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Looking good (and should be easy to make out of say, 10mm ali). Make sure you put armour triangles (if you know what I mean) between each of the wedges and skirts though, in the final version, otherwise hozizontal spinners will enjoy catching all the edges.
Not too sure what you mean about armour triangles. You mean just extra triangles under the wedge and skirts?
How much enough 10mm ali set me back as i was planning on making it from 2mm steel?
Armour triangles would be for those right-angled parts on your prototype - the spaces between the front/back wedges and the side skirts. If a horizontal spinner came along it could catch on to the side parts of the wedge/skirts and bash the robot. Putting armour triangles across those spaces means that the spinners teeth would be more likely to glance off the armour than bite into your robot.
Hope that helps - the prototypes looking good :)
Lenny
Oh i understand what you mean. I was planning on doing that anyways.
10mm ali would require no welding what-so-ever, but Im sure 2mm steel - welded - would work (though Id imagine 2mm steel to be quite vunerable to deformation) maybe a sub-chassis of steel box section with 2mm steel panels bolted on would be a good idea (though more costly).
The triangles basically work like this on Biohazard (american robot) - http://www.teamkiss.com/Vegas/Biohazard.jpghttp://www.teamkiss.com/Vegas/Biohazard.jpg
they prevent any edges from being exposed to, say, horizontal spinners. In biohazards case, this is just done with hinged skirts cut off at particular angles, though this would be easy to implement on your design too.
Oh, lenny beat me too it :)... naaa well...
Lol, sorry Ewan :)
What kind of cost are we talking about for the aluminium? Would you use bolts on ali instead of welding?
Yes, and Ive found you can get decent amounts of ali quite cheap (about £60 for all youll ever need to build the robot) if you just walk around the back of a metal stockist and ask nicely :)
Ok thanks, its just a shame there arent any metal stockists nearby, being in the middle of nowhere and all that.