[MechEng83]

Another technique we used this year was designing with weight reduction ideas in mind. An example was the chain on our drive system. We spaced the wheel centers so that 35 and 25 chain would both span the distance and built with the 35 chain. We ended up not using it this year, but it could have potentially saved us about 1.2 lbs. As others have stated, there is a trade off with weight and durability.

Our frame is welded aluminum rectangular tubing with 1/16 wall. This is great for weight (our frame weighed a little over 5 lbs), but it does come with its own challenges. The closed cross section actually provides a lot of strength for the material, but it's not invicible. After a particularly hard head on crash at Chesapeake this year, the middle section of the frame is dented in behind the bumper. Using screws to attach other components to the frame very easily leads to "dimpling" in the areas of the screws as students are not careful about stopping when the load gets tight enough.

We have an anodization sponsor to color the robot, which actually is a weight savings over using powder coat. Aluminum gears are almost a standard of our DTs. We save ~2 lbs just by swapping from steel. Several years ago, we made a switch from using 1/4-20 bolts to using 10-24 screws. Rivets are used where it makes sense.