Up to 90% of the aluminum being used this competition season to build “Zeus,” Team 1816’s robot designed to play the 2009 FIRST Lunacy game, is scrap aluminum provided by one of the team’s newest sponsors.
This build season, The Green Machine is using carefully selected pieces of scrap aluminum from Production Engineering Corp., Minneapolis, MN. Aluminum often is used to build the lightweight underpinnings of a FRC competition-worthy robot.
Production Engineering Corp. specializes in the fabrication of precision components, many of which are in use on aircraft, navel ships, and communications systems. The company recycles all of its scrap aluminum, using a state-of-the-art machine that separates several gallons of coolant material used in the original fabrication of the aluminum, creating a more pure ingot of recyclable aluminum. These blocks of compressed scrap metal are sent on to a recycling facility.
Several times this season, team leaders have visited Production Engineering’s scrap aluminum holding area. “It’s like being in a candy store, we can pick out whatever we want for our robot,” says Matt H., 2009 Chassis subteam leader. “The pieces that we want are sometimes hard to find or at the bottom of a heavy pile. We are grateful for their assistance, including cutting the aluminum to exact size, and even replacing stubborn gears on two of the motors used on the robot.” Captain Dan P. and Alistair M., Manipulator subteam lead, have helped select the aluminum and provided exact measurements from the team’s CAD (computer-assisted design) model of the robot.
Perhaps even more exciting is that this opportunity helps Production Engineering recycle a tiny amount of its scrap aluminum. “Our team is trying to be more aware of how we can live up to our ‘Green Machine’ name,” says Dan P. “And we’re helping one of our sponsors at the same time.”