Looking good. 'gonna spend a while listening to Feeder now!
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Looking good. 'gonna spend a while listening to Feeder now!
Da do do do, da do do do, da do do do, doo, do do do.
And it's stuck on it's side!
I guess you think it's funny now, funny now...
Jamie, feeder think this:
Gotta get my feet back on the ground
(by feet, i mean wheels)
Thanks guys. Yeah there are a few lyrics that seem quite appropriate to what's happening, but it was completely unintentional. I was scrolling through my music list to choose a song, and that one just happened to jump out at me. Must be fate :crazy:
The getting stuck issue should be alright. It happened on another two occasions during testing that didn't make it into the video, but both times I managed to shake it down on to its wheels. It just needs a combination of wheel- and drum-spinning to coax it down. The biggest challenge will be making sure I can do it in less than 30 seconds so I don't get counted out!
Bit of a hollow victory though if you win because Drumroll managed to neatly balance itself on its side. Not really Robot Wars..
Just like Ls4 flipping upsidown :lol:
Haha, tried to turn you back over! Couldn't drive for toffee though.
looks gr8 :)
Gran Tourismo 3
why not just weld a piece of horizontal steel plate to the side to stop it resting there?
Aye, re-watched the vid a few days ago and realised a little something sticking out will fix that easily enough. Will probably just weld a bit of bolt on with the end ground down to a spike, but haven't got round to it yet as Carcinus currently needs some considerable re-jigging and I've been giving the MDF bot some attention. I'm on holiday from work from this Friday right through until the Monday after the champs so I'll get on it then :)
Awesome!Quote:
I've been giving the MDF bot some attention
Bring it to the Uk champs, we can fight!
Not quite as awesome as I'd hoped. Due to a bit of a measurement cock-up on my behalf, the Pussycat design wasn't going to work very well without buying bigger wheels which, considering I was planning on making MDF-bot from stuff I already had, meant I decided to just build something from scratch instead.Quote:
Originally Posted by PJ-27
So here's where it currently is:
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...s/DSCN6521.jpg
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...s/DSCN6526.jpg
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...s/DSCN6523.jpg
It's not meant to be a 540 clone but it bears a bit of resemblance for now. I decided I wanted to make something that could be a bit of an all-terrain robot, something I could muck around with on uneven surfaces after the champs, so it's got quite a high ground clearance. The two middle wheels are just idle (didn't have enough intact/working drill motors) but should still be decent enough with four-wheel drive.
All the components will fit in it so that it can run inverted, but that's quite boring, so I'm planning on adding some sort of cab to the top, similar to what you'd see on, say, a construction site machine. That will hopefully have some sort of lifting boom/arm on it powered by a geared-down wiper motor. Will probably pick up a couple of chisels and fashion them into lifting forks to attach to the boom, but I'm aiming for them to be interchangeable with a motor/sawblade combo (which probably won't be ready in time for the champs).
Everything's gone together quite nicely, especially since MDF is so easy to mark, cut and drill. But despite the fact I'm doing 90% of the cutting outside, there is still a lot of dust infiltrating my workshop. So in that respect, building a robot out of it is a right pain :roll:
I find I cut myself a lot less often though working with MDF!
Looks awesome! That plate you gave me worked perfectly for the motor mount by the way. Can't wait to fight at the GSL.
mmmmm
nice rubber wheels at the front
oi McHarg i want royalties :proud:
Dear Dave,
I do not have any money to pay you royalties so am sending you this drawing I did of a spider instead. I value the drawing at whatever the total cost of royalties is incurred, so trust that this settles the matter.
Regards, Jamie
http://www.27bslash6.com/images/spiderdrawing.gif
I like that spider.
It's a good spider.
oh, the machine looks cool too :wink:
And there was me thinking you didn't like spiders, Jamie!Quote:
Originally Posted by k_c_r
I can cope with them when they're 2-dimensional, 7-legged and smiling :lol:
That pretty much sums up my reaction to spiders Dave!
Update
And today it got it.Quote:
Originally Posted by k_c_r
Spent ages in the workshop today, deciding to focus solely on Carcinus. I was just going to switch it back to conventional 2WD but then started wondering if I could get an actuator mechanism fitted in for the claws. So first I stripped it back to the bare chassis, during which you can see how much it has been butchered in its short lifespan so far:
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...c2_build25.jpg
I re-used some of the claw linkages from the old mechanism and trimmed them down a bit. I also had an M12 threaded rod actuator-type-thing that I got from Jonny (originally made by Billy Breach) so decided to fuse that with a drill motor to provide the motive source. A couple of bolts later and the basic setup was done:
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...c2_build28.jpg
Then it was time to put everything back together, fitting the existing components around the new ones (which don't take up too much internal space). So this is where it's currently at:
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...c2_build33.jpg
I need to redo the mounting points for the side armour, make some covers for the exposed drill motor and sort out a new top panel. The top will probably just be MDF with a bit of plastic re-inforcement here and there. Not got time to get more plastic delivered and it'd be a waste of money as I'm thinking of changing the design after the championships. The horizontal claws just aren't effective enough a weapon, and it requires quite a large robot to accommodate everything. So I will probably look more into a vertical crusher setup, but that's for another day...
Oh, and I threw a little video together to show the drive and claws, along with my standard ramblings:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi_XVQ_e84w
About the best they've ever worked that :rofl:
Looks good, with more weight over the wheels with the full armour it might have a better shot at moving stuff around, but then again unless the opponent has conked out they'll probably be driving in the opposite direction from you when you've got them which might counteract that...
Should've added at the end that none of that will matter because the robot will be in the pit long before it needs to use the claws :lol:
Ain't nothing wrong with being hugged to death ;)
I'm thinking of going for a vertical crusher as well, but that's when I have more money to put towards it
That MDF robot weighs about 4kg at the moment, so I'm not holding out much hope of extra weight on my part improving matters!
True dat :proud:Quote:
Originally Posted by Anttazz
Gary, that is indeed the best they've ever worked, and they're still mince :lol:
will you add weight over the back wheels to make it have traction.when pulling other bots?
its very fast
No spinners is your draw for Carcinus?
Impressed you got it together so quickly.
Not sure if adding weight to the back will help much. The motors are just standard drills so they'd probably not be able to pull much against another robot trying to drive in the other direction. But I'll have a play about with things and see if I can improve it.
No spinners in the qualifiers, and I'm not expecting it to make it through to the latter stages. The sides are pretty well armoured though, if it does.
I didn't expect to get it done so quickly either, but glad I did as it leaves more time for other bits and pieces.
What is that sticking out of your electronize?
The relay you mean? They all have them.
15amp ones do, 30amp ones don't have the relay sticking out. Shame you're not sticking to the strafen idea, maybe I'll try it with omen :P
My 15a don't have relaYs sticking out, just got flat red rectangles ;)
yours are the new flavor then
Seen quite a few updates and videos of robot testing today. Things here have taken a step back though.
When testing Drumroll to make sure that everything was still running fine, I noticed one side of drive wasn't working. I reckoned it was the pinion gear that had come loose on the drill motor shaft (and I was right) but in the process of stripping it down I had to butcher the wheel nut insert. Tried to re-do it this evening but didn't work too well, so switched to the Banebots hybrids I had for back-up. But one of them is off-centre slightly so the robot drives poorly going forward and just spins around one wheel going backwards. Basically, out of four wheels, I only have one reliable one, and the nut insert on that is starting to show signs of loosening up. So I think some steel hubs with the nut inserts welded on and with wheels bolted to the hubs is the approach I'll have to take.
Also stuck the batteries for the MDF bot on charge and, despite the chargers supposedly having some form of basic auto-detect feature, they managed to overcharge the batteries and one of the packs started hissing and was too hot to touch (similar problem happened at Barnsley a couple of years ago, for those that remember). I'm not sure if it's the chargers or the packs, as I charged Carcinus' packs on fast charge the other day without any problems, and they're the same style of pack. So I think I'll need to sort out getting a few more of the intelligent chargers with display screens to cut down on battery distruction.
To cut a long story short, currently the only working robot is Carcinus, which still needs its armour redone. I was supposed to meet up with Tony tomorrow to put the bots through their paces but have cancelled that to focus on fixing everything. The MDF bot is now low priority as I have no spare battery packs, so I'll try and get it running (by borrowing Carcinus' packs after it loses :lame: ) but only if I get the other robots finished first.
These last few build days were supposed to be relaxing, but now is when everything is going wrong :lol:
Better than having it going wrong in the arena I guess.
Update
Well, things have gone considerably better since Sunday. The wheel nut issue with Drumroll has been fixed by welding them onto a couple of 6mm steel bars, to which the wheels get bolted. So hopefully another possible failure point resolved. The robot still has some tendency to pull to the left when reversing, which is something it didn't do previously, but it's not major enough to annoy me. The old Drumroll couldn't reverse straight for peanuts so I'm sort of used to it.
Carcinus hasn't had any problems and I've made up a bit of armour to protect the drill at the back, so it's all ready to go, although I don't expect the claw bolts or linkages to withstand any serious spinner impacts. Luckily there aren't any in its heats, so unless it somehow makes it through and gets drawn against a spinner, or it suicidally jumps into a spinner whiteboard, it should be fine.
MDF bot isn't complete either. I put some tails on the drill motors as a start, but then couldn't be bothered trying to rush it when everything else was complete, so just left it.
But all in all, as happy as I can be with the state of the robots. I think I've eliminated as many weak areas as possible, but there are bound to be problems that come up in the arena that I haven't accounted for, or that are just unavoidable. Got annoyed with the robots (mainly Drumroll) last year but just gonna try and relax and enjoy the event this time :)
Did a wee photo-shoot as well:
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...2_build138.jpg
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...2_build139.jpg
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...2_build140.jpg
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...c2_build34.jpg
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...c2_build36.jpg
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...c2_build38.jpg
they are both class machines, 'specialy drumroll, i would love to fight that.
Both looking awesome, hope Drumroll finally comes good for you this time, you have a seeding to live up to afterall :wink: . Does the armour improve Carcinus' usefulness at all
Looking forward to seeing the videos from the event too.
What's that?Quote:
Originally Posted by Anttazz
But ta muchly, I'll make sure to get my usual collection of footage if I can. Dunno if the armour improves the bot much (not weighed it to see how much weight it adds) but it should at least stop it from having its guts thrown everywhere.