Just an idea, building a robot with no welding

[mackemforever]

So, bear with me here because this may sound rather strange.

For as long as I can remember I've been a fan of robot wars, it's one of the programs I grew up with and ever since watching the first series in 1998 I've had a little sketchbook of ideas. Now this got forgotten about for a long time but last year I dug it out again and saw that time and time again I'd gone back to make revisions to one particular idea.

I shan't go into detail about what the design is, although I will say that it's a spinner with a difference and with a solution to the problem of a spinner being able to be neutralised by a robot closing them down before their weapon is up to speed.

Back then I was a kid who had no idea how it all worked really, but now I'm a Mechanical Engineering graduate who knows enough to have a crack at building it. So I've spent the last few months putting together a proper design and have hit the point where at least from a design point of view things are pretty much finalised.

However even with a sufficient level of armor the entire bot is projected to come in around the 80kg mark, well within heavyweight restrictions, which led me onto a thought.

Would it be possible to build a competitive robot without any welding? As I have enough spare weight capacity to design the bot so that instead of welds structures are held together through the use of bracing plates on the joints. Reason why I'm wondering about this is because I like to do things a bit differently, and to me the idea of a bot where individual bits of the structure, even down to the frame, can simply be unbolted and replaced if damaged appeals.

So people of FRA, am I being completely daft to think that a robot could be built to withstand combat without any welding at all?

[RogueTwoRobots]

Did you catch the recent series of the show? If so, Pulsar from Episode 5 (builder Ellis is on here too) was constructed entirely without welding. It was all a bolt-together assembly using aluminium blocks with threaded holes in them, so it's entirely possible

Lots of pictures on the Pulsar Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/teamranglebots/photos/

[mackemforever]

Did you catch the recent series of the show? If so, Pulsar from Episode 5 (builder Ellis is on here too) was constructed entirely without welding. It was all a bolt-together assembly using aluminium blocks with threaded holes in them, so it's entirely possible

Lots of pictures on the Pulsar Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/teamranglebots/photos/

I did see the most recent series and I did see Pulsar. I hadn't however realised that they had done it that way.

Well I suppose that's my question answered very quickly!

Now I just need to learn the damn electrical side of things and I might have a shot at getting a working robot out of this in the end!

[Eventorizon]

All off Ellis's machines are weldless. His BW's FW's and HW's all use the same nutstrip system, or they use barrel nuts!

[typhoon_driver]

lidl or aldi will do you a stick welder for 30 to 40 quid that will handle up to around 6mm steel or hardox comfortably. Yes it's possible to make a machine without welding but it's such a pain in the arse and are more limited on the shapes and design that it becomes a right pain.

Also I'm assuming your spinner would be covered up before opening up to stop it being rushed. It's a nice idea but if your reveal mechanism gets damaged then your machine is protecting your opponents. Something to consider.

Also 80kg? Throw that weight into the disc and spinner mechanism!

[mackemforever]

lidl or aldi will do you a stick welder for 30 to 40 quid that will handle up to around 6mm steel or hardox comfortably. Yes it's possible to make a machine without welding but it's such a pain in the arse and are more limited on the shapes and design that it becomes a right pain.

Also I'm assuming your spinner would be covered up before opening up to stop it being rushed. It's a nice idea but if your reveal mechanism gets damaged then your machine is protecting your opponents. Something to consider.

Also 80kg? Throw that weight into the disc and spinner mechanism!

It does involve a protected spinner but using a mechanism which has a fail state of open. Essentially once it is set at the start of a battle if it loses power, either due to damage or being manually disabled, the mechanics of the system result in it immediately being in the open position leaving the weapon accesable.

As for the weight (which is actually around 90kg, I made a typo in the original post), the numbers behind the system already give it as much power at the tip of the blade as Carbide had in the previous series.

[mackemforever]

Also for those saying "just buy a stick welder", the reason I'm looking at approaching it this way isn't because of a lack of kit or a lack of experience. I have the kit accessible already and I have plenty of experience, I just find this kind of approach more interesting and at the end of the day I'm looking at building this bugger because it interests me.

[TechAUmNu]

It does involve a protected spinner but using a mechanism which has a fail state of open. Essentially once it is set at the start of a battle if it loses power, either due to damage or being manually disabled, the mechanics of the system result in it immediately being in the open position leaving the weapon accesable.

As for the weight (which is actually around 90kg, I made a typo in the original post), the numbers behind the system already give it as much power at the tip of the blade as Carbide had in the previous series.

The energy of the impact is nowhere near as important as the spinup time. If it takes 20s to get up to speed it is not going to be very good.

Sounds like your armor isn't very thick, or is made from something very light. On our spinner we have 10mm hardox 500 and 15mm aluminium.

Also our design is almost all bolted. The only welds are to attach the teeth to the spinning ring.

[Eventorizon]

The non welded approach has great advantages over the now common welded unibody styles like Apollo, Carbide and Thor.

Part swapping is the main one. Fixing unibody robots can be a real issue, where as if you just need to undo some bolts and swap a panel its much easier. And you can swap entire weapon systems if need be! Down side is, if you get it wrong, your machine can be picked apart piece by piece.