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Ant Weight Robot Builds
Hi there I'm a new round here and I know Ant weight robots are not talked about much around here but I thought I share my first steps into robot building.
As for a team name I'll just go with Coolspeedbot.
Anyway this post will look at my first bot Alpha-Wolf
Alpha-wolf or as I like to think of it as the trial and error bot as the pictures will illustrate.
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Using the parts from the kit bought from robotwars101.org I started with mounting the motors to the base using sticky pads and cable ties.
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After that I started glueing the frame to the base and what I would mount the weapon servo and power switch to.
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With the back panel and the top part of the frame added, I put the electronics into the robot as you can see the radio gear and the 'speed controllers' was put in the back, the battery in the front and the weapon servo on top.
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And the final steps was to add the flipper panel and the amour to Alpha-Wolf. Sadly as the next set of pictures will show Alpha-Wolf broke before I could get it into a actual fight with another robot.
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Sadly after doing some tests of the drive and flipper the frame broke making the robot structurally weak. I tried to fix the problem by remounting the servo and make a new frame sadly due to my messy trial and errors that was impossible so I decided that I would do a complete rebuild and that would come in the form of Killer-Wolf which the build diary for that robot will follow.
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And now my second bot
Killer-Wolf
Learning from my many errors with Alpha-Wolf I made a key change to my approach in building the robot, which was not to use glue to attach the parts. And my attempt to fix Alpha-Wolf gave me the idea to flatten the top of the robot to make it more stream lined.
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As Killer-Wolf is a rebuild of Alpha-Wolf I decided that the wheels should be further back to avoid the robot being off balance by the weight placement and that the base and back panel be a single piece to add strength to the robot. The picture above also includes the first version of the new flipper which was replaced.
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I then added the side panels to the frame which would also add to the structure strength. Unlike Alpha-Wolf I used bolts instead of glue to fix my makeshift brackets in place.
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I got rid of the flipper panel and mounted the motors to the base using polou motor brackets and a custom made plate to mount the brackets onto, that resolved the ground clearance.
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I made the new flipper panel one solid piece that also doubles as the top panel of the robot.
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A picture of the electronics after they was put inside I cut down on wire by changing the transmitter and receiver from the Blue Planet T5 to the Spektrum DX5e as that didn't need a separate mixer cable. I also made a mounting point for the servo motor that can be removed if I need to take out the battery or receiver. This picture, also shows the first version of the roll bars on the sides and on the back. Which turn out to be ineffective and pushed Killer-Wolf over the size limit slightly.
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Here I had started to work on new Roll bars taking some inspiration from robots like Behemoth that use curved roll bars shaped like upside down tear drops to control the direction the robot could roll. The second picture shows a early go at fixing a elastic band to the underside of the flipper and hooking it to the base to help pull the flipper back down as in tests the flipper sometimes got stuck open.
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And with Killer-Wolf ready I added a it's name and logo onto the flipper to complete the look.
Pending a final weight check Killer-Wolf is ready to make its fighting debut.
But until then I got to build two more ant weights for my Brother and Sister who have become Robot fighting fans themselves.
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Small update to Killer-Wolf made the on-off switch more accessible.
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Oh dear, little mishap with Killer-Wolf the servo for the flipper fell off, I'll get some cable ties to help secure it better.
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Very good job! Looks pretty neat and compact. How about a vid showing how it performs? If you make a couple more for your brother and sister you could be the Wolf Pack!
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I'll get round to it after I re-fit the weapon servo.
sadly My brother and sister have named their bots, Catch-Cat and Bunny Ears
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That's awesome! Can I nick your idea of servo placement to build a beetle?
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Sure, its a common placement anyway
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Thought I share a video I recorded a year ago, of my (at the time) 7 year old sister Jessica driving Alpha-Wolf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl5Y...ature=youtu.be
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I decided to put the picture of Alpher-Wolf and its new incarnation Killer-Wolf to show how the bots differ and how they don't.
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