What materials do you most commonly use on your robots?

[BurkeHalderman]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

good riddance to the 80/20, it's a terrible material that breeds bad habits and should only be used for prototyping, in my experience

Originally Posted by bs7280

I fully agree with you there. Our past two robots (the first one doesn't count, it was our rookie year) were basically tributes to the company that made 80/20. The robots were almost entirely made out of 80/20 and were barely able to be finished within 6 weeks.

80/20 is not a bad material at all. It all depends on the your teams resources and knowledge. There are actually many advantages to using 80/20. The T-slot profile allows for easy mounting and adjustment, it is designed to have the center tapped for 1/4" bolt. You don't even need to use gussets to assemble it as you can drill and tap the centers. While to use square tubing you have to either weld or use gussets.

Originally Posted by Oblarg

Also, did I mention it's heavy?

The 1" square profile, at .59lbs/ft is barely heavier than a 1" square, 1/8" wall aluminum tube at .524lbs/ft. So no it is not heavy. If you use 80/20 with an absurd amount of gussets then yes your robot is going to be heavy, if used properly it is not heavy.

80/20 extruded aluminum is a great resource to use, especially if you don't have access to anything more than basic tools. I'd recommend it to any team. As mentioned before Team 341's 2012 robot was predominantly 80/20 and was easily one of the best robots in FIRST that year. We have used an 80/20 and c-channel frame for the last three years and couldn't be happier with the ease of construction it has provided us and we've never had our frame wobble loose. In 2013 using a combination of 1" 80/20 and .120" aluminum sheet metal we had our practice bot completed by the end of week three and ranked 1st at the Queen City Regional