Skipdiving Robotics

**daveimi** · 30th September 2013, 21:06

Haha glad you mentioned that about the polycarb! Yeah well originally the spear/arm was going to be a home-made hammer/axe with interchangeable heads. Then after trying it out the spike got under everything great and you don't really see it in the vids but it's quite quick. So you sort of scoop under stuff and keep accelerating and smack it into a wall etc (well...at least my old tool box does!). So I placed all the components the opposite side of the axles to balance it out with x-box style steering on my transmitter. It's super controlled and maneuverable but I did really want a thwack bot lol.

The wheel chair is quite quick, jogging pace really, so at a guess I would say 8mph? I can't make anything really accurate (axles/gears/bearing blocks etc.) so my secret technique to robot building is to buy in the hard bits pre-built ie. gear-motors and speedo / receiver and make everything else out of found parts. In Rag N Bone I bought the motors, speedo and radio gear and built the rest from found parts. The plan is to build a heavy in the same vein. I know there is a lot of specific stuff recommended, but you be amazed at how thrown out industrial racking can be turned into box section and shelves into 3mm sheet steel. The plan is to cut out the frame of the chair where the motor assemblies bolt up, and work them into a new base plate. The wheel chair was only £30 so that's my motors, gearboxes, wheels etc sorted, now the scrounge is on for speedo and batteries. But other than that I find everything I need in bins lol.

I'm just trying to sort out a half decent shape / design and will set to with the heavy, big decision at the minute is which weapon, or just build something passive as a first go.

**Danny B** · 1st October 2013, 20:31

Why don't you just drill a horizontal hole in the end of the arm and use a pin or bolt to mount some heads through that? I used a similar technique for the chisel weapon on mine, only it mounts to the crossbar between the front stumps instead.

As for shapes etc for the HW, I personally prefer the method used by the Razer team; Design the weapon first, then build the chassis around that.

**daveimi** · 1st October 2013, 21:59

Sorry didn't see the post about the wheelchair! I just watched ebay for a few weeks and read through the local paper and stuff. I kept seeing them coming up for £150 or so and then noticed one that had most of the accessories missing. It's quite sad as the old dear had died and it had been found by the son who'd put it on ebay. You can buy wheelchair running gear on its own pretty cheap, but I wanted the partial framework to hold the drive together and give me a way of bolting it into a robot.