Quote:
Originally Posted by team F.T.C 4240
The metal looked like 1/32 inch to me (note it is held together with plastic pegs like lego), but its almost identical to VEX, I've used VEX and it does not preform well when there is contact involved, my team and I made that VEX bot as robust as we could and it took a great deal more work to get it competition ready, mostly because the kit it self is so flimsy. Say you take a VEX bot to the FTC world competition and it get rammed into a wall by a 52 lb robot (like ours this year), don't you think something would break? All I'm saying is the new matrix kit is less robust then Tetrix but has some cool pieces that could be useful on a FTC bot, although I wouldn't use it to build a FTC robot. As for your FRC robot, you wouldn't use 1/16 inch for the base of your robot, it would be used to more less to plate the robot.
|
1/32 is way to thin to be what it was. VEX is also plenty strong even as Aluminum. Its made from the same material 1/16 5052 AL sheet bent on a CNC break. I don't see any well engineered robots falling to pieces on the field in VEX. As for the 52 pound robot thing. VEX robots are normally much lighter (at least the ultra efficient ones) However that being said there were some 60 pound wallbots at worlds this year. Its a trade off really. One thing I will say is that I wont deisgn with Matrix unless they make the right kinds of strutcutral parts, parts like Long C channel for instance. I don't trust the L brackets all to much for the main structure of a drive train those are "flimsy"
It also seems to me that their shafts are different sizes than Tetrix, which means I hope to god they make shaft couplers. Thats one thing that Tetrix even needs to make. But Tetrix and Matrix both have their major and subtle differences. Tetrix not needing nearly as much work as Matrix to make a robust robot. But Matrix I have a feeling will make things smaller. Overall next year shall be fun.
- Andrew
P.S. 67 Team H.O.T. did a 1/16 inch sheet metal drive train this year. Almost made it to Einstien. 1/16 is plenty strong, if done correctly.