[MechEng83]

One of the techniques my team used this year was having a weight "budget" for each subsystem, with a 5 lb reserve.

It worked fairly well, because it forced each team to consider what their own pieces weighed and keep track. Someone had to "own" each piece on the robot -- including fasteners. I actually developed a chart with weights of each size screw we would ever consider using and every fastener is accounted for. Educated forecasts of system weight is key, but so is the interaction between subteams to reallocate the weight "resource" so we have a functional design.

Having accurate CAD and *thankfully* a sponsor who could laser cut to our CAD specs was a big help. Designing parts with features and supports in the right place without extraneous material is key. It's a lot easier to remove a pound in CAD than it is with jig-saws and drills after the fact. This is the first time in several years (except UA since we wanted to climb and came in at 90 lbs...) that we weren't swiss cheesing our robot at competition.

This is the part where I hail the benefits of FIRST not being about the robot, but what kids learn through the process.