Since the champs has now been announced I thought I would be the first to announce the progress of this years machines...

Binky is defiantly going to be making the list. After a mix of small issues last year she should be considerably better this time around. Most of the changes have been to the chassis and armour. The front armour and bulkheads have been reshaped to expose the disc so that we now don't have to get robots up onto the old front blade to hit them. To go with this the base has been stiffened with some triangles just in front of the wheels. The armour has been bent back into shape and has been rewelded on the outside with welds on every seam now on the inside too.

The reason for all this structural modification is to stiffen up the chassis. In the immediate aftermath of the first melee we had believed that 720 had bent our base plate so out wheels touched the ground. After reviewing all the angles we concluded that it was actually the rough landing from Little Flipper that had done us in. The landing was so hard that we snapped a major weld on the armour which was keeping everything flat and square. With this rigidity gone the 2mm Grade 2 Ti simply flex and and allowed the centre of the machine to ground out. 720 shoved us onto a join in the floor and that was all it took for us to be counted out.

The electronics remain the same as well as the drive system. The only changes are to the motor mounts which have been reprinted to interoperate brackets that hold the motors in place as well as mounts that hold the TZ85's away from the front of the machine.

Conker 3 on the other hand is just a pile of bits.

The Hardox and Titanium for the armour have been done for some time. The bulkheads are away being machined and should be back by the end of next week. The weapon should be back any day now from being cut too. Motor, batteries, esc's and the other electronic parts are all ready to go in. Parts that are missing are the Titanium bars for the top and front wheel mounts.

There will also be some experimental parts on the machine. The internal mounting for the batteries, ESC's and other parts will be 3D printed in ABS. This will not only be very lightweight but allow for compact and safe spacing of components. This will also include motor supports for the Banebots gearbox's so they don't get damaged.

But the biggest gamble will be the 3D printed HTD timing pulley and wheel mount units. Again printed in ABS, they will be printed with 100% fill and provide a much lighter and compact method of mounting the wheels. The rear mounts will have a central Keyway printed straight onto them to match the shaft of the Banebots gearbox's while the front will have recesses to take needle roller bearings.

Depending on what happens in testing I may have to include metal pins that run through the wheel units as the laying method of FDM modelling will leave them susceptible to sheering. The pins will help take the loadings that will be put on the in combat.

The final note is that Conker 3 will actually be underpowered. It will fight this year on 4S for drive and 10S for the weapon rather than 5S and 12S. This is simply because we would rather reuse the batteries we have which are lighter and then mess around for next year with the more powerful system when we know how the machine performs.

If you have reached this point... Thanks for reading :-D and see you at the champs!