pic: Rivet...Rivet...Rivet

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by CrashTestPilot

So what is the weight of one of those boxes?

and how much of that weight is the mandrels?

[Wayne Doenges]

We are planning on building a robot to hold all the rivets together

[Dancin103]

Originally Posted by Wayne Doenges

We have never had a rivet failed. Even when a team hit us at full speed three times (before bumpers). No rivet sheared or broke.

hahaha those were the days. you had to build a tank basically.

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by Dancin103

hahaha those were the days. you had to build a tank basically.

Bah, hardly... I competed in 2003 and 2004 with chassis made from 80/20-esque aluminum extrusion, and 1" square aluminum tube. No problems... well, we bent the 2004 chassis after a particularly hard head-on autonomous collision, and had to cut a piece out to free up the wheels again.

[Wayne Doenges]

Our 2005 machine was totally Monocoque. Which means we had NO internal structure, just bent aluminum. We took three full court, full speed hits. It bent the aluminum a little, between bulkheads, but did no appreciable damage to bot. Monocoques is STRONG.