Overweight? Install some of these:
Well in our case since we were epicall underweight last year… we thought that we wouldn’t be over this year which means that we got cocky and now we are barely making the weight limit after “swiss-cheesing” the robot a bit, let’s hope that the robot doesn’t eat anything while being shipped
Our robot went on a low-density, swiss cheese diet last night, if you know what I mean ;>
We lost 34 pounds in one day by switching from massive 1/4" aluminum plates to lexan for our shooter.
Last year we came in at about 5 pounds underweight after everything was built and put on, so we didn’t think we’d have a problem this year.
Wrong! At the start of Thursday we were 20-30 lbs overweight. So we swiss-cheesed our conveyor mechanism and everything else that wasn’t structurally important, swapped some of our aluminum speedrail for PVC, removed 2-3 lbs of excess wiring, took off some of the lexan armor for our control system, switched some steel components for aluminum, swapped the door on our hopper for something waaaay lighter, and removed 8lbs of unnecessary support for our control board. Now we’re at weight! 
Take out cRIO modules yo!
Yes, this is permitted (except you cannot remove the module in Slot #1, to preserve the battery monitoring function). If you do remove unused modules from the cRIO Mobile Device Controller, we highly recommend that you use the spare port covers provided with the controller to cover the exposed connections at the bottom of the cRIO to prevent foreign debris contamination.
Straight from the GDC
I’m epically overweight but it’s so far so good on the robot.
More will be revealed on Monday, I suppose.
Suprisingly our robot turned out to be 3 pounds under the max…and i don’t know how many of you have seen our frame, but it is solid.
We are 20 pounds under weight so we are going to add some propellers
We are 20 pounds under weight so we added a big steel (at least 12") sprocket 
. and some lead ballast. In 04 our team was 40 pounds over weight a week before ship.
I’m not epically overweight but I could always stand to lose a few.
We rolled up a slightly conservative weight budget on day 2 and added up to about 118, so I figured we were OK. We weighed yesterday fully loaded at 107.3 so we’ve got some margin to beef up a couple of gearbox and sprocket components, as well as shift CG a little.
<edit> Oh wait, that included the trailer hitch, which is excluded from the 120# limit. I guess we have a little more margin.
I’ve always wanted, if I had an underweight robot (this is only the second time in 12 years I’ve been there), to mount a toolkit somewhere on the robot with allen wrenches, combination wrenches, needle nose pliers, diagonal cutters, etc. so I don’t have to hunt for them. Maybe we’ll go there.
as of last week when we weighed it, this is the first year we have ever been underweight without have to make things “dissapear”
These posts about underweight must be making the guy who started this thread sick. We came in with our final robot at about 1/4 pound under. We new since we had our design about where we would be. A good thing to do is to cut off brackets that stick out into no where.
We have seen both ends of the spectrum over the years. For several years running, we were consistently underweight. We even went so far as to purchase a 27-pound block of lead from Small Parts (back when they were one of the only legal parts resources) that we used as ballast for the robot (suitably coated and protected, of course). Then there was our experience three years ago. Despite several warnings from the integration team, the individual subteams refused to stick to their weight budgets when building their sections of the robot. As things came together, the total weight became a bleaker and bleaker picture. Finally, two days before the shipping deadline, we weighed in at a massive 42 pounds overweight. Everyone finally got the message - time for a diet! At times like that, the only viable solutions tend to be rather drastic ones. So we took a quick run to Home Depot and picked up one of these:
http://www.dewaltpowertoolsonline.com/sitebuilder/images/Dewalt_Cordless_Saws_Reciprocating_Saw_DC315K-360x334.jpg
It is amazing how much weight you can remove when you are really motivated (and it is interesting to have the entire team go through the "features that are ‘highly desireable’ vs those that are ‘absolutely needed’ exercize).
-dave
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Dave,
I have a “jigsaw” blade that is about the size of that entire sawzall. 1/2" thick, one tooth per inch. I found it on a railroad siding, so it must be used on some machine to cut old ties. I used to use that as a reminder about being overweight. 
You know Garrett, 30 pounds is only 5 pounds on the moon. Doesn’t sound so bad now, does it?
42 pounds is the most I’ve heard of. That’s impressive.
i think we are like 2 pounds under when we wieght today…
still not done, but our school is just so dumb, they invest money in this program and basically give up at the end…
Just great…
We weighed in with 16 pounds left, not including control or decorations… So I don’t really know where we are now… either way, thats why we rivetted random pieces of aluminium angle on the robot, makes lightening easier. We are making sure to pack the good old hole saw though.
We’ve had mixed experiences over the years.
2003, our first year, we added a boat anchor chain for ballast.
2005, we removed a stage to our multi-stage lift to make weight.
This year we were about 20 lbs overwight. Every time we thought we took 10 lbs off, we ended up 5 lbs lighter! Right now we’re hovering around 120. That camera isn’t looking so important any more!
Anyone notice that their robot gains weight from the time it ships 'til weigh-in at the Regional? Just part of the magic of FIRST I guess.
-Chip