Got Weight?

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Take the white space out of your program.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

Take the white space out of your program.

Ha.

But getting back to the speed holes, I'll put in the boilerplate: don't be stupid with the swiss cheesing. Poking a bunch of holes in your hopper that was built around the requirement of having a perfectly smooth bottom may come back to bite you in your bottom.

Just be smart about where you poke holes, and you'll be good.

[Tomasz Bania]

Originally Posted by Billfred

I'll put in the boilerplate: don't be stupid with the swiss cheesing. Poking a bunch of holes in your hopper that was built around the requirement of having a perfectly smooth bottom may come back to bite you in your bottom.

Just be smart about where you poke holes, and you'll be good.

I'll post a picture soon of our robot, and you will see that the back of our robot (specifically the ball catcher, not the hopper) literally looks like a cheese grater!

[dubious elise]

I was told that we're calling in the Orkin Man to debug our code for us - that should take a good deal of weight out.

You'd be surprised what you can put holes in that willl actually benefit your robot's functionality. I can't comment on speed effects really, but in terms of moving balls around...

[Pavan Dave]

Originally Posted by Billfred

Ha.

But getting back to the speed holes, I'll put in the boilerplate: don't be stupid with the swiss cheesing. Poking a bunch of holes in your hopper that was built around the requirement of having a perfectly smooth bottom may come back to bite you in your bottom.

Just be smart about where you poke holes, and you'll be good.

lol...

holes work no matter where you put them.. As long as it isnt in a major compenent ...lol

-Pavan

[chinckley]

We weighed in this morning at the local fruit packing plant. It was 114 lbs. Our robot is having surgery as we speak. 114 was too much as we still have things like shields and bracing to install, battery covers, and part of the hopper. Took off 5 lbs by removing a noncritical part and replacing it with something lighter. WOWOWOW. Diet time.

Last years robot was 4 ounces under the 120 limit.

Carolyn Hinckley

[Ianworld]

Last year I ordered aluminum nuts and bolts for my team. Bolts, nuts and washers are made of steel which is much heavier than aluminum(about 5x as much). Most bolts and nuts also don't take even close to the load necessary to break or bend them. We didn't build our robot with them, but I took an inventory of the major bolt sizes we used and brought boxes of aluminum replacements to the competitions. Whenever we needed to change a part we optimized it with aluminum parts.

I've also heard of team using plastic hardware which is 1/3 the weight of aluminum and I guess 1/15th the weight of steel.

[Zach Purser]

Compressor:
Last year we made a backpack with a compressor and a battery so we could fill the tanks right before each match. It saved us a few pounds.

Structure:
Re-evaluate your structural design. Chances are you have over-engineered some parts. Can they be replaced with thinner materials?

Durable vs. disposable:
Can you replace something that is very durable with something that will last you through a match and can then be replaced? Our team uses 1/16" polycarbonate for shielding our robot. Some pieces survive an entire regional unscathed, other pieces need to be replaced every couple rounds. We could have used thicker polycarb and spent less time replacing stuff, but we get a lot more functionality by having a few extra pounds to work with. Of course, if you go the disposable route, be sure it's easy to replace and you have lots of spares.

[hallk]

While our robot is made of holes, it is important to remember that you need about 40 1" holes in 1/4" Al to cut out a pound of weight.
So get drilling.

[adam]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

Take the white space out of your program.

good idea

[ryan_f]

Switch the air in your tires with helium.

[Chriszuma]

drill one-way holes in your air cylinders.

Then refill your brake light fluid.

And change your muffler bearings.

[Rick TYler]

Don't forget to remove all the comments in your code, and scrape the insulation off all the wiring.

[Eldarion]

And drill holes in the RC, radio, and camera.

Seriously, though, it looks like we will be underweight...by 2 pounds!

[Chriszuma]

Use a smaller font in the code.

Also, avoid using entire colons when a semicolon would work just fine.