Quote:
Originally Posted by Cothron Theiss
Team 3259 actually assembled their wooden chassis at the Smoky Mountains Regional this year. I don't know that they played in their first few matches, but by the time they got on the field, they had a powerful drivetrain that did well on defenses. If I remember correctly, they used 4 CIM's and two mini CIM's to power it, and it was impressively fast for something that was assembled the day of. If done correctly, wood is a perfectly acceptable material for an FRC chassis. Also, the BitBuckets have shown that wood works.
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Unfortunately, we're not quite that fast. We discovered potential issues with the existing gearboxes, as well as the multifunction arm on the practice bot after bag day. We brought in new gearbox parts, as well as the electronics, as part of the withholding allowance, and made several modifications to the arm. We ended up stripping the bot down to the wood frame, and rebuilding it that morning.
As for wood, I think its a fantastic building material for robots; strong*, easy to cut, cheap, and nonconductive. Our method of building robots was inspired by the method developed by 173 in the early 2000s. Our frame parts are cut out of 3/4" birch by our friends on team 3844 on their CNC router, and then we assemble the frame using wood glue and wood screws (we pilot drill the holes to avoid splitting the wood). It's proved very robust over the past few years, including several years where we played some very aggressive defense.
*as with any material, "strong" is loaded term. Put enough holes in the wrong spot, and something will give. Also, we prefer plywood, where as it sounds like you guys will be using lumber. Both have advantages and disadvantages. If your worried about strength, overbuild it. As many have mentioned, wood is much cheaper than aluminum.