Interesting material usage?

[Tyler_Kaplan]

Team 2085 used Urethane Round Belting. We would cut it to length, drill a hole in PVC pipe, and then use a blow torch (or heat gun if we were in the pits) to melt it into the PVC. In some cases the bond was so strong, that when we tried to take out the pieces of Urethane, it took pieces of PVC with it! And plus we can get it in our team's colors .

Here's a link to the material:
http://www.mcmaster.com/#round-belts/=rjfos8

[lamk]

Plywood, masonite, duct tape, cardboard and hockey stick( we're canadian).
We win the Canadian western regional.

[Caleb Sykes]

4536 is looking to add some memory foam (or whatever the Target equivalent is called) to improve our catching ability for championships.

[brennonbrimhall]

While the majority of our robot is rather conventional aluminum tubing, our catcher panels are rather unique. As mentioned in our Behind the Bumpers video, we use fiberglass rods (like the kind you use to mark your driveway in the winter) to support a combination of bumper cloth, syrofoam beans, and shelf liner.

[Tyler2517]

I don't know if corrugated aluminum counts but we use it in some applications.

[Lil' Lavery]

1712 has a screen door and memory foam on our robot this year.

[Christopher149]

Not really boundary-pushing or anything, but perhaps interesting:

• 80/20 and C-channel get a bad rep for being really heavy, but our robot is made almost exclusively of them and is about 87 lbs this year
• We have duct tape, wood, zip ties, and sliced pool noodle (not in bumpers) in important, visible, and structural applications. Finalist at TC district, and qualified for CMP!
• These stars from Andymark; is anyone else using them? Great for the intake.

If we want to include some of the past, a plastic broom handle became part of our 2010? robot.

EDIT: The post after about the wrench reminded me that we needed a spacer at Escanaba to help our shooter: we used a sharpie. It was replaced by the wood mentioned above for TC.

[RamZ]

After the LA regional we figured out that we needed a rachet for our intake wheel. We didn't have one lying around, so for the Las Vegas regional, we had a racheting wrench attached to the wheel. (It worked like a charm)

[Ernst]

Our 2012 robot had a large extendable guide to make quick layup shots from the fender. The guide was made of sheets of pink foam insulation glued together and cut with a custom foam cutter that we made. That pink creation was covered in garolite (basically plywood made from fiberglass sheets) to protect the foam, add rigidity, reduce friction with the balls, and give a color we liked more. The whole assembly was very strong, enough that we made a backup but never had to use it, and very light. Under 6 pounds if I recall correctly (but it's been a few years, so don't quote me on that).

Here's a picture of the final product from the back:
http://team1732.com/gallery/var/albu...g?m=1359315011

and from the front, extended:
http://team1732.com/gallery/var/albu...G?m=1362712348

Aaand, another showing off the sleek parabola:
http://team1732.com/gallery/var/albu...g?m=1359314629

[mikemat]

We've used lots of carbon fiber, some fiberglass, brass, titanium, acrylic, and polycarb. Still waiting on a chance to work with magnesium.

[BJT]

We needed ballast for the rear of our robot last year so we used a 7 pound 1" thick piece of steel that I had been using for target practice. Most likely the only FRC robot ever with a 50 BMG bullet hole

[kuraikou]

We used ABS tubing (sewer pipe) as our intake roller this year, and we laser cut our own plywood gussets to hold our robot together.

[mman1506]

While aluminium isn't that exotic of a material the places we use it are kind of odd. One of our sponsors donated literally 500+ lbs (5000$+) of military grade 7075 hardened aluminium out of their scrap bin.

While I usually subscribe to the theory that if you need to make a part out of 7075 (other than shafts and gears) you are doing it wrong it's often cheaper / easier for us to make parts out of 7075 that have no right to be (encoder mounts, jigs, soft jaws).

We're also adding some carbon-fiber/wood composite and delrin parts for champs.

[RobotDoktor]

Our shooter has surgical tubing on it, not for power, but to make the arm come down after a shot.

[scaryone]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

1058 had a frame made out of I-beams and an intake made of clear PVC with LEDs inside of it.

And it is very cool