So what’s that thing in the front? Why is it only letting one ball in at a time? Why does your ball intake only go so far? What’s that thing in the back (probably an electronics board, but who knows?)?
4130 steel again this year?
It’s mild steel, nothing fancy. We have a freshman on the team this year who has done a little bit of MIG welding, so he’s building the chassis. The wood is indeed part of the electronics box, but the rest of it will be quite a bit bigger.
That looks like it is there to satisfy the bumper rules. It looks like you can easily get two balls in there and then it funnels it down to one ball immediately. We used a similar style in 2009 and it works very well.
What’s the wall thickness on your steel? Always thought thinner wall steel tubing (less than .060" or so) would be neat to play with in FRC.
The square tubing is thinwall like 16 ga. Not real thin, but not very heavy either ( slightly heavier than 1/8" aluminum)
There is room for two balls to get stuck in the pickup, when that happens we’ll run it in reverse to spit them out. The plan is to only pick up one at a time.
Bump or bridge?
As of tonight, we should be able to do both. We added a bunch more parts…it’s getting heavy…which is what you expect when you build from steel, right?
Looks good. Does the wooden box articulate? How much does it weigh? We are just gonna squeak under the 120# this year. Already at 106# and a few more things to add.
I don’t know how heavy it is now…but it’s getting up there. Fortunately the stuff on top will be relatively light. The electronics box just sits there and holds electronics.
The team decided to paint the frame sliver. It weighs 27 lbs as pictured.
Looks great! Now let’s see the finished version! 
This is the finished version of the frame, we’re hoping to have the whole thing put together soon…but I’ll be surprised if it’s done by the end of next week. Wait…what week is this?
We’re making progress…should be done by the 21st, hopefully!
