Under or over weight?

[Franchesca]

Originally Posted by Mohsin

Hmmm..... our robot is at the border line right now, and yes we will end up drilling holes, me thinks that the swiss would make a lot of money if they started to sell swiss aluminium, as they sell swiss cheese

I agree! It happens all the time ... you're trying to drill as many holes in your robot, trying to just loose a pound or so.

Our robot is right there, it's going to need some "tweaking" but I definitely think that we'll get off all the weight that needs to be out of there by competition time. As a matter of fact, its getting worked on right now ... don't ya love the late nights!

And I think the poll needs another option:
WILL be under weight ... eventually ... just get me a drill.

[roboguy #1]

Well I think our robot is perfect its going to work our crate is huge i believe i made it like 4x4x5''9.999999999999999999999999999" Don't wanna pay for shipping a 500lb. huge box.

[Shu Song]

we are over.... as usual

[DivideByZero]

I am honestly suprised at our bot.

When we went to weigh it yesterday, it was at 81 pounds *including* the battery. Chassis + electronics + battery was 63 pounds, and arm was 18. We still have to add a shell and the van door motor, but we're considerably underweight.

[Warren Boudreau]

Right now, it looks like the robot will be about 10 lbs underweight. Unheard of for us. But don't worry. I'm sure that we can find about 10 lbs of stuff to add on between now and nect Tuesday.

[Julia Magoolia]

In the middle of last week, our robot was MASSIVELY overweight, but thanks to, as one mentor put it, "an aggressive weight loss program", we're only about 10lb off target. I have no doubt that we'll end up with yet another swiss cheesed robot.

[Jaine Perotti]

Originally, when I voted in this poll, I voted for "underweight".

Is there any way to change your vote?
Right now, our robot is breaking even, at 120 pounds. However, we are planning on adding more, such as outriggers, arm bracing, etc.

The big question now is this: where can we take out weight? A few days ago, our robot was 9 pounds overweight, so we drilled like crazy, and managed to lose it. But there isn't much left to take weight out!

Andy Brockway took home the gearbox for our arm last night to lighten up the gears, which should take out a tenth of a pound (I think).

We are using a telescoping arm tower, with a rotating tetra arm mounted on top. The outside towers (fixed) are made of aluminum, and the inner towers (which are raised and lowered) are made of UHMW plastic.

We are going to deepen the "rabbit" groove that we put into the UHMW plastic arm towers with a router. We are also contemplating the removal of some of the arm braces (currently there are 4, with 2 on the front, and 2 on the back, and we are thinking of just keeping the ones on the front.). We are also thinking of replacing some of the lexan shielding we are currently using with something thinner.

We have lexan bumpers spanning the front and back ends of our robot, but we are nervous to take weight out of them because of the high force impacts we expect them to take. We have already drilled out alot of our arm, and are concerned that drilling the UHMW any more will make the plastic bend too much and warp (leading to binding issues).

AND... we are wanting to add angle aluminum reinforcements to our UHMW arm, because in testing we found that it would bend under the weight of the tetra arm mounted on top of it. This will add about a pound of weight, but is necessary.

And there are the outriggers, which haven't even been built yet, but will add a minimum of 4 pounds. Our current plan of dealing with this is to build everything else first, drive our robot around, push it to it's limits, and see if outriggers will be necessary. If they are, we will need to figure out a way to add them. If not, we will leave them off.

I am sure we are not the only ones with this dilemma, but boy is it frustrating! Sometimes I feel like it is almost hopeless, but I know that we can pull through it, as we have in the past. We will find a way to do it... because that is what this challenge is all about.

Good luck to everyone!

-- Jaine

[Ein]

Somehow we're 20#s under. We wooped with glee and started adding compressors and other cool stuff.

[Bcahn836]

We put the robot on the scale today and put everything we had that is going to go on the robot and we came out under so far. The key words there SO FAR we might not have to drill holes after all, but then again we have 8 days to change that.

[Carlo]

You mean to tell me there's a weight limit this year?!?!?!!?

Kyle, of all people you should have let me in on that.

All joking aside, our MOE v 2k5 is turning out very well. Less green than in past years, we are tipping the scales slightly underweight this year. It's a first in a long time.

[katkana]

*pulls hair out* underweight? I wish... we're currently balanced precariously between two pounds under and about a bazillion pounds over, what with all these 'extra' bits that, in the grand scheme of things, are actually pretty necessary if we don't want our 'bot to end up twisted ten days to sunday. (looks pointedly at the smoking sheet metal carcass that was last year's rookie 'bot). *goes on bended knee* Alas, poor BenzBot, I knew him well...

It also doesn't help that we've already swiss-cheesed the thing to death. Ah well. Official weigh-in is as soon as we can drag the 'bot over to the FedEx offices in two days. *crosses fingers*

Hope y'all are having better luck than we are!

~kat

[supersy77]

for the first time ever. Our robot has wieght to spare. The thing is almost completly done and it still is 5 pounds under. I dont understand how this is happining

[Peter Matteson]

Originally Posted by steve277

for the first time ever. Our robot has wieght to spare. The thing is almost completly done and it still is 5 pounds under. I dont understand how this is happining

By writing that here you just ensured that by the end of the UTC scrimage on Saturday, I'm assuming you'll be there as usual, you will need to add ten pounds to compensate for something you didn't think of.

We're just praying that we don't need to entirely rebuild our robot because we're so grossly overweight that we have to rethink our entire frame design. Not like that happened last year or anything.

Pete

[Fixen]

Oh, we have too much weight to spare...our bot's pretty much anorexic.

[BLAZE]

Our robot still isn't finished in entirety, but we have already been shaving off bits and pieces due to the weight. Our arm takes up 1/3 of our total weight, without any pnuematic pieces added to it! We're in trouble.... or are we...