Questions/builds thread.

Looks good. Are you building anything around the outside to make the wheels a bit more spinner proof?

If weight allows, we will put wheel protection around the sides. The rear wheels might be slightly exposed at the back but hardly, if we get flipped onto our back edge back we wanted a bit of clearance so we could do something about it. The front will be one big solid ramp style thing made of 20 or 25mm thick board, shielding the wheels from frontal assault, and from that front board we will come down the sides with 20mm stuff, but as I say, if weight allows. The weakest point will actually be the back bits we just made, since they're only 10mm thick.

10mm HDPE? That might be ok actually. Buzzbar didn't get through our 6mm HDPE this year on the back of our bot, just left a few cuts out of it maybe 3mm deep and its probably one of the more powerful spinners. Maybe it would have eventually got through (if it wasn't obvious from the start that he was going to win and kept going..) but it was cheap to replace after the championship and you ca always have spares pre cut if you're worried and swap them out after a battle that they get broken in.

Of course, my thoughts exactly. If it gets damaged, replace it. For the amount of material you get it's quite cheap. And the robot is made of varying thicknesses of chopping board, which if I remember right is low density polyethylene as against to high density? Either way it's tough!

Ahh ok, I think LDPE is more likely to crack than HDPE rather than bend so spinners might get through, not sure. I think the Bitza guys used LDPE and it got mashed by Little Hitter, but maybe it wasn't as thick as 10mm. Either way, if it does break you can always replace it with HDPE and see if that works better.

Yeah, all shall be revealed if we get to an arena! The material breaks cleanly, as in, it doesn't fold and discolour like some plastics. It can bend a ton but when it breaks it's quite violent. I guess you could call it brittle.

Yeh Bitza had Chopping Boards 13mm thick. They were very strong but also very brittle. None of the attacks, Little Hitter included managed to get through but after a while it just snapped into lots of little pieces.

Well if that happens then we know we need an upgrade. It hadn't occurred to me that the huge shocks that will undoubtedly go through the body of the machine could shatter the plastic. If they shatter, we will have learned something.

I while ago I was questioning this material but after finally sussing how to cut the stuff it's fantastically strong, s'for sure. :)

The chopping boards got us through the champs alright, but I wouldn't use them again. Plus given the price of HDPE sheet you might as well just get that.

I also found that when it was cold the boards were a lot more brittle and cracked while machining them in a cold workshop on several occasions.

That's interesting... we must have been lucky until now. If it goes, we now know why. Thanks for the info. :)