[John Gutmann]

Well for me I made the frame of my robot out of 1/2" sqaure tubing with 1/16.

For motors on my frirst robot I used 3/8" drill motors and transmissions. I used a 3/8" bore sprocket onto the drill motor shaft and secured it with a steel roll pin. I used skyway 6" caster wheels. and the sprockets and hubs from IFI. with a PBASIC control system. I used the old Buss fuse panel. I just went to home depot to buy battery connectors, wire, crimpers, and terminal connectors. That was for my first robot though.

my current robot isn't done yet, so I will list prices for the first bot.

tubing - 1.15 per foot - about 16 feet total
motor/trannies - free from team
batteries 2x for 50$ from ebay they were froma certified dealer and brand new
wheels 4x at 5$ each. If you say your on a FIRST team skyway should give you the discount
hubs- 2 sets of 2 for 46$ totalI only used half a set for each wheel.
sprockets for wheels - 2x @ 20$ each
sprockets for tranny - 2x @ 12$ each
victor 883, buss panel, PBASIC system, radios - free from team

All in all I guess I got lucky with getting smoe things from my team. But if you buying eveything yourself. You could get a vex kit and use the tx, rx and RC to drive 2 victors. Look around for cheap 883s that no one uses any more. if you wanna go easy on motors and wheels, go online and look for fisher price wheels, inserts, motors and trannies. ALl you need to do is mount them on a 1/2" (maybe its a 3/8") shaft and stop the motor from spinning. that is easy, no chain , no sprockets, the whole drive in on little package. for the frame if you want a nice frame I would say go for the 1/2" x 1/2" x 1/16" in wall tubing. I welded it with the schools tig and my own 110$ chicago electric gasless mig and haveny had any problems. Never once broken a weld.

Anything else just IM me on aim: sparksandtabs

I am hoping to throw together a white paper someday to talke about people building their own inexpensive robots, or a robot that is a little bit more advanced.

-John