[EricH]

Originally Posted by Joe G.

Given these constraints, stress analysis is a waste of the designer's time, and overbuilding the case to withstand any freak accident imaginable in FRC is poor use of resources.

For example, designing it to withstand a combination of hits that sheared a 1/4-20 bolt. That's a LOT of OUCH! And, yes, I have seen that happen. It also happened to be a bolt that was holding a battery holder on. The battery was plainly visible shortly afterwards, and the robot wasn't moving.

A more reasonable test would be bouncing a Frisbee or a ball off of a robot's side panel that was made of similar material, several times, as hard as thought to be reasonable (grab a freshman and tell him to break it using X, but stop after half an hour, for example). If it breaks early, redesign. If it doesn't break (probably won't), you should be OK.


There's a time and a place to do analysis. A case to try to keep FOD out of the controller, you pretty much need enough strength to hold it together. A robot frame, you need a bit more for some reason...