Robot Design and Fabrication

This year, because we have a LulzBot Taz 6 in the lab and an architect on the team, we thought we would convert our DVD ROM case chassis from last year's robot (HAL) into a custom 3D printed affair this year.  This Slideshow shows a lot of that process, from design, to printing, to re-design, to testing. 
Our design this year adds 5 cm to the length of the chassis and stretched the wheelbase about 3.5 cm to correct some balance issues from last year.  This allows us to mount the batteries in the robot instead of on the robot as well.  We also reduced the width by about 2 cm to accommodate larger, much cooler looking, tires.  We added a camera mount to the chassis for OpenCV automation and a permanent Pi-Noon mount under the chassis.  We are implementing "Nose Cones" for the different challenges, Minimal Maze and Pi-Noon specifically.  We have also added a mounting platform for the Claw to be used on Deranged Golf and Duck Shoot.
Th process took us a while to get going on, but ultimately the ease of design changes to implementation has been great.  It's awesome to say hey, we should do this a different way and the next day have a new part to try out.