[JamesJones]

More steel shapes sounds good.

I think RC servos should be on the additional hardware list. Perhaps anything up to some max torque (the higher the better). These are widely available to anybody through a hobby store or catalog. They could replace alot of heavy, dificult to manufacture assemblies for minor actuation tasks (releasing latches, pulling pins etc.)

I would also like to see more pneumatics choices. More cylinders, valves and acumulators. If the sponsors don't wish to provide them, we will pay for them. Cylinders are, in general, much lighter and cheaper and easier to use in a design than an equivalent motor and gearbox system to convert rotary to linear motion. Incorporating air cylinders to do a job very often requires very few if any machined parts. The same cannot be said for adapting and electric motor to do the same task. Give us the choice of some small light acumulators or some heavier but higher capacity acumulators. I would gladly trade a couple extra pounds of accumulator if I could get that pump off board.

Bottom line, give us more component choices that readily adapt to our needs without alot of machining required. This helps everybody but most of all it helps the teams that don't have good manufacturing resources.

James Jones
Engineer/Coach
Team 180 SPAM