Last year my team (no. 1836) built our very first non-kit of parts chassis out of welded aluminum. This turned out to be great from a structural sense, but terrible from a time management sense as it took us two weeks to get it back from our welder (I believe it was a parent from another local team that we no longer have a connection with).
We have no professional mentors (I’m a mentor and we are all undergraduate college students) and no professional technical help at all in fact.
Sooo…our supervising teacher is trying to have us find alternatives. If there are any that will give us as strong and precise a robot frame, that would be awesome…especially if they are cost effective. But I’ve got a sneaking suspicion (judging by how nice our frame was last year) that nothing is going to serve our purposes as well as welding.
80/20 Quick frame is supposed to be quite nice. It might need a little gusseting and care to make sure that the frame is strong enough for all the high speed collisions this year, but that is easier than welding without a welder.
Welding resources aren’t that hard to find. Just get your students to run around and find a machine shop or welding shop that will do it for you quick/cheap. Preseason, we explained our situation to a local welder and he gladly did it on the spot and after a few more hours, he gave it to us for free.
Welding a robot doesn’t take a lot of time if you have all the parts properly cut and fitted.
Edit: FIRST is about making connections. Any car repair shop, machine shop, welding, metalworking shop is bound to have a MIG or TIG welder.
The kit frame is probably the best time saver there is, and it works fine for many teams in the past (although it was a different frame!)
We are still planning to use a plywood chassis this year, we have a design mostly worked out and hope to have it in Inventor very soon, and will probably post a rendering. This year’s game requires a lot of teams to rethink chassis design.
edit: I have a MIG welder, but not TIG, so I don’t mess with aluminum. I also have an oxyacetelyne torch, and we could weld a frame of thinwall steel tubing, as 1501 has used in past years
I’ve been looking into local welders. I’m starting to realize that it may not be as expensive or time consuming as my teacher is afraid it will be. It looks like we may choose to do that…I’m pushing for it anyway. Our frame is not too complicated, but building it out of the KoP chassis is a bit hard because of some of our design elements. I will definitely try working out a deal with the welder we choose…
Finally, we’re an Los Angeles based team. Anybody know any welders who would like to help out? We’d definitely give them lots of credit. My team only has one sponsor, so there is plenty of room for decals on the robot and also on our website and wherever else we list these things.
We have used 8020 fro two years now and it is very good for the fram but is very heavy so use a little as possible for mechanisms. Anyone who has used it knows what I am talking about when the nuts drop into the chanel, no pun intended…
What about pop rivets? My team did that in '04, and we were able to assemble the entire bot with 2 rivets on each corner (out of angle/flat stock aluminium).
The advantage to that, is pop rivets are simple to use, are very light, and are a great pre-work for welding in case you find a good welding shop to help you out.
Just Note: Most people you meet will not be able to do Al welding, so find an automotive shop to help you. If you can find a performance automotive shop, they will almost always have aluminum welders and skills.
We’d definitely give them lots of credit. My team only has one sponsor, so there is plenty of room for decals on the robot and also on our website and wherever else we list these things.