Team Saint Robot Builds

[craig_colliass]

Making big wheels

The disc is made from HDPE 20mm thick.
First cut out the blank, Find were the centre for the wheel is going to be. then mark the position with a pen and centre punch the exact point.
I used some steel builders strap as the holes are punched accurately so the dimensions should be good and the wheel round this is screwed one end at the centre punch mark, using a scriber or anything metal and sharp the circle is marked I find with my eyes the line is hard to see so I go over the line with a permanent marker.
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Cutting out the wheel is a long and arduous business but the slower you go the better the final job usually is.
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The tyres for this robot are Motocross motorbike front wheel tyres like Saint first they have to be cut in half radially this means you have half the tyre on each wheel. for the new robot the wheels are so large there are no tyres big enough so the tyres are segmented 12 segments for each wheel. a simple clamp helps, don't forget the bead is steel.
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the tyre is then bolted to the rim the holes for the bolts are measured out first and the holes drilled. The bolts used are stainless steel hex socket domed head (flanged) 8mm machine screws and Nyloc (flanged) nuts to fit.
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more to come

Craig

[craig_colliass]

Just a quick run down on how the robots did at Colchester

But firstly a big thanks to John and all the Robot Wars team for 3 great shows. Looking forward to the next one.

Spiderbot this machine has proved to be quite reliable and didn't miss a beat or a step, the crowed loved it.

Kettlebot ran faultlessly and was a joy to drive.

Tron this robot suffers from a bad driver (me!) in the end I just drove it on the floor flipper because I like to see it fly! the last time it busted a drive motor so that was the end of that the new LiPo batteries are working wonderfully.

Cherub this robot was a complete disappointment for us, as it didn't work properly all weekend, we tried everything to get the lift motor to work but no luck. We have decided to replace the speed controller and radio for the lifter and start again. If you replace the handle and the head you know you fixed the broom!!

Gabriel we decided to get the new robot ready for this event, and carefully test it to see if it would be OK. the robot worked very well I had a drive between shows and I could almost drive it were I wanted it to go!! the handling on this machine is so much better than Saint ever was. also the more powerful motors made the drive so much more responsive it works like a heavyweight Seraph. exactly what I was hoping for.

There were a few problems the major one being the drive on one side was binding somewhere, at the time I thought it was the bearings binding I was concerned some dirt had got on to the bearing tracks on the gearbox. but it turned out to be the motor pinion was tight in one place this has been adjusted and is running much better. A few nuts shaking loose that will need to be looked at but the Wotty didn't break into a sweat and the batteries performed better than expected.

Modifications to the robot I hope to loose a bit of weight on the robot as I expect it to be a little over weight, and adjusting the drive ratio to increase the top speed a little.

all in all a mixed bag for the robots but I hope Gabriel may be one to watch in the future.