Thanks for all the help.
I'm not sure if I mentioned this or not, but our main reason for going CF is for weight, in hopes of saving weight. We had a problem this past year with weight. We're already using different design tools such as Inventor to help and CF would be able to help out in some places to also save weight. Another reason is how it is stiff, unlike aluminum which will bend. Also unlike aluminum, it just shatters, which is a definite minus. Another reason though that we are considering it is because it is sort of an unchartered territory for design and would just be interesting.
I think we can all agree for now, that a CF does seem kind of on the impractical side.
From all the concerns of it shattering from a FIRST competition, I think modularity is the way to go with this. Having different tubes to swap out, and some aluminum connectors and adapters so we can do a quick fix if it were to shatter sounds pretty good. We're not exactly sure about weight though, but 0.25" thick CF should be pretty strong, and somewhat lighter than .25" thick 6061 tubing.
Also, we would go CF
ONLY if we could use bumpers. This past season, most of our main chassis lasted. The only part that got tweaked was where the bumper wasn't, in the front for our collector. I'm already scared thinking of what bare unprotected CF would be like after a single regional.
But yeah, going CF is def an idea, but we're going to experiment with it first. We're not planning on building a beautiful CF chassis, bringing it to competition, and finding out that it can't get rammed by another 130+lb robot without totally failing.
