Team Kaizen Build Diary

[Ocracoke]

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.
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