Liftoff (FW) build diary

Now that's a coincidence!! :o
Yeah, we'll meet up but, but not our machines.

Final adjustments ready, and its working fine now...more photos and vid clips after the event...

Back from this year's event of robot wars - with a very good result. All the hard work and late nights spent this week paid off as Liftoff made it to the finals and won the event :D

Now I need a break, tomorrow I'll be on the plane for a well deserved holiday!

The machines are getting better every year and is nice to see the competition evolving from simple rambots and wedges to more elaborate machines with movable weapons, having said that our level is still far away from you guys over here - we had the opportunity to see first hand a proper machine brought over from the Uk by Will Thomas - Inertia - it was really impressive to see it shredding a wooden beam, with no effort at all.

Some pics of the finalised build, and some from the event this afternoon:

Mostly finished here, added titanium armour to the sides

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49...d/P1060888.jpg

and some more no the flipper arm, just an extra precaution as I know one of the competitors has a bar spinner which might get stuck in the HDPE

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49...d/P1060890.jpg

Top cover installed - now it looks almost complete.
A planer blade at the flipper tip gives us a high probability of getting under everything. It was a nightmare drilling through it as its 3mm HSS, but a couple of spade drills and a lot of sweat later I managed to put three holes through it :D

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49...d/P1060893.jpg

Liftoff and Inertia side by side, Flipper tip covered after someone cut his hand against it :angry:

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49...d/P1060898.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49...d/P1060901.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49...d/P1060907.jpg

Final match, bar spinner Pacman could not reach us with the blade, it got flipped and that was the end of it

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49...d/P1060909.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49...d/P1060911.jpg

General view of the pits

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49...z/P1060913.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49...z/P1060915.jpg

First time I seen it snowing in Malta!! :o

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49...04574679_o.jpg

Will and his machine Inertia

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49...z/P1060917.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49...z/P1060920.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49...z/P1060922.jpg

And the winner after the battles were over - still like new hardly scratched :lol:
Will try to put it on a diet now as it weighs approx 17kg, and if I could get it down to 13.5Kg I could one day bring it over...who knows!

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49...z/P1060925.jpg

Getting that to 13.6kg shouldn't be hard.

Question: Is that bent bar where the ram hits really necessary ? Would have thought it easier/lighter to have a flat plate across the top of the robot and you ram angled slightly (or are you unable to do that ? I can't tell what the ram looks like at the bottom really).

The robot looks great, congratulations on your event win!

Out of interest, did you run with tracks in the end or just rear drive wheels? If you went for tracks, I'd be keen to see a couple of pictures of them and their assembly if you wouldn't mind during a spare moment. It's something I'm looking into doing myself, and the more research the better :wink:

Original plan was to do without that bar on the actuator, but as we had no time to spare in re designing the thing we opted for what we knew worked for sure...but that is in my mind dave - to remove as much moving parts as possible...

As for the drive, its track driven...its a real pain though to set up, specially if you dont have precision methods of machining things...will give you a detailed description and photos of how it works later on...
(in about 10 days time... I'm off to the airport now :wink: )

More updates to come soonish...

A small recap of the event in Malta two weeks ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TPP2ZgZ8-8

Let me know when the next event is, i would be willing to fly over and have some fights with cobalt

you could use Cobalt against that piece of wood just like Inertia did, or for you maybe a steel tube will be more fitting :wink:

want to fight robots not peices of material :)

I know, I know... :lol:

I doubt any one would fancy a fight with cobalt tho! But maybe one day we might create something which can take a good fight, next event is in a year's time...in the meantime will try to get Liftoff in-line with FRA rules just in case we could come over :roll: