anti-gravity-gas

[generalbrando]

First, you might change to ANSI 25 instead of 35 if you have chains and you can make the change. Second, watch out for steel. Some applications will require steel, but in most cases, find an alternative - aluminum is the choice of FIRSTers it seems. When you put things on your bot, always ask - can this be thinner or shorter? Chances are, the answer is yes.

Also, get creative! Go on down to Home Depot or Lowes or Menards for you Midwesterners. Look around and see what they have for you to play with. You'll find strong aluminum tubes that are very light and relatively cheap. You'll find things like wire mesh, PVC and wood - all of which can replace aluminum and lexan in certain applications. Just make sure you get the light stuff (i.e. NOT oak). Last year 1020 had two pieces of 30"x50" light weight wood on the bot. It weighed almost nothing and just before weighing in, we hit them with a couple hair dryers to get rid of the moisture .

Congrats to all on completing your bot (or sorta completing as is our case) and good luck in competition.

[Bob Steele]

Since the ban on exotic materials has been lifted this year ..Your world is opened up..

We use Unobtainium (tough to find though...)

It has a negative density...(-.0314 g/ml)

Works great to alleviate temporary Mid to late February bloating due to post kickoff stress syndrome.

You will, of course, need a prescription to get it

[russell]

The thing that weighs down our robot is the pneumatics. Our solution was to just drill holes in the rams and tanks. No actually we drilled holes in anything that didnt hold a lot of weight, and removed some pneumatics fittings (those are actually really heavy). Another thing was this giant chunk of 5/8 inch plexiglass, which we replaced with marine grade plywood.

[Swan217]

when you're done drilling holes in the air tanks, and you're still over, make sure you take that proton-heavy lead out of your battery.

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by SwaDan

when you're done drilling holes in the air tanks, and you're still over, make sure you take that proton-heavy lead out of your battery.

Bah, just use the battery that came with the EDU-Bot to run your robot!!! That sucker is so small and light... Alot lighter than than that passe' big battery you get in the kit!!! That battery is like so 5 minutes ago!!!

[telkanuru]

Remember. Your RC is heavy. More specifically, the chips inside your RC are heavy because they contain data, and data is heavy. Open up the RC and drill a hole through each chip. Also, pneumatic tubing weighs a lot. It too can take many, many holes.

In all seriousness, tho, a charged battery weighs a noticable bit more than an uncharged one. 13.5 and 10 lb, respectively, if I remember right... Dosn't make sense to me, tho... Electrons arn't that heavy. Hell, you don't even know where they are/are going.

[Christina]

Well, if you're really having problems with weight you can do what Greg did for our robot. Drive it backwards off a platform over a foot high and put a hole in the side of our compressor. That worked wonders. *shakes head*

[GregT]

Originally Posted by telkanuru

Remember. Your RC is heavy. More specifically, the chips inside your RC are heavy because they contain data, and data is heavy. Open up the RC and drill a hole through each chip. Also, pneumatic tubing weighs a lot. It too can take many, many holes.

In all seriousness, tho, a charged battery weighs a noticable bit more than an uncharged one. 13.5 and 10 lb, respectively, if I remember right... Dosn't make sense to me, tho... Electrons arn't that heavy. Hell, you don't even know where they are/are going.

I'm curious, have you actually weighed the same battery charged vs uncharged? Did you get this information from a source (if so, could you point me towards it)?

I'm not doubting you , I'm just trying to figure out what might cause this. Keep in mind that a charged battery has the same number of electrons as a uncharged one.


It is possible to lose quite a bit of weight by drilling holes, removing excess wires, and eliminating redundant fasteners. However, if you need to lose any substantial weight you'll probably need to redesign or eliminate a major component. Look at everything on your robot and ask yourself the question "Does this part add any value to my robot?" If you answer "no", cut that part off. It’s really disappointing to have to cut a major (and working!) subsystem off a robot but its often the only way to make the weight limit.

Greg

[Taylor_Ratliff]

Helium? A vacuum? Why not just use a little engineering

our robot weighs in at 84lbs http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=26186

[Gary Dillard]

Originally Posted by generalbrando

Also, get creative! Go on down to Home Depot or Lowes or Menards for you Midwesterners. Look around and see what they have for you to play with. You'll find strong aluminum tubes that are very light and relatively cheap.

We didn't use any this year, but I've found the best stiff lightweight structural material if you don't need the strength is 6 ft. shower curtain rod that Home Depot carries - it's 1 inch diameter by about .015 thick if I recall. Makes really nice long mechanisms - you don't get the droop of PVC.