Who is using the kitbot?

[Ellery]

Our team is using as much of it as possible... Mainly due to ease of construction, cost, and ease of maintenance. Unless your team has alot of resources to make a really light, robust, frame via Tig welding this is a step up from standard extrusions but yes you'll give a little in some durability since it isn't as beefy as standard extrusions.

Anyways most stuff we've built in the past is overkill in design.

With the changing tides of a smaller team and less $ and resources since we are sponsoring 3 teams this year on a 2 team budget and sponsoring the Finger Lakes Regional we'll take the more efficient path.

Believe me these kits have evolved so much, at least from all 14 years of this program you wouldn't believe how much freedom we have now compared to 10 years ago. I remembered we couldn't spend more than $425 outside the Kit at one time.

Happy Bot Building y'all. And I hope to chat with all the teams who are coming to the Finger Lakes Regional.


Ellery

[Rick]

We will be using the "kit bot" with some mods. First of all wheel chair wheels are soooooo 2002. We will slamming our bot to a 1/4 off the ground and using some Colson Specials. Check out the episodes of American Robot starting January 19 for the real scoop.

[Chriszuma]

what is American Robot? is that some new show on discovery channel or something? if so, i think the American * theme is getting kinda old.

[Aignam]

Originally Posted by Chriszuma

what is American Robot? is that some new show on discovery channel or something? if so, i think the American * theme is getting kinda old.

It's a series of short movies that Team 121 will be realeasing throughout build season, documenting their team's efforts.

[Anchi]

we are using the gearbox only, we are making ours out of 1" aluminum and welding it. as to the guy who used extruded Al, why? why not just weld Al to make a frame?

we are making ours modular so we need the flexibility of our own chassis.

[Paul Copioli]

For those of you that think the kit chassis is too weak, read this post!

When John and his boss at IFI showed me initial pictures of the frame; I said, "that geometry looks weak." They didn't argue with me and they just sent me a kit to put together. I designed and built a prototype gearbox to mate with the frame (machined from solid ... lots of fun!). I loaded it up with a total of 130 lbs. and drove the heck out of it. I bashed it into everything. I hit walls at full speed, the center structure from last year at full speed. I even built a ramp to jump it over. I was trying to give it as much shock loading as I could. I drove it in the 4 wheel drive configuration (I think you should use it in the 4 WD configuration). The frame never bent, it never buckled. It held up to everything I could throw at it.

FIRST still thought it looked too weak, so I sent it to them to try to break. Nothing, nada, no failure at all. They could not break it, bend it, dent it. The frame is made from 1/8" 5052-H32 half hard aluminum. It is tough stuff. Those of you that say it is too weak, just do not know what you are talking about.

-Paul

[JVN]

Originally Posted by Paul Copioli

It held up to everything I could throw at it.
-Paul

There is a cute video of Paul's young son crashing it into a wall...
Destructive testing at the hands of a child...

[n0cturnalxb]

Originally Posted by JVN

There is a cute video of Paul's young son crashing it into a wall...
Destructive testing at the hands of a child...

Ohh.. upload and post, we (or, at least, I!) want to see!

--------

I think 1159's going to be using the entire kit, unless there's a major change in design or something. We'll see in one or two weeks for sure