Team Health & Safety - First Time Builder

[Zenith]

Today's entry boys and girls will be all about recycling! Yay!

I have come to realize that making a plastic chassis can become rather wasteful, especially if you want to revise your work now and then. Time then to make amends and prove I'm not a gas-guzzling smog-breathing panda murderer!

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First off, here's the old base plate from Mk1, with even the battle damage courtesy of Bourbon still visible in the bottom right corner. It took a little puzzling to find a spot big enough for the rear plate, but eventually, I manage to pencil something out. I drilled out some holes...

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...and there we are. Looking good.

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With changing the battery capacity and switching back to 3S, some weight was freed up. Just to be sure, I cut and bent myself some 5mm wheel guards. Like that other bit of protection, it's better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

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Here's the wheelguards and back plate fitted. I was wondering what would be better - to put the back plate flush with the rear or put it atop the wheelguards, leaving a gap of 5mm between the rear plate and the chassis.

I chose the latter. It looks better and air is free armor!

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Ready for paint! The old wedgelets from Mk1 also got a trim, to make sure the flashy lights would stand out better. Yes, I am that mental. I am sacrificing armor for lights.

The two parts at the bottom are the new wedgelets carved from the old spare Mk1 top plate. I tried getting them symmetrical as well as I could, but still had to allow for one hole on the side.

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That's better.

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Then, more recycling! I took a scrap part to make some offsets for the wedgelets - this would raise the front a bit, so it wouldn't scrape and the bot as a whole becomes more agile.

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Time to screw them in...

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...and mount them up. Getting them on the right height took some patience with a box cutter, but this seems about right.

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And that concludes the outer assembly of Mk2. All in all, I'm pretty chuffed with how it's turned out - after testing is done, I'll finish it off with the visuals (and mascot, OBVIOUSLY).

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Oh and by the way, this is the reach of the lifter. Can't wait to test whether that thing will actually work as well as intended.

Next entry will probably be the final one before the Bright Day event in Utrecht (that's here in the Netherlands - we're taking feathers, raptors and beetles, and you can sign up here), revealing the final look of Mk2.

Three weeks remaining!