On Campus Availability
5052 and 6061 aluminum alloys can be purchased on campus at the ESMS, so we have very high accessibility for these materials directly on campus. We also have some stock material for these types of material scattered in the bay, but it's gonna be a mission and a half to sift through all that crap. Aluminum alloys can also easily be machined and fabricated with the SDC facilities on campus, so it's very easy to make these parts in house if we have the materials!
Sponsorships
We also have two machining sponsors that will fabricate aluminum parts for us for FREE! Wyrks Tool and Machine Ltd and Demtool both provide machining services for this type of alloy (folding, welding, laser cutting, CNC machining, you name it!) which also includes the stock material, provided they have it on hand and you aren't used some wonky alloy.