The Chassis Project.

[Veselin Kolev]

Originally posted by Adam Y.
You bent it??? I do not even think people who build Battlebots with this stuff had problems with it bending. The only problem my team had with this stuff is that some of the pieces got wacked out of place.

In reality, everything is bendable. If another robot hit you head on, both robots at top speed, with a corner, yes even 30x30 bosch will bend. My team used 20X20 bosch, and we only bent our back bar durning regionals. 30x30 bosch is ok, but it's too heavy and too strong. You don't need it to be that strong. 3030 also has premade right angle joints for sale, so all you do is cut it to the right length and use it like legos. The bad part is you can't triangulate, first because you would have to make your own joints, second it would be really heavy. With 2020 bosch, you can triangulate all you want, but you have to make all the joints because they don't sell any for 2020. My team, just on the bottom layer of our frame, had about 20 plates holding the thing together with about 500 nuts and bolts. In the end, our entire frame was about 30 lbs and indestructible. We did have to tighten those 500 bolts every match though. My final word: if you have a mill, go for 2020. If you don't, go for 3030.

As for drive trains, 4 wheel tank drive is the easiest to do for the performance it gives, but upgrading to treds isn't that hard, and it gives a lot of traction and other advantages. With treds, you have constant contact to the ground with a large area. You can get some pretty high traction soft rubber treds, and since they're treds, they get ripped up less, so you can get even softer rubber than on wheels.

But hey, it's your robot, you decide. I'm only reccomending stuff.