The Picnickers - Build Diary(s)

[Fathersplat]

Good, I didn't think they'd change without an announcement. At least it'll fly quite far.

[daveimi]

Hiya

There are a lot more feather builders on here that will chip in, but they're all at the FW Champs this weekend lol so it will be a few days before you here from them. The feather weight class is from 1kilo up to 13.6kg. My first robot was about 4kg wet through as I'm rubbish at robot building. It was a little compact pushy robot with a spike, so was only tiny. I use a lot of wood and plastic, mostly cause they're easy to work with. The downside is that I've had a hard time getting robots up past the 7kg mark. In the events my robots got thrown about a lot but it was a lot of fun. The serious competitors often reach the full weight as they have dead complicated weapons and stuff, if you take the weapons off their robots they would only weigh a few kilos.

Usually pushy rammer robots use a few kilo's to make a solid and powerful drivetrain with plenty of batteries, and then use the rest of the weight to weld up a hefty steel shell for it all to sit in. I've had problems with this as I can't weld lol The other option is you can enter say 2 x 6kg machines as one entry as a cluster bot. I've been umming and arring about this for ages.

The links people use are usually made up from some sort of male/female connector, with one end of the connector bridged and acting as a removable link. When I was building my first robot I asked about links and people stuck a load of pictures up. Have a look through this.

http://www.fightingrobots.co.uk/thre...removable+link

Any more questions just give us a shout, like I say there will be millions more responses after the weekend and the champs is over.

Dangerous Dave

[Fathersplat]

Hey Dave, thanks for the tips. I know the basic 'build to the weight limit' stuff, as I hail from a robot arena 2 forum where it's drilled into everyone on a regular basis, and I've lurked as a non-registered member here for about a year now. All I'm trying to do so far is to broaden my engineering knowledge so that my next 'bot will be better.
Hey, if we're stuck, we can always enter our bots as a cluster

[daveimi]

Yeah I'd definitely do that with you! I'm sure my next plywood creation will only be 6kg or so. We can be 2Cool haha.

[Fathersplat]

Snapchat-20140420063545.jpg
The main armour has been drilled and screwed onto one of the plates, top or bottom. I haven't decided which it is yet.
Snapchat-20140420063459.jpg
Here you can see a pretend-o-bot in front of a 4mm thick piece of some yet-unknown metal [Edit - Aluminum] that I found in the shed when I was drilling the holes, so that will be used as the wedge on the front. The weight looks to be around 4.5kg-5kg when finished, but again, this isn't built for effectiveness, it's for practice.

[harry hills]

Good stuff mate. What did you end up using as a link in the end? Also get like a magnet or something and see if the mystery metal is magnetic or not to see if its a steel or aluminium. It looks aluminiumey to my eyes.

[Fathersplat]

Good stuff mate. What did you end up using as a link in the end? Also get like a magnet or something and see if the mystery metal is magnetic or not to see if its a steel or aluminium. It looks aluminiumey to my eyes.

Correct, it was aluminium. I can't believe I didn't think to do that >.<.
The giant black link still is an option, but I'm putting the thing together before I worry about wiring and such.

[Fathersplat]

Bump

May be about a month late, will update with a picture post when I get chance, but the thing worked, it did fly, very far, and drill batteries aren't too bad. Surprisingly, no damage whatsoever (apart from a missing piece of acrylic I bodged another of).

Next project is a Beetleweight vertical spinner. I'm currently browsing brushless motors and eyeing up some 3S LiPos, and am just wondering what everyone else runs in their spinners? I already have a sabretooth 2x5 and two 1000rpm eBay motors, so am starting to draw up some sketches (again, will show soon).

[Fathersplat]

Triple Post but:
DoorWedge.jpg
DoorWedge Back.jpg
DoorWedge Inside.jpg

The bot in it's final form. Uses the one amp drill battery, a sabretooth 2X25 (Under the fan) and weighs 4.1kg.

Sadly, I left the beetle sketches in France, but I will draw some more up to show.

I'm currently browsing brushless motors and eyeing up some 3S LiPos, and am just wondering what everyone else runs in their spinners?

[daveimi]

This is awesome!!!