hardening a steel frame

[Bodge Job]

Personally I would try to reduce the hardening of the welds, reduce the tension. That would make it stronger, but heat treating armour and plates would be fine.

[Ellis]

Is hardening desirable? A bit of flex in a chassis is arguably a good thing, idntit? As long as the flexing points aren't weak (along a baseplate on which everything is mounted, for example) a bit of bend absorbs shock instead of simply trying to man-it-out and take the hits, which a stiff frame would. T2 can have a wheel off the ground and still have the other 3 in contact... I think it's that that kept it running flip after flip.

[grant_ploughbot]

That all depends on the design of the robot. I prefer to build a solid robot, other's prefer the plastic and flexible types. Case hardening of armour is quite a good thing if the robot's design suits it. Many spinner's used to glance off my old shell

[Laser]

personnaly I wouldnt get the frame hardened as it would make it harder to repair and more brittle, you would want a bit of flexibility to absorb the impact from big hits. I got Laser II front lifter plate nitride coated and it sits on a hdpe and 4mm steel frame and that can take some of the biggest hits from ls4.