Weight for the BOM

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Mike Martus

REMEMBER! Drilling holes in Alum. is not a weight savings of any consequence.

Oh, I beg to differ. Approximately 100 one-half-inch holes in 1/8" aluminum will remove a pound from your robot. There are many times when that pound can mean the difference between passing or failing the weight test. And 100 holes can be strategically spread around on almost any robot without too much effort.

We have a power drill with a 1/2-inch bit permanently friction-welded into the chuck (affectionately known as "halfie") that we keep handy at all times, just in case.

Of course, we may have taken that philosophy to an extreme the year that we put 1,248 holes in our frame (we had to count them all. and now we know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall).

-dave


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