New aluminum extrusions for robot building

[Clifcecile]

One of our mentors (Gary Klein, formerly of Klein Bicycles) started a business last year where he contracted with an extrusions company to make an assortment of very useful aluminum extrusions. He has added new ones this fall. The web site http://www.robotextrusions.com/ has all the details on each piece. We have been using them to build all sorts of drive trains and robot sections.

Getting the word out to all the teams has not been easy. Our team is helping his business market the pieces, so if you want more info not contained on the web site let me know.

We can furnish CAD files for all the pieces too.

[mman1506]

Cool! Could you post some more pictures of stuff you made with the extrusion?

[SoftwareBug2.0]

Originally Posted by mman1506

Cool! Could you post some more pictures of stuff you made with the extrusion?

I would be interested to see this too. It seems like a good idea and well designed, but I try to think of places where I could have used it in our older robots and I'm not coming up with anything good.

[Foster]

Add me to the people wanting pictures/ideas. Not sure how the "weird angles" get used.

Thanks!

[Clifcecile]

This picture is of a piece we ended up not using but it was a cool idea.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Foster

Not sure how the "weird angles" get used.

I would think that when coupled with the 'slide' on the 3/8" square edges, you'd have a nice sliding <something>.

[Clifcecile]

The slider slides very smoothly.

We have not used the slider in our robots yet but are intrigued by the possibilities.

[Foster]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

I would think that when coupled with the 'slide' on the 3/8" square edges, you'd have a nice sliding <something>.

Yea and the <something> part has me slowed to a stop. Maybe the weird angle is how you make corners. Websites for 80-20 have the mundane "build a frame" to the exotic "A three bedroom split level with a rumpus room" . Ok, so I made that up, but the problem is I can see how to do the house with 80-20, not sure with this stuff.

[Big Ideas]

[quote=Clifcecile;1408236]One of our mentors (Gary Klein, formerly of Klein Bicycles) started a business last year where he contracted with an extrusions company to make an assortment of very useful aluminum extrusions.

Gary is an awesome designer, thinker, and businessman. I wish your team (and all teams) many years of learning and developing with talented and generous mentors such as Gary.

[Nathan Streeter]

This does seem very cool... I think it's very cool to have access to useful custom extrusions! I can see the 2" extrusion being great for some quick, quality sliding mechanisms or elevators.

That said it looks a little beefier than I would prefer for a lot of uses... I am used to a lot of sheet metal framing though, so it's quite different.