Team Troubles Robot Projects

im currently building 2 new robots for the tag team champs in sept. 1 of which ill use in the main comp and the other whiteboards. so i thought i might aswell make a team thread type thing.

at the minute im seriously peed off, i've just letterally typed this whole thing out and my computers messed up and the page closed. so i lost everything i wrote so here it goes again.............................

one of the 2 robots im making has a pnuematic flipper called troublesome and the other has a spinning drum and is called trouble starter (i like the word trouble:P)

trouble starter was a robot originally designed before christmas, and was going to look like barberious 2 from the robotwars days, but since i started to seriously think about making a spinner around a month ago and asking gary aswell as jamie a serious amount of spinner related questions it as apparant this wasn't a great way to go. the main reasons being the drum would have to be HDPE plastic, 250mm dia, and around 400m in length and seeing as the pipe could only be brought in 6 meter lenghts at £219 and seeing as the drum would have to be replaced fairly often with it only being made from plastic i as put off with the design. so with that i started to jot down designs for the new version. after settling on 2 designs, i then scraped those and settled on a final 3rd design. which i started making the drum for today which is 20cm wide and at the minute weights 1.764g and is made out of 4 and a half inch steel pipe with 3.6mm walls WHICH KILLS YOUR ARM WHEN HACK SAWING IT. link to a picture below. the back of the robot is up to where the red spirit level sits.

the drum and the weapon motor in the pic are sat ontop of my other robots chassis base as they have similar shapes and sizes to their designs, both will have 2 drill motors for drive.

http://teamtrouble.sports.officelive.co ... arter.aspx

and her is a link to a pic of my other robot Troublesome (which should similar to the grim reaper from series 7), with all the parts layed out on the top. this robot has been in the same way for over a month now, because i hadn't made a flipper before so didn't realise the cost of certain parts so i had to wait for the money to become avalible to me. i will soon get a move on with this robot also.

http://teamtrouble.sports.officelive.co ... esome.aspx

ill post some more pics up on here when both robots look a bit more interesting in the comming weeks.

i also nearly finished my drag racer today:) its not very good but i really want to concentrate my efforts on the robots but it should do the job.

materials arrived today, 10mm ali for the drum supporting bulkheads and 15mm hdpe for other areas, i've taken a picture i drew of my final robot design aswell the picture isn't massivly accurate but the robot will be roughly 40cm wide and around 40cm in length- as i go along i will build it as compact as possible so hopefully those dimensions will be smaller. i've also got some 5mm titanium which ill hopefully have mounted at the back of the robot for rear armour.

the robot will be invertible with a bottom base of 3mm ali and most likley a 3mm ali lid aswell or if not a 5mm HDPE lid and the robot will have 160mm dia wheels with a chassis height of 150mm.

on the drum will be 2 big teeth, and the drum when finished will weigh around 3kg

i've tried my best to make it not look like drumroll aswell:)

today, armed with my cardboard mock up of the wheels im yet to be getting, i started making my feather spinner. the chassis height ended up being 130mm at the back end, and at the front end where the drum has to clear the floor, its 160mm.

at the minute i've had a bit of a re-design, if you look at my drawing i did, where the wheels are covered by the robots chassis- well for now im going to have the wheels exposed- which will save a serious amount of weight in the long run.- then when the robots finished ill see if i've got the weight to get some sort of simipler covering over each wheel.

im still waiting for my ali to arrive so theres no base plate yet but its nicely starting to take shape and im really pleased with how small the whole robot is- with out the drum on the length is 340mm and the width is 280mm without the wheels.

the speed 900 is mounted in a 15mm thick hdpe bulk head and each drill motor will be mounted onto the ali bulkheads which support each side of the drum.

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Nice chunky looking teeth dude 8)

Will be keen to see how they fare at the tag champs, as I might go for something simple like that on a shorter drum I'm gonna make if they get a good bite

Your robots look really good mate, im impressed. That new flipper robot reminds me of turbulence :) same shape base plate and internal layout- but smaller lol. Nice one.

spent today doing more to trouble starter, i can't believe how solid it is and the chassis isn't finished yet, with all the force im capable of- i can't pull the drum supporting bulkheads apart:O

heres a pic

[attachment=0:gi3sw5ha]DSC02526.JPG[/attachment:gi3sw5ha]

i've decided to go with my original wheel protection design, and ill finish the rest of the robot off before i start messing with the wheel protection incase i don't have the weight to- if i don't have the spare weight ill just cut the ali base plate back to the 10mm ali bulkhead and have exposed wheels.

in the above pic it weights 4.6kg, not too bad considering the drum motors in there along with the majority of the chassis and that its got no weight saving shapes in certain areas yet- and theres the space to have quite a few. aswell as that the bulk head that supports the wepon motor will be alot smaller once i start getting the insides in there- i've just made it massive at the minute so that i didn't end up making to too small to begin with.

also i've got major plans to make it horizontal disk proof:P in the front drum area particularly which as far as i think- will work, sadly this most likley wont include the wheels:(

Glad to see that kind of bulkhead design. I have used it effectively in DB5, over 180 fights and counting still in one piece. Only thing Ive had to to is retap some of the threads. As long as your armour works to hold the plates solid you will have no problems. I always say there are two ways to armour a robot to absorb the impacts or just make it solid enough so stuff bounces off, obviously this method means shock mounting everything inside.

Not had as many as 180 fights, but the bulkhead method's worked great for me too. I need to replace one of the ones in Drumroll but that was due to me cutting material out to save weight and compromising the structural integrity of the Nylon, causing it to crack upon a large drum impact. Threads are still holding well, even though the bolts have been undone and tightened up countless times.

Can be a pain with lots of drilling and tapping, but does make for a very solid chassis.

Looking good Calum. Wouldn't say it looks like Drumroll too much, its getting its own personality :)

lol yh the drilling and taping is very annoying and yh hopefully the ali bulk heads will do the job:)

i've discovered for some reason the chassis is slightly twisted so at the front end 1 of the ali bulk heads is raised from the floor by 5mm and the other one touches the floor, i've taken it all apart and put it back together again and its still doing it:@, so i think ill just fill the gap between the floor and the bulk head with some 3mm ali and washers to make 5mm, or build the rest of the robot and before i mount the drum shaft i could sit lots of house bricks on it- to say that this is the first time i've made a robot in this way- i've made an alright job of it so far i think, and when it gets wrecked i'll improve on it:)

i've been doing alot of thinking- and i still can't decide whether im going to have wheel protetion yet, if not i might tape a tenner to each wheel to stop people hitting them.- without all the extra chassis around the wheels i could make the rest of the robot heavily armoured thou.

has anyone ever had a unprotected drill motor wheel ripped off????

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has anyone ever had a unprotected drill motor wheel ripped off????

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I think the best example to give is Hornet 2, that's been through six full combat events with exposed drill motors/blue wheels and hasn't lost a wheel yet. Kaizer's sides got ripped off at the UK champs in March which left the four wheels exposed and Savage Evo gave them a bit of a beating but none of them came off.

Is it blue wheels you'd be using? Or homemade/different ones? Alternative ones would depend how solid the mounting is and how resistant it is to impacts.

But just remember, you'll have a nice big spinny thing on the front of your robot. Gary's always saying that everyone who concentrates on trying to take his wheels off seem to forget about the Mag-powered disc on the front. Keep that pointing at your opponent and you'll be fine. Plus you won't be fighting a horizontal spinner in every fight so exposed wheels won't be under threat all the time :)

thats a good point, and also with it being tag team- that means mabye even less chance of meeting a nasty horizontal spinny thing.- i would say the team im most afraid of would be tom and dave, but i will have a few tricks up my sleve- or on the robot:P which will hopefully sort them out.

but im hoping for a drum on drum fight against drumroll though at some point to see who has the best drum:D

and the wheels will be some either 150 or 160mm ones that grants sorting for me, i think they are similar to the smaller blue ones.

The bulkeahd method is what's used in Hydra as well for the wheel enclosures. Works really well and is really really strong. It's 6mm ali on the upstands and 3mm ti for the outside with 1mm ti used as angle brackts to hold stuff on and seems to stand up to thor and terrorhurtz ok although they haven't had a really really good go at it yet.

Andy

PS: That's not an invite by the way :rofl:

to think aswell that hydra was sent flying easily 5 foot or so into the air by gravity shows how strong it must be:)

did some more today, added a bulk head at the back, and i've drilled and cut each ali bulk head to take a drill motor bracket and i've also cut a bit of a weight saving shape out of each one aswell.

i've added a picture below, now the total weight is 5kg, including the drill motor i've loosley shoved in there just to see how things were going to look space wise. then add the drum which will weigh about 3kg or so (precision:P) add the batteries- 1.5kg = 9.5kg then the rest on wheels, more armour, speed controllers and the drum shaft etc etc so hopefully it should make the weight.

i didn't like doing it but i've came to the decision of no wheel protection:( so i've cut the ali base plate back to each ali bulk head. i did a bit of working out and to have wheel protection with the 15mm hdpe would weigh about 800g and i decided that would be better spent making the rest of the robot more solid with more layers of armour.

i don't know if im happy with the shape any more as i think its going to look a bit square, but mabye in time ill learn to like it

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Looking good... well for a vert anyways :p
Nah it is looking good, and very strong. Take a few spare drill motors and wheels just incase eh?

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i don't know if im happy with the shape any more as i think its going to look a bit square, but mabye in time ill learn to like it

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Lol, that's how I felt with the new Drumroll chassis, and partly the reason why I've gone back to the old chassis until I redesign the new one.

Looking good so far :)

thanks for the comments :)

i've been doing a bit more today, nothing major thou, a bit of filing and thinking about the internal layout. my weapon motor speedo came today aswell so really i've got all in internals now, just a case of finishing the robots its self off

i've either got some 12 volt drills or some 9.6 volt drills, and im undecided on which to go with, with the 9.6 i could run those off a seperate battery pack from the drum batteries - the drum is going to run off 2 12 volt nimh packs,

if i went with the 12 volt drills and used another 12v pack thats another 750g where as the 8.4 volt ones are lighter------------ do any of you think its worth having a seperate battery pack for the robots drive? or is it just a waste of weight?

also aswell in the drill motors - well in the 9.6 ones anyway, im not sure about the 12v ones- theres some plastic gears are they likley to break?

id say to go for running things off the same set of batteries less complex and they shouldn't run out in a few minute fight

the gears, i had problems with plastic gears but its only if you put them under conditions where they are likely to strip themeselves. if you do strip a gear it can cause the motor to work in effectivly so you dont want a bot which only does circles and whens its a spinner you want as much battle time as poss

more pics would be great of your progress

alex

ah right ok, well ill leave the plastic ones in for now and test drive the hell out of it:P to see what happens- if they break ill have to sort some metal gears out.

i just realised my last post didn't make sence, i ment if i used 12v drill motors i was thinking about then using a seperate 12v battery pack- or with the 9.6v drills i ment that i would use a seperate 8.4 volt battery (as i've got loads sitting in my room)- meaning it would be lighter. but with what you've said ill just go with the 12 volt drills and stick to the pair of 12v batteries. hopefully now that make more sense

Plastic gears should be ok, Iv always kept them, Besides when the wheel gets ripped of by a horizontal it wont matter if your gears are intact or not. I still dont even have a working robot yet, Evo is still as a pulled it out of the arena at the uk champs pretty much, Drive motor broke and a blown relay or battle switch, and the gearbox for the spinner has a stiff point.
Oh and 2 of my radio gear are broken, One dropped TX one TX that just doesnt work for some unknown reason and one blown RX. And ill be ordering that plastic for ya tomorrow, havent had chance to call em yet.

How long before we see a test video?

lol just wait, will be the end of horizontals in sept:P

as for a video ill film one in a few weeks or before when its finished, i've got a microwave and a wooden cd stogare box thing to test it on which ill do on my local park early one morning.- im looking forward to that:)

and thanks for the plastic should stop that hori........horizon , i can't say that word seems wrong to say it, so ill just say it will stop your non vertical disky thingy nicley

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and thanks for the plastic should stop that hori........horizon , i can't say that word seems wrong to say it, so ill just say it will stop your non vertical disky thingy nicley

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:rofl:

Hows it goin?

still basically the same:P i've just counter sunk every hole on the robot and added some more holes for bolts to add more strength- thats about it.

at the minute im waiting for aload of parts from grant like the drums endcaps,wheels, motor brackets and drum teeth- before i do anything else.

I post them bits of plastic tomorrow morning. Its quite heavy.

ok thanks tom

tom that plastic arrived :) there was no need to write HFTW on it though:P

ewww, i think ill have to burn my keyboard now i've typed those 4 letters out :D

Nah nah, just reconfigure your keyboard somehow so that when you press 'H' it actually types a 'V' :)

oops. my bad.
heavy that plastic isnt it?
How you planning on using it? you will only be able to use a bit of it. No way will you have the weight spare to use it all. infact will you have the weight spare to even use half of it?

What would happen if I attempted to build a diagonal spinner, would that face the wrath of both camps? :P

meh, just build a crusher and pwn them all :rofl:

lol jamie tvats a good idea:P

im not gonna use loads of the 20mm plastic, im gonna vave bits of it on the robot in certain places, which will include my anti vorizontal attacvment vopefully there should be a bit of weigvt left over for it.

lol a diagonal spinner, im sure tom will say that wven ve will apparantly rip my drum off, as its flying off it will be diagonal for a couple of secs in the air.

Missed a few

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Originally Posted by calumco

lol jamie tvats a good idea:P

im not gonna use loads of the 20mm plastic, im gonna vave bits of it on the robot in certain places, which will include my anti vorizontal attacvment vopefully there should be a bit of weigvt left over for it.

lol a diagonal spinner, im sure tom will say that wven ve will apparantly rip my drum off, as its flying off it will be diagonal for a couple of secs in the air.

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Would i say such a thing? :p
Should be a few good fights at the tag champs.
How many vertical and horizontals you reckon will be there? be nice to see if they would let us have a H vs V fight at the end.

So we placing some bets or what?

yh ok lets place some bets, although i hope your ok with me takin money from you:P

whats the bet then?
ill let you decide.

Assuming all tvese robots are attending;

Vorizontals - Savage Evo, 360, Little Spinner 3, Miss Scorpion, Stripper, Dragonstrike
Verticals - Vornet 2, Drumroll, Trouble Starter, Tve Berzerker

I tvink tvat's all tvat spring to mind rigvt now, so we're a bit outnumbered but we will triumpv over our adversaries and claim victory :D

Is The Berzerker Nicks?

we could do sometving like every spinner puts some money in, and the team or the spinner that finisves with the vigvest rank takes the money:) so if tom and dave won they would vave to split it between them.

tvat all depends on if every spinning person wanted to do that thou- or we could just do it witv a few spinners wvo want to be involved at least

Im up for it, You want everyone in on it to give me and mouldy the money to save untill the end of the event? saves sumbody handing it to us when we win.

lol vava, im up for it 2 how mucv tvougv? as long as we arnt talking vundreds each lol what about you jamie and any other people with spinners?

you can decide that, see what others think.
Seriously i dunno who will win. Nicks is sounding awsome, we all know Jamies and Garys have proven to be extremely good, yours... well dunt sound right good really, maybe you should forget the anti horizontal things. will be much better... Honest :lol: Nah its looking very good, cant wait to see what its like done. I dont really have to say how good the rest of the spinners are really, There horizontals so its obvious.