeing a robot like 148's Raptor, Armadillo, or Tornado in all black with Red under-glow is pretty awesome and extremely indimidating.

2008 - Bullet Bill
2010
2011 - NERD IV (Ali)

Or maybe I'm cheating: Mr. Dan Ernst's pictures can make anyone's robot look good ;)

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

One thing I disagree with in this thread is that you "NEED" to powder coat or anodize to make you robot look professional. Whether you want your robot to be colored or not should be purely up to if you as a team think it would look good. For example, take a look at our robot this year. Bare metal frame, but it still managed to be IMO the most colorful robot out there :D . Anyway I don't think Wildstang has ever colored our frame. This in large part due to we are constantly tweaking our robot up to the ship date and even after. If we decided that we wanted to color all the changed parts/assemblies (and think of all the colors) it would just add unneeded turnout time of parts for our robot. Plus the weight. It isn't a lot, but when you somehow always end up a tad bit over, every little bit counts (hence the cheese holed frame).

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

Our 2011 robot was manufactured by students, (with the exception of some raw bent sheet parts which were modified later,) and painted by students.

-Nick

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

I don't think that Starman's post was meant to be accusatory. I'd guess that his comment that some robots "look like [they were] built by adults off in a shop somewhere else and [were]n't really 'kid-built'" is referring to fabrication (machining), which many teams do 'outsource.' And that isn't bad - in fact, I'd say it's something to aspire to, as it allows students to focus more on the design and problem solving aspects of the competition, rather than just drilling holes.
I for one am trying to find a sheet metal shop to sponsor our team, which would result in adults rather than students doing much of the machining.

Re: Is powder coating and annodizing worthwhile?
 

Basically anodizing opens up the aluminum to accept the dye. You can screen print or digitally print dye sublimation inks and then transfer these into the aluminum like a regular anodizing dye.

Colors Inc here in Indy is a great sponsor of central Indiana Teams. They same day anodize parts for teams here. They also have the capability to print dye sub inks and transfer to AI parts.