Who has found a good way to make nice looking bumper numbers? Nice bumper numbers makes a big difference in the robot’s appearance, so I am wondering if anybody wants to share a good way of making them. Has anybody found a sharp way to do them in your shop that doesn’t wear out?
I did find this thread, and those ones look great.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/38571
Heat transfer decals. Many art departments at schools have heat presses for making custom tee shirts and the like.
I second this. We don’t have them in our art department, but we go to a local t-shirt and sports uniform shop to have them put on our material.
Its very durable too as well as sharp looking.
The bumpers shown in the first post with stood the hardest defense I have seen in awhile. Not one problem. They seem to with stand a lot better then the other numbers available from the robotics online retailers.
We used sail insignia cloth, cut by hand with a razor using a stencil. It’s durable and self adhesive; we haven’t had any issues with it coming off or wearing out.
The fabric is a specialty kind of thing, so it’s not the cheapest option. It’ll go for about $20 a yard online (each yard is 54" wide, should be plenty for a set of bumpers). You might find something functionally equivalent at a Joanns or the like for a little less.
We silk-screened ours in-house. I had concerns that the material wouldn’t like curing (heating) but it came through like a champ! Now, however, the true test will be their durability. Won’t know that answer for a fortnight minus four.
We do this too, the same numbers used on sports jerseys and it comes out absolutely beautiful
We didn’t get started on the numbers early enough, and ended up doing them a labor intensive way, that didn’t cost much. Students cut a stencil from tagboard, and used it to trace the outline of the numbers on the cloth. Then they used a brush and carefully painted the numbers with white acrylic paint (from the art room at the school). They look great, and the paint seems to be well stuck to the cloth. We’ll see this weekend how durable they are.
We create a stencil and painted on the numbers with fabric paint. After applying 2 coats, we outlined them in sharpy to give it a cleaner look.
Just to give a picture of the silk-screened bumpers
http://www.laspumas2197.org/images/IMG_2358.JPG
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What we do is have vinyl stencils cut out by a sign company, (the reverse of vinyl letters), and use several coats of white spray paint. We stick down the stencils, and mask around that with newspaper etc. We are very careful not to rush it, laying coats upon coats so it doesn’t run and goes on evenly. Then just clean up overspray with laquer thinner and a rag.
It’s not bullet proof, or perfect but they seem to take wear and tear from several competitions and look good.
We use the font that is in our logo so it all ties in for branding.
Iron on numbers. Covered the bumpers without numbers and then removed the staples on the bottom to allow the numbers to be ironed on. When they cooled, they were re-stapled while trying to get the numbers back in the center of the bumper.
IMHO, the best looking bumpers are the ones that have tight fabric over them. They just look neat and clean and give the robot a finished look.
We have used t-shirt transfer material from office max for the past two years, just print your numbers on, cut out, and iron on.
This year I got a vinyl cutter in my classroom and we used that to cut white vinyl. Same effect, but no more hand cutting. Any local t-shirt shop should be able to handle this for a small fee or may even donate it as it takes all of 5 minutes.
We have ours prepared by our signage sponsor and adhered directly to the bumper material. The numbers are printed with a background that closely matches the color of the bumper’s material. They stand out well and hold up well. We have some extras made to keep in the pits in the event we have to replace them during competition.
View the red here: http://casey99.com/Events/Robotic_Champs/dsc_2518.htm
This is the blue:
This is exactly what we do, and it has worked perfectly for us.
Pretty sweet, looks like a race car!
We’re fortunate enough to have a master painter from BAE Systems as one of our lead mentors. Give him a brush and a can, he’ll give the numbers that human touch.
We use sail repair cloth. It’s very durable, gives a nice clean line, and only need to be cut out with scissors and stuck onto the bumper. No issues at all with it coming off.
This year we cut numbers out of white cordura and sewed them on.
