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Thread: [BW] GR-01 Build Diary

  1. #1
    About to start making my first fighting robot and I've decided that a build diary would be a nice thing to do in order to record my progress and to perhaps get some tips along the way!

    I plan to make a drum style spinner, currently deciding on design choices.

    I have some of the required parts and some early cad work done so far:


    UHMW 5mm sheet - top/bottom armour
    UHMW 15mm sheet - side armour/structural support
    Polycarbonate 5mm sheet - experimental, might use it for housing some fancy LED power indicator strips.
    Turnigy 1000Mah 3s 30C battery - main power source
    Turnigy 180w brushless outrunner motor - Weapon motor
    12v 1200 RPM brushed gearmotors x2 - Drive motors
    BotBits 10A brushed ESC x2 - Drive ESC's
    Turnigy Plush 25A brushless ESC - Motor ESC


    Early cad sketch done in my lunch break at work, rough around the edges but I hope it shows the general idea. I'm currently having a hard time deciding if I want an invertible robot that can run on both sides or if I want a robot that has a larger drum which is raised up slightly. Does anybody have a suggestion here?

    I plan to make the armour from 5mm UHMW for now, with hopes to upgrade to 5mm alu or something even hardier in the future. For now though, I think UHMW is strong enough and easy to work with for prototyping.

    Another problem I'm having at the moment is choosing wheels. I was hoping to use BaneBot wheels, but I didn't realise those went out of production. My next option is to 3D print some hubs out of carbon reinforced PLA and make my own. Unless there are better alternatives?

    Over the weekend I hope to finalise a design, cut out a base plate and 3D print myself some motor mounts and placeholder wheels so I can attempt to get something driving around as soon as possible.

    Thats all for now! Thanks for reading

  2. #2
    Hiya and welcome to the sport
    All in all its a very good start, you've clearly done your research!
    As for wheels Shockbots recently started selling exactly what you need: Clicky
    I think the only thing I can say is that compared to most beetles the brushless is a bit on the small side; for reference RPM has a relatively small brushless and even that's 500w. Lynx has almost 1kw but that does have a big ass bar to spin.
    Hope that's helpful!

  3. #3

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by daveimi View Post

    The feather and heavy events are laiden with flippers but somehow the technology doesn't sit well at beetleweight.
    A flipper just won at Kinematic :P

    But yeh, looks a fantastic first attempt. Just a note for the name however, there are featherweight drive motors with the same name :P

  5. #5

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  7. #7
    You have either really done your research, you've built robots before, or you're a complete natural! All the right stuff going through your mind by the looks of it, with solid components and you're clearly comfortable in CAD... is that OnShape?

    Big drum+4WD is an extremely popular and successful shape in American insects through 6kg bots. These both happen to be hubmotor drums, but for example: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DipBqGVjqz...217_144935.jpg - these are both formidable.

    I would push for invertability, at least such that you can drive to some extent (so's not to get counted out) when inverted.

    As Harry says, really looking forward seeing what you do!

  8. #8
    Thanks Harry and Ellis. I guess 4WD is definitely something to aim for. I'm still trying to figure out if im biting off more than I can chew if I do both that and invertible drive too... hmm..

    @Ellis
    I built the odd one or two robots when I was about 8 years old or so haha. This mainly included taking apart RC toys and attaching sharp things to them. I wouldn't say I have any other experience than that really... I built a quadrotor a few months ago, and that re-sparked my interest in electronics and robotics. I was always an avid fan of RobotWars (who wasn't!).
    I'm employed as a game developer, so my day is split 50/50 between 3D modelling and programming. CAD tools come quite naturally to me, coming from a 3D modelling background, the tools are similar. I've not used CAD for too long, the software i'm using at the moment is called Autodesk 123D Design. Its free and saves project files to the cloud, so its good for doing a few sketches during lunch breaks at work and then having the file available at home later. A bit on the basic side though, I've used inventor in the past and that's a much stronger tool.

    One last sketch for today. Just trying to think outside of the box a little and try something that isn't a cube on wheels. This is missing all the driving belts, base plates etc, but hopefully it gets the point across. It would be invertible and use 4 of 6 wheels at one time. The back pair would be driven by the motors and belts from those would drive the front wheels. I think this is starting to get away from my construction abilities though, So tomorrow I'll probably re-visit my previous design and upgrade it to 4WD.



    Thanks for the kind words though everyone. Very motivating indeed!

  9. #9
    No, no please don't go back to the previous design. If you can build the first one you can build the second one. Great ideas, keep on going. A recent lesson for me, spend more time in the design stage and less in the build.

  10. #10
    You wouldn't even need to bother driving the front wheels

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