Deathly Hallows - Beetle - Evil K'Weevil

[Deathly Hallows]

So this is a shot with the side walls and the weapon I designed. I had to ask a friendly engineer to produce a 'step' drawing though as my CAD skills fell short and I imported it in the model. It will have to a be a custom piece which is a shame. Weapon and it's motor will consume just under a third of the mass I calculate. The chassis, drive, electrics and armour two thirds. Seems reasonable proportions. Is this typical?

EKW v0.4.png

I am wondering where the centre of gravity will be. But I have tried to ensure I balance the weapon by sitting it back inside the frame hence the shape at front and also by placing the battery behind the drive motors.

This morning before work I designed the mounts for the drives. I made them a couple of mm shorter in height than needed to allow some adjustment to ensure the motor sits central. My idea is that with a few washers I can pad them out to compensate for small inaccuracies in the construction of the body.

The skids (blue) will also allow me to alter the angle the robot sits at if needed. However I also reduced the weapon size slightly as originally there would have only been 0.7mm clearance if the robot sat flat and level. Which sounds great but I think in real world the arena surfaces would have been an issue, and that assuming the robot did not get a bit twisted after receiving some whacks.

Still need to work out how most of it bolts together. May split the front plate so the sides and upper plate can be made into one piece. This could work really well. Welded together I could reduce internal fixings and it would be strong (for a beetle). A few fixing points to tie it to the lower floor plate (with internals)would be enough. What do you think?