Practice Chassis

[GCarnes]

Does anyone have any recommendation or designs to help my team create a practice chassis? We are looking for something to be used for drive practice and mechanism testing. So, something that can accept different transmissions and drive trains. It would also need many different mounting spots for any mechanisms that we would like to test. Looking for something cheap. It could be a kit from Vex or Andymark or something we would have to create ourselves.

[MrForbes]

Maybe you could practice designing and building chassis, as well as drive trains and mechanisms. There are a whole bunch of ways to make a chassis, and which materials and methods you should use might depend on what type of equipment and expertise your team has (or wants to acquire).

As an example, over the years we've built our robots with chassis made of welded steel, glued and stapled plywood, riveted or bolted fiberglass, and bolted or riveted aluminum. We don't have the equipment and expertise to use welded aluminum, which is what many teams use.

[RonnieS]

Originally Posted by GCarnes

Does anyone have any recommendation or designs to help my team create a practice chassis? We are looking for something to be used for drive practice and mechanism testing. So, something that can accept different transmissions and drive trains. It would also need many different mounting spots for any mechanisms that we would like to test. Looking for something cheap. It could be a kit from Vex or Andymark or something we would have to create ourselves.

Send me a PM, hopefully you are close enough in the mitten to stop by and check out some options before you buy anything. I would lean heavy towards versa chassis with some versa blocks to start (WestCoast Drive) and then later you can purchase some clamping gearboxes from vex and start your experiments with another bread of drive trains. The 1x2 versa tubing on the drive makes it super easy to add other components.
-Ronnie

[PowerfulKitty]

Before my first season my team built a practice drive using the 2013 Vex drive in a day kit. Both this and the 2014 drive in a day kits are available. I can also see the benefits of having students gain experience building a drive from scratch, which should be less expensive.

[Ben Martin]

Originally Posted by RonnieS

Send me a PM, hopefully you are close enough in the mitten to stop by and check out some options before you by anything. I would lean heavy towards versa chassis with some versa blocks to start (WestCoast Drive) and then later you can purchase some clamping gearboxes from vex and start your experiments with another bread of drive trains. The 1x2 versa tubing on the drive makes it super easy to add other components.
-Ronnie

I second this. Basically everything you buy will be reusable, except possibly the frame itself. We have ran some derivation of a versachassis for the past two years due to how customizable it is and how quickly it comes together.