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Re: Carbon Fiber
Start small. Before investing a season and a good deal of money (potentially), work with the sponsor to develop smaller, key parts that can best take advantage of the carbon fibers properties. It will also give you a season or two to devolp your relationship with the sponser- I've had plenty of sponsers change thier mind after a season, deciding that it wasn't at all what they had imgained it.
In the future, when you're team has built up some experience with the material, you will better be able to answer your own questions. Successful teams in FIRST usually evolve the basic designs and technologies behind their robots over the course of many seasons, rather then trying to make tectonic changes in techniques and materials. But the progress has been steady- teams today regurally feild robots today that wouldn't have seemed remotely feasible when I first joined (multi gear transmissions are so 2 seasons ago- It's all about going sideways these days).
A great deal of attention is paid to composite materials great strength and low weight, but I've always been more interested in it's incredible stiffness. Aluminum has always struck me as being a fine material where strength (most measures of strength anyways) and low weight is a concern, but it's softness can worry me. If the bicycle and R/C car industry are any indicators, Carbon Fiber's stiffness sure is winning people over.
I suggest that you consider the composite for any part that you feel requires the extreme stiffness and strength, or perhaps an odd shape. Keep them small to start with, and keep a backup plan for producing the same part in aluminum or some such. Producing a whole frame with an untested, in FIRST, material with a brand new sponser sounds risky to me.
-Local
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