[Marc P.]

Team 38 built one in 2002 to form our plastic covering. If you're looking to form anything larger than a foot, it may be more trouble than it's worth, unless you have access to a very large oven to heat the material. The vacuum chamber itself was made of 4x8 plywood and pegboard, insulated with duct tape.

For our robot covering, we used high-output space heaters to soften the polycarb, and our sponsor loaned us some industrial blowers (from air mattresses) for the vacuum. We built a wooden mock-up of the shape we wanted, and melted the polycarb around it, using duct tape to insulate the vacuum chamber. Our build space was relatively small, and all I can tell you is even with all the windows and doors open in the middle of February, the temperature was easily high 90's, low 100's. It was a great experience to see it done, but it took a long time to get the polycarb soft enough to fit the mold all around.