For Years Bosch has been the dominant name in aluminum extrusion both in the US & Europe. FIRST teams have been using Bosch for a while and Spare Parts Inc offers the Bosch line in their flyer (or they did last year).
From a quality standpoint, they are both very good - the 2 best on the market. IPS (foremery known as ITEM) tends to be higher in price. (I know this because we are a Bosch dealer)
On the weight issue, they are both about the same. Both companies offer different versions of their extrusion, light wall & heavy wall. For the competition, you will want to use light. It's less expensive it you wont need the moment of inertia the heavy wall has. The BOSH 45x45 lite is lighter than IPS light.
IPS does not have dealers in every state who stock the extrusion but BOSCH does. You will find most teams using BOSCH. My company has 2 teams in the LI regional. Last year many robots had bosch frames.
Because of the game this year, I recommend the Bosch 45x45 Lite. (dont go with 30x30...Not strong enough). I'm a designer of Bosch systems so I have experience in this area.
If you cant get Bosch, IPS is the next best but expect to pay more.
I hope tis answers some of your questions.
Oh and we have a special deal for all FIRST teams this year. See attached spreadsheet.
Tony Giammarinaro
Team 569 Technical advisor
tonyg@aitzone.com
Expect a lot of noise, unexpected things going wrong, and most of all, tons and tons of fun. - nitneylion452 [more] 
11-01-2002, 19:12
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