Ok, carrying over from this thread, this is the build diary for my first combat robot. For the past couple of weeks I've been researching and collecting parts, and just now I've got something like a preliminary design down. I'll be building it over Easter, and it'll be mostly HDPE for the chassis. I will however use some 3mm steel (or titanium, if I can get hold of it) for some parts, including the shovel. The robot will be fully invertible, and the weapon will work either way up. I was originally going to use Heng Long Snow Leopard tracks, but the sprockets have a diameter that is smaller than the motors, so I'm probably going to end up re-selling them, and instead I'm using 100mm castors, with custom-made tracks made from two connected bicycle chains. However, at the current design, the robot will run on the castors should the tracks come off or become too unreliable.

I have made some rough CAD diagrams on SketchUp, and the current ones at least give an idea of the layout, but are missing several parts including axles, the tracks themselves, and the current lifter motors are not the kind they should be. This is because I haven't finalized them yet. The chassis also may become shorter, because I have a lot of extra space, and I'll add extra braces between the side plates, rather than just the wheel and lifter axles. I can't finalize the sizes of these until I can measure the tracks, and I need to know how they'll fit around the castors for that.

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Does anyone know any reasonably-priced gearmotors I could use for the lifter? It doesn't have to be very fast (though I don't want it to be too sluggish), just strong enough. I'm using 18V drill motors for the wheels, but obviously they're way too fast.