which is better aluminum or steel????

[Bill Gold]

I’ve seen a lot of people talking about bolting and welding exclusively, and some saying they preferred bolting to welding since they thought it’d be much harder to repair a broken weld. May I suggest bolting, then having your frame welded with the connecting pieces on, and then taking the connecting pieces off (while keeping them around). This provides you the weight savings, while also allowing you to be able to make-shift bolt and problem you might run into. This is what we did on the robot I worked on last year. In fact, you can see some of the bolt holes near the joints of the frame. It may not be the prettiest thing in the world up close, but that can be worked around or designed in such a way that the bolt holes aren’t so obvious. We really didn’t care about the frame’s appearance last year; we just wanted to get it done.

(excuse the mess… there were 5 of us working for days on end, and ~30 straight hours down the wire… none older than 21)

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