Construction materials

[ChrisH]

Originally Posted by Wetzel

I don't see nearly enough PVC.

Wetzel

While not particulaly stiff, PVC is reasonably close to low grade aluminum in strength and has terrific elongation with a minimal weight impact. This enables it to absorb a terriffic amount of energy without breaking.

PVC is great for arms or other appendages. We used it for our arm last year and it proved to be extremely durable. Team Hammond ah also used PVC with great success in the past (2002) to build arms that survived tremendous forces.

But these applications did not require the PVC to help maintain a reasonably close alignment between components. Frames usually serve exactly that purpose, keeping the wheels and gears in reasonably close alignment, among other things. So I'd be a little leary of a PVC frame. Such a fame would probably weigh more than an aluminum frame that does the same job.