[dubious elise]

Heheheh...

Since team 269 began using welded steel frames in 2004, we have not had many problems at all (save rusting - but we learned quickly from that one!). That is, of course, until this year. Within days of shipping our robot in 2006, our frame was a gigantic box - taking up as much of the allowed dimensions as possible. After a pre-ship scrimmage, we realized that we wanted to make some rather drastic modifications that involved cutting off two of the corners of the box to form a sloped front to the 'bot. Of course, after doing so, you simply cannot leave stray ends of square steel tubing because that is, frankly, not structurally sound. Nor is it safe. So alternate pieces of steel were masterfully gas-welded on by one of our mentors to finish the slanted portion (we already had our electronics firmly in place and did not have time to completely un/re-wire our robot).

Everything was honky-dory until the Championships rolled around. I was messing with the netting and noticed a fissure in one of the gas welds. After pointing it out to some of the other kids on the pit crew, we checked all of the gas welds and found another one that was snapped clean through. Luckily, we were just barely enough under weight to allow for repairs involving a very long, threaded rod and some pieces of sheet metal that were used to stabilize the junctions of steel in necessary areas.

The moral of the story is probably to do things 'right' the first time. The counterpoint is that change happens. Rather than being a horrible loss, this was a great learning experience.