[lukevanoort]

I think you'd be amazed at the number of robots and variety of things on them held together by zip-ties. Without zip-ties, our robot last year would have had a completely non-functional arm... zip ties tensioned all of our arm chains, which sorely needed it, and served their usual purpose - keeping wires out of where they shouldn't be (like crushed between a sprocket and its chain, which happened once). Our electronics cover was also zip tied on. This year, our electronics will be zip-tied on. I have even seen zip ties used as linear bearings (which was a pretty creative use, in my opinion) on an arm. Sure, I wouldn't design to hold my chassis together with them, but I much prefer working with zip ties to drilling out rivets, worrying about messing up the aluminum's heat-treatment, finding nuts dropped on the floor/magnetically stuck to the side of a motor casing, realizing that you epoxied the part in the wrong place (<--happened this week), and whatever annoyances are associated with other fastening methods.