Looking great Lucy. Impressive bit of precision garage engineering to get those lined up so nicely!
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Looking great Lucy. Impressive bit of precision garage engineering to get those lined up so nicely!
Aww, thanks Sam! I guess I just needed to have been a bit more brave with interpreting my diagram. Still having a bit of a nightmare with the shaft to get the bearings onto and I still need to figure out how to connect the gears to the shafts securely.
I've got some rear metal plates to go on the robot and working on getting the front plate made up along with a new Scythe-Axe. Bit of a long saga with them but my aim is to now have something battle ready by 2021.
So... normally at the end of the year, I'd do a round up of the performance of the bots and the team in general. There really isn't much to say on the performance front. I attended the grand old sum of one event - Ant Freeze 6 - which I've already written about in a previous post so I'll cover what the statues of the robots are, what the plans for them are going forward and what is happening with BotFest.
Antweights - Amai, Ikari, Lafiel, Osu and Ramu
As I've mentioned before, Osu in its current form is now officially retired. I am sure I'll get around to rebuilding this one fairly soon, I've got some of the parts needed to do this. Ramu needs a new ESC which I've got one sitting around but it isn't the neat NanoTwo. It'll need a OrangeRX receiver to go with it.
Ikari remains pretty much as is though it now has a slightly thicker back plate with miniature wings on it so it won't end up on its side. Amai has some smaller wheels on it now and a PTFE wedge plate on the front for getting underneath opponents. It is still pretty scrappy but its held up fairly well given its really dodgy gluing :P Lafiel went under a rebuild but I found it was marginally too wide. I'll get around to rebuilding it again when time permits, all the electronics for that still work nicely.
Beetleweights - The Honey Badger and Shu!
The Honey Badger 4.0 has been looked at but hasn't had any repair work done since the 2019 BW championship. It needs at least new side panels out of black HDPE and a new wedge plate. Functionally, it seems to be fine. Shu! 2.0 was pretty much dismantled and will be rebuilt as Shu! 3.0 in a planned speed build challenge I am dreaming up.
Featherweights - Azriel
Poor old Azriel 1.0 hasn't seen any action at all this year despite a new axe mechanism being fitted and a tidy up of the wiring. I had hoped to go to RoboDojo with it in July but circumstances here changed to prevent that. My current line of thinking with that is to build a completely new Azriel 2.0 to take advantage of a new Scythe-Axe that I've now got (many thanks Jamie) coupled to a brand new gearing mechanism. The 1.0 version will then become a test bed for my brushless programmer tool which I talked about earlier on in the year.
Before that happens though, I am hoping to stage a fight with it facing the original Honey Badger 1.0. I found a ESC and some batteries, threw those on the original test chassis (from 2016/17!) and it runs, albeit without a weapon at the moment since the mount is still badly twisted. However, I argue it runs better than it did back in Grantham!
Middleweights - Jibril and Kaizen
Jibril 2.0 has been the most talked about thing in this build diary this year and it is coming along reasonably nicely. It needs a lot of the armour cutting and bolting onto it along with the new Scythe-Axe which I am currently in talks with someone to get cut for me. There is still a bunch of work to do on the carrier for the weapon to make it more secure than the 1.x versions in terms of securing gears to the shafts and so on but its coming along. I did a build video of the construction of the carrier as well :P
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye1WGb5h_1s
Kaizen I am planning to bring back next year with a ever growing parts collection here for it. Once Jibril 2.0 is done, I'll see about getting started with that.
BotFest
Oh boy... so as you may know, BotFest 4 was cancelled twice and, if being honest, the second time it was cancelled, that costed me financially. Of course, with the way things are at the moment, I can't say when it'll be back. I am *hoping* for a return anywhere from March onwards but I just can't say when that will be at the moment. Things aren't entirely standing still though, more to come on that later in 2021...
Miscellaneous
I've been dabbling with creating my own brushless ESC programmer as I think I alluded to earlier on in the year. Still working out some kinks in it but the general idea is to have something automatically create a suitable .hex file from the SimonK assembly files and then be able to flash that onto the ESC. I've had mixed results from it so far but when I've sorted the kinks out, I'll see about releasing it for everyone to try (provided you have a USBAsp programming tool).
Definitely can understand if you don't want to put a date on it until you know things are sure. With the way the pandemic is going, there's still no end in sight I would say. Definitely nothing where anyone can put a 'for sure' on things by then.
I will try to get another ant together before then, as I enjoyed BotFest 1 all the way back in [date here], hopefully I can arrive with something more better than the aptly named 'Send Help!'.
Nice video! Jibril is looking awesome, really compact and mean-looking. One question though, could you possibly include a few more different types of fastener on the base plate? I think you might have missed one or two! :proud:
I'm really looking forward to making it to BotFest [some number]. Very happy to chip in a few quid to cover your costs!
I had to look back for the date but it was the 29th of July 2018, which feels like an age ago now! Looking forwards to seeing what you bring to the next one ;)Quote:
I will try to get another ant together before then, as I enjoyed BotFest 1 all the way back in [date here], hopefully I can arrive with something more better than the aptly named 'Send Help!'.
They are somewhat unavoidable. One in the main central bulkhead is where the axe motor goes and the ones in the very corners of the baseplate were because of me and poor measuring. In all honesty, they won't matter as much since HDPE doesn't shatter like Polycarbonate does.Quote:
Nice video! Jibril is looking awesome, really compact and mean-looking. One question though, could you possibly include a few more different types of fastener on the base plate? I think you might have missed one or two!
We'll see how things pan out. Looking forwards to seeing you there ;)Quote:
I'm really looking forward to making it to BotFest [some number]. Very happy to chip in a few quid to cover your costs!
First update of this diary for 2021! :D
Jibril
I've tidied up the wiring loom somewhat so that the drive ESC, the fuse and the removable link all sit on a HDPE board, which also forms the battery box. Had a moderately scary moment where, after doing this, the whole thing wouldn't power on but turned out to be a dodgy solder on my part.
Attachment 9825
The 10mm Polycarbonate for the lids arrived and will be drilling and affixing those fairly soon. The carrier for the axe has had some reinforcement but still needs a fair bit of work. Most notably, I still need to figure out a good way of holding the gear on the shaft. I have a Aldi special welder which I've never used, worth giving a go here?
The A28-400 motor still needs holding down with a U bolt. Problem is, the imperial size bolts on the face of the motor I can't adequately screw in where it is on the carrier to ensure proper alignment. Means I'll have to get a set of imperial size spanners. However, beyond this, there really isn't that much more to do aside from attach the panels and the Scythe-Axe when it finally comes.
Looks very tidy Lucy. I would be interested to hear how you get on with the Aldi welder - I've been tempted to get one.
Happy new year!
Happy new year to you too Sam!
As far as I understand it, its a Inverter Welder (ref: https://www.aldi.co.uk/workzone-inve...85506226214500) which having watched a few videos on it, seems reasonably easy to use though I might invest in some thick gloves and ear defenders. I find the hissing/sparking noise quite alarming.
Sounds like a cheap and cheerful welder. Mine is a second hand one from Gary, which cost him £50 from Makro about 12 years ago. Surprisingly still going strong, used it for all the welding on Coyote, Shunt and the majority of Dead Metal. Just set it to the desired current, attach the earth clamp and weld away.
If it's a one-off bit of welding, that supplied mask will be okay but if you see yourself doing more, I'd recommend getting an auto-darkening welding helmet on eBay. Can be got for £20-£30 with some stylish designs. It will free up your other hand and will let you see the workpiece as you go to strike it up. Arc welding gloves too, as you mentioned. Also a slag chipping hammer and wire brush are handy. I used to just use my claw hammer but the chipping hammer has some vibration protection and can get into more nooks and crannies.
Yeah, wasn't immediately keen on the handheld face shield, much rather have something that allows me to handle the welder properly. Thanks for the heads up, will see if I am brave enough to give it a go when the weather clears up!
Jibril
Work has happened. Very descriptive, I know :P The chassis has been modified a little to allow the axe motor and carrier to come out in one piece. The U bolt holding the back of the motor in has been installed and just needs cutting to size. Currently in the process of getting the lids bolted down.
I also adapted the carrier to bolt into the main chassis when installed so that it won't go anywhere. The rear armour plates have been test located and fit, just. I've also, finally, had news on the Scythe and the front wedge plate which *finally* means I can crack on and get this robot finished. The Scythe attachment is going to be a fiddly job, needing my first ever countersinking job and some stubby M10 bolts, preferably in Titanium. It'll make sense when you see it.
I am aiming to have this done by the end of March to give enough time for stress testing before events hopefully restart. Of course, video footage to come soon.
Jibril
Some more work happened and... well... here it is.
Attachment 9838
That is... wow for me. It obviously isn't quite finished yet but at the moment, minus the Scythe-Axe, it could go into the arena as is. I'd like to think it is much better engineered than the last version, time will tell if it is when it does eventually get into a fight. Weighing it all, it comes in at 38kg which is silly light. I might be able to fit thicker side arms and add some headweights to the axe for the lethal hit.
At the moment, the gearbox for the carrier has been disassembled as the Titanium shafts need keyways cutting and I'll sort out the drilling of the gears to attach the Scythe-Axe to the gear if only to get the experience of doing countersink drilling.
Looks fantastic Lucy! Congrats on getting it finished, hope it gets to run very soon!
Looking forward to fighting Jibril with my heavyweight :proud:
Its certainly pretty much all together now, just needs the machine work doing to the shafts and paint, obviously. :PQuote:
Looks fantastic Lucy! Congrats on getting it finished, hope it gets to run very soon!
Oh yes, I am looking forwards to fighting with your heavyweight too!Quote:
Looking forward to fighting Jibril with my heavyweight
Things have been happening. They happen in the universe but specifically, things here :P
Jibril
I've test ran the robot with the side arms and yes, they do scrape but not enough for them to really be an issue. The robot moves happily with them on so I think leaving them "as-is" is the best way forwards for the moment. Really speaking, all the robot needs now is paint, final assembly and sorting out the Victor BB as it seems to not want to co-operate when powered on for the first time.
As far as the Scythe-Axe goes, I've had the parts machined now with a keyway (so many thanks Nat!) and they are on their way back to me as I write this. I need to order the key steel but I am finally looking forwards to having this robot done and tested. I do, however, need to get some headweights ordered for the Scythe, it isn't as heavy as I first imagined but that is definitely a "later" job.
The Honey Badger
I've been accepted into the Rapture event in July so this presents a big chance for me to do some work on this one. One of the biggest bugbears I have with the current 4.0 version is the lack of any active weaponry on it. I could fit an axe to the existing robot but at this weight class, an axe isn't very effective. I therefore elected to experiment a little with some left over 3mm PVC from Shu! 1.0, a test motor and some 4mm polycarbonate I had laying around to make this:
Attachment 9855
Despite it being somewhat hacked together (this was done in about in hour) it mechanically works and will form the basis of a front hinge arm on The Honey Badger 4.1.
I've ordered some new HDPE to rebuild the shell entirely and the arm is going to use the motor from Shu! 2.0 to power it since that is a straight swap and Shu 3.0 is probably moving to a different weight class. The MFA motors from the 4.0 version are going into the 4.1 version along with their speed controllers but a new wiring loom is needed, the one in there is fairly rotten and definitely needs replacing.
The whole machine is going to shrink slightly as it needs to fit within a 250mm square area. but honestly, with a bit of clever imagination as to placement of parts, it won't be an issue.
Key steel has arrived today. Made a slight miscalculation in the sizes I ordered but I've got the right sizes as part of the order so in theory, there is very little stopping me rebuilding the gearbox now. I want to get the Scythe at least painted and fitted onto the gear before doing so though.
Countersinking bits and titanum M10 bolts are on order but I need to get a new pillar drill and corded drill as well so I don't expect anything to happen with Jibril until the end of the month at the earliest.
The Honey Badger
After a few evenings and weekends working on this, I am happy to show off The Honey Badger 4.1.
Attachment 9871
Weighing in at 1.42kg with an electric front hinged flipping arm, I am quite pleased with how this has come out. Its relatively quick and should hold up to some pounding this time. Not that the last one didn't but this is a refinement of what was already there. A new wiring loom went in, the flipping arm mechanism is pretty neat (by my standards anyway) and it is nice just to have a robotics project finish and finish well on time for some testing before attending an event.
And yes, this one definitely self rights ;)
The only couple of relatively minor things I want to get done on this now is some metal edging along the top and machining the front slightly to run flatter on the front.
Jibril
I'll save the big reveal for a couple of weeks time for this but I'll reveal that armour plating has been painted and the Scythe-Axe gearbox has been assembled. Barring a few little pieces needing finishing, this is also nearing completion.
The Honey Badger - Rapture @ Chatham 2021
After a long drive down to Chatham on the Friday night (5.5 hours), I turned up to the event knowing full well who I was competing against, those being Super Snappy, K2 and Let the Good Times Roll. Suffice to say, I was definitely the underdog going into that. I rushed on a PTFE front scraper to get the front of the robot as low as possible in an attempt to get underneath the opponent, which ultimately didn't do very much.
The Honey Badger vs Super Snappy
Craig and Super Snappy are well known in the BW scene and this was definitely an interesting fight. During the fight, where we proceeded to dance for a bit before being pushed everywhere, I noticed the robot getting slower and slower. This turned out to be the battery having not been charged so I couldn't get a good speed up. Lost when a tyre came off a wheel on one side and the other was dangling over the pit.
The Honey Badger vs K2
Having already seen K2 in previous events, I knew how hard this was going to be. It was practically a blink and you'll miss it affair after K2 rammed my right wheel (the wheel guards were in the wrong position) so hard, that wheel stopped working. Then with a final hit to the rear, that disabled the Badger completely as the link was ripped out.
After that fight, it was discovered that one gearbox was poorly and the other was completely non-functional as a stage had fallen out of its mount. With some creative work, I managed to get it partially working in so much as it would reverse but not go forwards.
The Honey Badger vs Let the Good Times Roll
By this stage, having had about four hours of sleep prior to the event, I was worn out but I wasn't willing to simply call a forfeit on this. Ultimately, this fight was a walk in the park for Let the Good Times Roll but there were a few occasions where they very nearly went up the front of the robot. Even the flipping arm managed to see some good action however a flip from the drum spinner put the robot on its back panel and didn't have enough leverage against the arena wall to put it back on its wheels.
0-3 for The Honey Badger 4.1. I'll admit, a bit disheartening given that I spent a fair bit of time and effort putting this together but there are things that can be done to improve this so all isn't lost. Had I been in a different heat, I might have done better but that is how these things go. It'll be back as a 4.2.
I'll be working on a YT video over this week for this and then work on the BotFest arena.
Aye but then again, it was just good to be back in the scene and to see everyone again after over a year of not being able to compete. v4.2 will have new 22mm drive motors, new wheels to avoid the tyre coming off again and some studs in the back to prevent it landing on its back the way it did.
Also planning the return of Shu! as something different. ;)
Hmm, I guess it depends on wherever you find working to the BW scale easier than the FW scale. I find working on FWs easier than BWs simply because of size of components but then again, I've gotten better at building over the years so I guess it is down to preference. A BW is definitely easier to manage size wise.
Shu! is going to be fully rebuilt for its v3.0 build. Gonna try and aim for a 15cm square machine with 8mm hollowed out HDPE bulkheads.Quote:
what changes to shu are you planning?
That's a tough fight card. 0-3 looks bad but great job making it through all the fights!
Aww thanks Sam. Having rewatched the fights, its simply too slow and, being honest, big for what it is. I don't think the size is the problem but yes, definitely new motors and mend the damage. It'll live again ;)
You had a super tough heat - hell, I felt like I had a tough heat. You held up awesomely!
Awww, thanks Craig! It was a tough heat, wasn't it? Still, will improve for next time :P In AW news...
Ramu
Ramu had been on the backburner for a long while as I wanted a clear evening to replace the malfunctioning NanoTwo v2 with a v3 model. That was tonight whilst fighting a bad head. After quickly putting the motors on the new ESC and soldering the ESC to the switch and battery, it bound fine... and then appeared to burn out on me.
Attachment 9882
I say appeared. After a bit of time away from it, I took another look at the wiring, tested that the switch wasn't what was broken with a LED and found that the positive wire had come away from the NanoTwo board. In order to get to it, I had to remove the heatshrink and after burning my fingertip, managed to get the positive wire back on the pad. A rebind later and finally, it's alive again.
So, unofficially, it is now dubbed Ramu 2: Whoops, I voided the warranty. :p If I find the time, I'll repaint the robot and replace the worn Polycarbonate on the front.
Been a while huh? After a fairly good performance at BotFest 4, I needed to take some time off from full on robot combat. Not to go into too much detail but 2021 has been dogged by persistent health issues which has meant I've not had time to really concentrate on anything, let alone full on robot combat but I am now in a position where I can resume where I left off.
Jibril
I am committing to getting the darn video done of it because although there are up and coming changes, it is for the most part finished barring some last minute machine work. Amazingly, the Scythe-Axe works first time and it is very, very satisifying to see and hear it work. That being said, the 39.88:1 gearbox feels now to be a little too geared for my liking so I am going to experiment with a change to 25:1.
My hope is to get into Robots Live! in October with this thing and finally fight some HWs or MWs properly.
Kaizen
I've been planning this one for a while and am nearing the end of the design phase. I am going to stick with it being an axebot (I had planned a front hinge flipper originally) and have most of the parts here to construct with. The design contraints of the transport I have for this robot means its going to be fairly small for a HW and like Jibril will need to be capable of being dissassembled into smaller parts but I think I've nearly nailed it all down.
Azriel
I really feel for this machine. It was rebuilt a while ago to the 1.0 specification it is in now and it hasn't gone into any robotic events since. Since now I have a proper pillar drill, I am going to be doing some lightening work on the axe mechanism and see about improving the overall durability of the robot given some parts are knocking on 4 years old now.
Sorry to hear you've not been well Lucy, hope things are or soon get better. :)
Sounds like you have some good stuff planned, look forward to seeing the Jibril video!
Haha, thanks Sam. I hope to have something up after Robots Live in Crawley, still waiting on the BotFest video as well.
Both Jibril and Azriel are ready to go to the event. Batteries are fully charged and while Azriel is in ready to fight condiion, Jibril needs a bit of finessing at the event itself before it can go in. For some bizzare reason, the bolt holes for the lid have managed to fall out of alignment. My main concern is the axe ESC playing up again but we'll see. My friend and I will be trying to get to the event early as to to get the robot as ready as it can be.
Jibril and Azriel - Robots Live! Crawley 2021
It was great seeing everyone again after so long. Turned up at the event a little later than I wanted to but we got there with plenty of time to spare to get ready. Also had the pleasure of meeting up with Darryl Fountain at the event (apologies if I got the name wrong). His dad, Brain Fountain, was one half of Team Mace from the original run of Robot Wars.
I am also now convinced I am in someway cursed with Robots Live! events and being utterly mangled at those events.
Saturday
Saturday was a FW only match for me as I wanted to hold on using Jibril until a possible MW only fight the next day. It was also the day that Robots Live debuted their new FW house robot which is a dragon with a clampy claw. The fight started OK but as soon as it got involved in a brawl, Azriel just... stopped dead. That new house robot then proceeded to put me in the mangling thing at the back of the arena which immediately tore off the rear of the robot and pulled out the wiring with it.
I think what happened there was a battery wire was knocked out of a terminal block which caused the whole robot to shutdown.
Sunday
With confirmaton that there was going to be an unofficial Middleweight championship between Backflip, Audacious and Jibril between the two shows, I held back on putting Jibril in for melees with Heavyweights and focused on Azriel. For the second FW melee fight, I asked my friend to drive and while he lasted longer than I did in the first melee, a strike to the lid caused the whole machine, again, to shut off. This time it was a snapped wire from the fuse to the rest of the robot.
The third FW melee I resumed control and this time, whilst Azriel managed to keep going for most of the right until the battery wire popped out again and another motor wire snapped (many thanks to Nat for helping with that, I was rushing to get it sorted), we found that while Azriel cannot self right when the axe is retracted, it can self right when the axe is in the fired position and it retracts back. So that is nice to know. :P
Between the two shows, there was an hour's break and that was when we had our unofficial championship fight. To put it bluntly, Jibril 2.0 preformed very badly. The axe was ponderous and started slipping again despite being held down with a U bolt. By the time it was flipped upside down, the axe simply had no power to self right with. The drive on one side was also not meshing properly and all in all, it was a very poor showing. That rather soured my mood for the 3pm show because all the time and effort put into the robot it simply hadn't worked. The damage was relatively minor otherwise.
Back to the Featherweight fights, the fourth fight Azriel was flipped out of the arena I think with a wheel coming off and the fifth fight, it was flipped up and over but the batteries weren't fully charged and the axe wasn't in the right position so ended up beached.
6 fights, 6 losses. I must admit, I was pretty upset with the performance of both machines. Azriel has major endurance issues and Jibril... well yeah. The 2.1 version of Jibril is going to have a change in the reduction ratio of the Scythe-Axe and the axe carrier rebuilt so that it doesn't move about as much. Azriel I was initially thinking about a complete rebuild to 2.0 but I might just rewire the whole robot, up the ratio to 6:1 on the axe, switch to a 6S LiPo for a bit more oomph and finally use the metal axe that Jamie cut for me a while go.
Ouch ! 6 out of 6 losses Lucy after all that preparation :uhoh: I dot blame you for been upset, of course
winning is not everything, well it is for some but generally it's not always achieved.
My view is as long as you entertained at a big event you are still a winner and I guess your Robot
been grabbed by a house Robot and put through the Mangler did the trick and I'm sure there were
a few more highs when you look back.
Why not try getting to a few smaller events so iron out the creases and find out what works and what
doesn't ?.
It wasn't the fact that I didn't win, it was more a case of the robots underperforming. I have no problem (usually :P) with losing if the fight is good. For example, Extreme Robots Cheltenham 2019 was a glorious event for me despite the MW failing because of a battery wire failure because finally, after a year of that iteration of the MW failing because of stupid things like axe shafts twisting et al, it finally worked and presented at least a credible opposition in the arena. As you say though, I do look back at the event with the first fight with a smile because it just seems to be a thing for me to have my robot destroyed at a Robots Live event. As I put it to Greg, "at least I bring entertainment value." :)
The issue is for me is that there are no "small" MW or FW events I can easily attend. RoboDojo is on the other side of the country so even going to that is a whole day excursion and when I am committed to being elsewhere on a Sunday or a Saturday I just can't go. I don't have a driveway or even a relatively suitable garden to trial these with properly and obviously, testing in a public space (with the MW especially) is a big no-no.Quote:
Why not try getting to a few smaller events so iron out the creases and find out what works and what doesn't?
I may end up building a testing arena for these for use at BotFest events and othes because this lack of testing is getting to be a real pain.
Hi lucy, don't be down harted. You were super unlucky i kept trying to get you back over but as hard as i tied you always seem to end up upside down. Sorry.
No worries Tom, I know you tried and thanks for that. ;) One day, I will get Jibril working properly and we'll have to have a grudge match :D
Speaking of, I am going to order some sheets of Nylon and some more U-bolts and rebuild the axe carrier with the motor supported properly. The change in gearing means the carrier needs to be rebuilt anyway so hopefully the change means it'll look less ungainly. I'll make some plates for the drive gears as well so they'll mesh properly.
Just make sure you keep the shafts of the gears solid/ fixed and you should have no issues
The gears in the carrier themselves are fine, it is the actual axe motor gear that is slipping. I think what has happened is when I drilled the holes for the motor face bolts I drilled too big a hole because I couldn't line them up on the HDPE sheet (I was lacking a pillar drill at the time, which I now have).
The quick and dirty solution is to slide in a bit of 2mm HDPE underneath the motor to raise the front of the motor up to mesh properly. Longer term is to rebuild the carrier entirely as described.
The drive motors, I think either the motor or the wheel itself is out of position. I suspect the latter but will measure.
Sounds like a frustrating day out Lucy, glad you still have a plan and the enthusiasm to iron out those last few mechanical issues!
Don't get me wrong, I was grateful for having been to an event at all, the robots just underperformed. If I can get the time, I'll try to go to Dojo with both to get them properly tested. That being said, we are planning to move house fairly soon here to somewhere with a proper shed area so I don't have to haul these things up and down the stairs.
As is customary for this thread, here is the review of Team Kaizen's performance in 2021.
Ramu/Osu/Ikari/Amai
The ants, accompanied by a new robot from a first time roboteer called Ghosty, did reasonably well considering the competition at BotFest 4. For 2022, I'll be retiring Amai 1.1 and building a replacement robot which interestingly enough my Dad suggested the design for when he came to BotFest 3. Ikari will also be rebuilt to version 3.1 to address some of the issues in the 3.0 version.
The Honey Badger
The experience at Rampage in Chatham was a brusing encounter but fun nonetheless. The drive motors in particular are completely knackered and need replacing along with the body which I am not happy with overall. I'll be looking to make the 4.2 version more compact and with stronger/faster motors and better protection around the wheels as a whole. The flipping arm mechanism though I am really pleased with and may carry that forwards to other robots.
Azriel
I must confess I wasn't happy with Azriel's performance at Robots Live! in Crawley. The axe worked well enough sure but there were/are a lot of build issues that often meant an early retirement from the melee matches and wouldn't stand up in a competition match. I had originally been planning to completely rebuild Azriel into a 2.0 version but I am instead going to concentrate on the electrics for a 1.1 version (which is where the majority of the problems are) and tidy the whole wiring loom up so that it'll be less likely to shutdown during a fight.
Jibril
Like Azriel, Jibril didn't perform as well as I would have hoped in Crawley. It moved OK but the gears in the drive need replacing and the axe needs retiming to ~25:1 with proper independent mounts. The armour held up fine but one of the side arms became bent from being flipped and landing awkwardly. If being totally honest, I think the main issue with Jibril is the baseplate where it isn't stiff enough. I will see if I can add in a brace for the 2.1 version.
So with that all out of the way, I won't be able to work on the robots until I've moved house as practically all my machining gear and robots themselves are in storage at the moment. This also means that I can't work on the BotFest arena until the whole process is done and that could be a long, long while (as in late spring time) but the process will be worth it as we are looking to move to somewhere with a garage and a extra special something. I am hoping to find the time to edit the BotFest 4 video this week to finally have that released.
So moving house... yeah. That has pretty much stalled and has left me bereft of most of my tools and equipment for building robots as they are in storage, as is Azriel and Jibril. So big brain move, let's rebuild The Honey Badger! In all seriousness, it needed it after Chatham and dammit, I want to go back to roboteering.
The Honey Badger
If you recall, The Honey Badger 4.1 was at Rampage in Chatham and it did... urm... about as well as you might expect against some really top notch competition. It left the event with broken motors and a really chewed up rear end. Since then, I've not touched it for various life related reasons.
Anyway, cut to this week and with one week left to go until the deadline to prove it was mobile, I found the motiviation to go and do it. I was wavering on wherever or not I was going to drop out but eh, better to try and break it than to never build it in the first place.
This time, I decided to use a set of new ESCs and Motors from BBB since I get the feeling that it is more in line with what people in the BW scene are using in terms of a brushed setup. However, I did fluff up and didn't get the right sized screws so will need to repurpose some copper pipe clips for motor clamps. Not a big job in of itself. I also had to try and head the HDPE to straighten out the damage. Lacking in a heat gun, I ended up using the hob in the kitchen and my hand wrapped in a towel to bend it back straight. Kids, do NOT do this. I am a idiot so learn from my mistakes.
Anyway, the robot is now disassembled in the lounge with the new electronics soldered in. For the 4.1.1 version, I'll be replacing the wheel guards with solid ones because the hinged ones were terrible and will also be adding some Nylon studs to the back so it cannot get beached on its back again but otherwise will look broadly the same. I'll also glue the tyres to the wheels properly so they don't come off. I would have liked to change the wheels entirely but sadly no.
Also, that front sheet of thin HDPE is gone. It made the robot look quite unwieldy and it was a last minute hack which didn't work.
So here it is, very much a work in progress! I hope to have it running tomorrow night.
Attachment 9973