We use 80/20 for all of our fall warm-up projects and the
BunnyBot competition. Depending on the competition, we build our FRC robots out of 80/20 1010 extrusion or 80/20 Quickframe, or some combination as well. Quickframe is about half the weight of 1010 extrusion but more of a pain to work with.
At the beginning of this thread there was a question about what to buy to get started. Here's my take. I’d say you could build 80% of a robot with just these 80/20 parts:
1010 Aluminum extrusion. I’d get at least eight 8’ pieces. More if budget allows.
3375 Drop in Nuts (100+)
3376 Drop in Nuts (100+)
3382 Econo nuts (200+)
3395 Anchor fasteners (100+) Drill press required.
4119 2 hole corner bracket (10+)
4101 4 hole corner bracket (10+)
4136 4 hole inside gusset bracket (10+)
4080 5 hole T plate (10) drop this if your budget gets tight.
6110 5/32” T handle wrench (5+)
6000 3/16” T handle wrench (5+)
6160 10 series counterbore cutter (cuts holes for 3395 fasteners.) Drill press required. You might get two in case you break one in the middle of the build season.
A nice assortment of 1/4 -20 socket head cap screws. Especially ½”-1”. You’ll also want some ¼-20 Button head cap screws especially around ½” and 5/8”. Obviously you can get these locally from a good hardware store or from 80/20. Which you use depends on your discounts. Some 80/20 distributors give nice discounts because 80/20 offers deep discounts for FIRST teams.
If you run into weight problems you can get 80/20’s
Quickframe pieces for parts of your robot. Keep in mind that 80/20 1010 extrusion weights about .5 lbs a foot so it adds up fast. Quickframe is about half that.
As was mentioned before, you really do need to put Loctite on your bolts or use Nylock nuts when possible. The frame will shake itself to pieces after a match or two without it.
Team 1540 was the #1 alliance captain and won the Oregon Regional last season with a Quickframe robot. The previous year we were also on the #1 alliance and ended up as a finalist with an 80/20 based robot. The point is that you can be very competitive with this material and let students have the satisfaction of building the robot entirely themselves without knowing how to weld.