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Unread 01-05-2011, 22:25
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Grim Tuesday Grim Tuesday is offline
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AKA: Simon Bohn
FRC #0639 (Code Red)
Team Role: Alumni
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Rookie Year: 2010
Location: Baltimore MD (JHU)
Posts: 1,600
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The Frame thread

So, every year, my team makes the same exact frame, just modified for the years game. It weighs too much, and doesn't do a particularly good job of anything. Since I will have a leadership position on the team next year, I've made it one of my major goals to change this. One of my friends came up with this quote:

"The frame should be build to hold the robot; the robot should not be built to put in the frame"

This leaves me with a dilemma: We need the frame done early (that has been one of our biggest shortcomings in years past, not getting the frame welded until the end of week 2). On the other hand, I agree with my friend, which means we can't begin designing the frame until the design is done at the end of week 1.

According to Inventor, the frame weighs a whooping 35 lbs, not counting the supershifters, or the treads. Add those in, and your at 50 or so.

The problem is, we have used the same frame/style of frame for so many years now, our team has pretty much forgotten how to do anything different. So, I thought to myself, this is FIRST, teams like to share information, right? And people like to show off their designs, right? People like to critique designs, right?

I would be very grateful if other teams could show me pictures, or CAD of how they do their frames/drive trains. In return, I will show you and tell you a bit about ours!

We build a lower frame out of 1x1 aluminium T-slot. Very strong, very durable. Very heavy. We sandwich treads between two pieces of those T-slots. The treads are made from fan belts turned inside out and driven with a sproket from the supershifters (last year we used toughboxes). We build an upper frame out of 1/16 aluminum to support various mechanisms. The whole assembly is welded together, and we use T-slot sliders to put many things into the system.


Thanks in advance for other teams' help!