First 'bot, a featherweight

Hey all, I was previously looking to build a beetleweight (and probably still will) but have decided to make my first bot a featherweight. Currently learning Sketchup, and have come up with the below internal design so far. Spinner weight is about 4.4kg if I get it cut from Hardox, with 200mm tip to tip and 40mm thick. I will be re-positioning the drive motors and changing the design of the mount for the spinner itself.

Concept is a wedge with a spinner towards the top of the wedge which will be mostly enclosed. get opponent on the wedge and hopefully hit their soft underbelly. I am fully expecting to lose, have reliability issues and catch fire, but does this seem a semi-decent concept and design? Bear in mind this is a few hours learning the software as I go.

Cheers!

Ian

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Hey Ian, welcome to the forum!

The concept is fine, I'd possibly say the design won't hold up well if a vertical spinner comes in from the side or back. As for this...

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Concept is a wedge with a spinner towards the top of the wedge which will be mostly enclosed. get opponent on the wedge and hopefully hit their soft underbelly.

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...I'd have a set of raised rails (for want of a better word) on either side of the disc running down the sides of wedge to ensure you hit the underside.

The raised rails are a good idea, thanks! I will look at making that change this evening when I get home from work. Other vertical spinners were my concern too, but I am not sure what to do about that at the minute! I guess some vulnerabilities make for a more entertaining fight! Its still early days, so I have a lot to do yet. Going to use drill motors for the drive I think, but not sure on the spinner motor, that will be something I need to research.

Looks good, i have been trying to learn sketchup but taking me ages to get the hang of it, im aiming for a vertical spinner aswell, like your design, thinking outside the box

Thanks Adam, nice of you to say! I found with Sketchup if I ignored the tutorials and just tried stuff, then googled anything specific I needed to do, it was a lot easier to pick up. The tutorials seem to throw stuff at you too quick to actually take in unless you pause it every step. That was my experience, at least.

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Originally Posted by Rain426

Thanks Adam, nice of you to say! I found with Sketchup if I ignored the tutorials and just tried stuff, then googled anything specific I needed to do, it was a lot easier to pick up. The tutorials seem to throw stuff at you too quick to actually take in unless you pause it every step. That was my experience, at least.

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Sounds good, will have another go over the weekend :)

My idea in my head is very similar to End Game on Battlebots http://battlebots.wikia.com/wiki/End_Game

Thats cool, should be a dangerous bot! How far have you got with the planning? I have been researching bearings, drive motors and radio gear, and its a easy to get overwhelmed with what do /look at next. So I have decided to concentrate on a small part at a time. :)

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Originally Posted by Rain426

Thats cool, should be a dangerous bot! How far have you got with the planning? I have been researching bearings, drive motors and radio gear, and its a easy to get overwhelmed with what do /look at next. So I have decided to concentrate on a small part at a time. :)

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Same here! I have drills, transmitter, receiver, a relay for the weapon and have drawn out a basic wedge bot plan on card.

Just need an ESC then can get the wedgebot up and running, then will redo the design in CAD to add the spinner.

Have no idea about bearings or drives for the weapon yet, going to leave that for a while as will need more research

Well i take it this is your first bot ? I would suggest not starting with a spinner as they are hard to build well and extremelly dangerous and can only be ran at either Exterme Robots or RoboChallange FW Champs, get the drive chain and wedge going.

On a note about the design, to be honest don't see a benifit to the spinners location, it would still hit the heavy front armour of most bots in the same way a normal vert would, you are just adding more wedge for some else to hit. Also the wheel placement it would be hard to drive thanks to gyroscopics. To be honest even a extending saw would not help as it would just push the bot up and away from it.

Sorry if it sounds harsh but i would much perfer you to have effective bot as your first bot as it really helps you with confidence.

No need to apologise, all feedback is good! :) The reason I wanted a spinner is to have an effective weapon and not just an armoured RC Car basically. Done RC Cars to death. The spinner location was to avoid having a horizontal spinner hitting my spinner without being slowed by a wedge first. Just worried that that much KE would be too much for most drivetrains to take reliably. So heavy armour at the front of the wedge, and a speedy bot to make sure I can get underneath a good way to hit them.

Sorry, just realised my last post might have come across as a bit harsh to non-spinner bots. Totally not my intention! I suppose I should have said I want something that I need to do more than just figure out how to drive it and build a drivetrain. I didn't want a flipper or axebot, as I need to beat a friend of mine's design (on paper) and I am not sure what he is planning. He did mention a shredder. I think he is thinking like one of those things you see on youtube that turns cars into confetti with the crushing / grinding teeth. And he is imaginative enough to be able to figure out how to build it too! :)

it you want to be his bot, build something reliable. Also look at other peoples designs when it comes to it as well, those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. If you want to do something a little different and target a weaker point on bots look at SawBlaze, nice to see some overhead saw bots