Hornet 2

Damage report

I have disassembled hornet 2 and found a various bits of damage throughout the machine.

- The disc shaft has once again bent at the disc side (the disc doesnt sit in the middle of the shaft). Picture on my profile showing the previous shaft on the left which bent at think tank and the newly machined one on the right. Not surprisingly the shaft bent more at the featherweight champs as the disc was involved in a greater number of collisions.

- The batteries short circuited against the chassis just after its final fight (a whiteboard no less!). It was caused by a slight movement of the cells. The wire at the end of the pack was cut through on an edge within the chassis and the wire inside exposed. This then short circuited on the chassis. Batteries are a complete write off.

- As a result of the short circuit, the electronize board attached directly to the chassis seems to have short circuited at some point as the negative wiring insulation melted and a track blew on the board. A quick bit of soldering seems to have sorted the problem.

- The 100amp solid state relay blew (Thanks to the plofbox team for lending me a spare) during the losers melee

- Few dents to the other titanium panels (Thanks again to the plofbox team :)) but the chassis held up far better then it has before. It seems as though the problems I had previously have been solved.

Apart from everything above along with the usual loosening of a few bolts and some scratches here and there, hornet 2 seems to have held up pretty well.

Upgrades

- Batteries - unsure where to go currently. Been investigating A123s but the current they can supply without being damaged is a worry at this point so I think I will be sticking with nicads or nimh at this point

- Solid state relay - I am planning on using two, one for each set of brushes on the magmotor. This will hopefully stop the blow out problem I had

Apart from that I may look at getting a scorpian but the electronize have done me well for 3 competitions now with only some very minor problems.

Hey Gary

u coming 2 Seaton Sands when Jonno heads there with his Haven Holliday Park tour?

http://www.fightingrobots.co.uk/discus/messages/9846/9857.html?1212296090http://www.fightingrobots.co.uk/disc...tml?1212296090

his post bottom of there

Sadly I will have just arrived on the east coast of the states on the 11th of June and will be working on a summer camp for 10 weeks. I cant see my employers being too chuffed about me wanting to travel to California for a few days off before I have even begun

(Message edited by john on June 01, 2008)

In an old thread I saw that you were building a heavy called Swarm Gary, is it still on the cards or has it gone?

It was at the 2006 UK Championships, dont know how it got on, I saw Garys interview on the DVD but I didnt see his fights with Behemoth, Killer Carrot and Alien Destructor who he was sharing the heat with

Gary, I also noticed on ur Facebook, theres a new machine about to emerge from ur toolshed called Sting, hows the building for it coming on?

Swarm was a failure. Too many design issues which are only too apparent now. It never ran in the arena. Currently planning another heavy.

Sting has been built and taken part in the last robochallenge event. It did well considering it was built for around 200 quid. It is owned by one of my mates that I managed to get into combat robotics.

Your trying to get your mates interested in robot combat, im trying to get my SCHOOL interested in robot combat!

Lol been there, done that, got several tshirts.

I have been helping out with the project that team typhoon went onto after combat robotics.

Schools build a bot that is suitable for assualt course, sumo, football etc competitions from a kit which they assemble themselves. Very easy to make one. Would get chewed up combat wise but they are nice machines.

Not sure where your school is but the kits have been extended past the border so you may want to see if your school would be interested.

http://www.rampagingchariots.org.uk/http://www.rampagingchariots.org.uk/

My school had a robot enter one of these last year, and i recently asked my Art teacher (I think hes in charge) if there was any way of my getting into the team, and hes seeing what he can do!
I might pass on a message to my Head Teacher, but i dout he will like the idea.

Sorry to be a apin, what did Swarm look like? What weapon did it have?

No bother. Pic of it on my profile beside Behemoth.

Shame it never faught. I will need to do something with that 31kg hardox single pieces disc sometime......

Looks awesome fair play :)

Looks cool! Also Gary, do u remember a BAE Systems helper called George Fisher? He was one of the BAE Systems people that helped build the Typhoon middleweight, I dont know if U remember him. Also his wife was my LS teacher at primary school and she brought Typhoon 2 and Typhoon Cadet to school, was such an awesome day! People all piled into her room to get a glance at them, LOL!

Lol looks awesome but I cant help but look at it and shudder at some of the mistakes I made. Lives and learns though.

Yeah I remember George and his wife :) Always cheery and happy couple, great to keep morale up in the middle of a robot wars heavyweight semifinal just as everything is going wrong.

Hehe, nice one!