[Katie_UPS]

Having been a student and mentoring welder: maybe?

In or out of house, there is a huge time sink. Its always been a slow process for me, intentionally. A lot of time is spent lining things up, clamping, and repeating that process after the welding starts (metal tends to warp when it gets hot, so you need to readjust and account for that). Student welders aren't as fast as experienced welders and are more prone to making mistakes (I've lost a few hours to my welds cracking while grinding them down). I've never dealt with out-of-house welding, so I can't speak to that but I can assume there is going to be some time lost.

The biggest pro to welding is also its biggest con: everything is (mostly) permanent. You can't pop the rivets and reorient your arm but also you don't have to worry about sheering. I can't speak to the strength of welding vs bolts, but welding does allow for more creative joints with less headache.

Students, with a mentor and enough practice, are more than capable of acquiring enough skill to weld FRC bots by kickoff. If you have the welding facilities already, there's no harm in experimenting with it in the off-season.