Got Weight?

[Dominicano0519]

(starts talking in infomercial guy's voice) Is you robot overweight, does your team think that they just wasted 6 hard weeks of work. No worries Ill have the perfect solution as soon as i think of one. please help me with any ideas

[Adam Richards]

Originally Posted by Dominicano0519

(starts talking in infomercial guy's voice) Is you robot overweight, does your team think that they just wasted 6 hard weeks of work. No worries Ill have the perfect solution as soon as i think of one. please help me with any ideas

Step 1: Get Drill
Step 2: Insert 1/2"-1" bit into drill
Step 3: Drill Those Speed Holes!

[Clam]

remove unecessary components that would be cool, but would add weight.
use lighter material (ie: aluminum)...
see news updates...

[tammuoisau]

LIGHTNING HOLES, that's a hint

[Tomasz Bania]

Make enough holes so you can use your robot as a CHEESE GRATER at the end of the season!

Tomasz Bania

[henryBsick]

Holes help. I think in the past 3 days my team has taken 6-7 pounds off of our robot. Get a couple drills ready, they do heat up when run for a long time.

[InnocentBlond]

Originally Posted by Henry_222

Holes help. I think in the past 3 days my team has taken 6-7 pounds off of our robot. Get a couple drills ready, they do heat up when run for a long time.

Robot liposuction

Also try trimming bolts that are at unnecessary lengths, it adds up

[Peter Matteson]

Remove three strands from every wire.

But seriously copper is heavy shorten any excess wire runs and service loops.

Also swissing your robot isn't really good for that much weight. You can only get a couple pounds usually.

Thinner lexan and narrower diameter pneumatics are also good tricks if you can.

[PVCMike]

Originally Posted by Dzdconfusd

Also swissing your robot isn't really good for that much weight. You can only get a couple pounds usually.

Thinner lexan and narrower diameter pneumatics are also good tricks if you can.

You'd be surprised with the speed holes. Last year we removed almost 20 pounds from ours, granted we had an 18' telescoping boom made of 1/8 aluminum box tubing, but still, it adds up, every little bit counts. And the thinner lexan is a good point, thinner everything will work really, we cut alot of weight a few years ago by going down 1 size in all the PVC tubing we used.

Also, smaller/less motors if you can, they weigh a bit.

[Peter Matteson]

Originally Posted by PVCMike

made of 1/8 aluminum box tubing,

There's your problem right there. We only got .2 lbs when we lightened out arm last year, however ours was only 13 feet.

[Dan Petrovic]

Originally Posted by PVCMike

You'd be surprised with the speed holes. Last year we removed almost 20 pounds from ours, granted we had an 18' telescoping boom made of 1/8 aluminum box tubing, but still, it adds up, every little bit counts. And the thinner lexan is a good point, thinner everything will work really, we cut alot of weight a few years ago by going down 1 size in all the PVC tubing we used.

Also, smaller/less motors if you can, they weigh a bit.

Oh yeah, that lift was huge!

[AV_guy007]

if you bring your robot to a place with less gravity hmmm... lets say the moon for example you will be all set and plenty under weight.

[nehalita]

It was mentioned twice before but my personal favorite tool in the Dremel. That means any screw that is too long gets the axe. Believe it or not, it does help. More so with the longer screws. Then again, our robot is all nuts and bolts so obviously, it would make a difference to us.
(Of course, we also swissed our robot. now we are comfortably under weight =D)

[BrittanyV]

Zip ties are your friends. I can't tell you exactly how much lighter they are, but they sure are much lighter than steel.

We were so concerned about weight, we even used smaller zip ties in areas of little stress. I love zip ties.

[pwilczynski]

Originally Posted by Dominicano0519

(starts talking in infomercial guy's voice) Is you robot overweight, does your team think that they just wasted 6 hard weeks of work. No worries Ill have the perfect solution as soon as i think of one. please help me with any ideas

if you're using a shooter with two wheels, you could try cutting out some of the spokes and putting some cardboard over it so that it would be just as aerodynamic but weigh less.