Go Ugly Early (FW)

[Wkdintent]

Hi all.

I've been following robot fighting ever since the first original series of RW, and it was a major reason why I went into Engineering in the first place.

12 years later, and I've finally gotten round to my first bot "Go Ugly Early". I'd been thinking about a 2WD electric front hinged flipper for a while, but recently the design has morphed into more of a boxy ram bot, with the ability to overturn anything which gets on top of it.

robot_v8 closed.PNGrobot_v8_hidden.PNGRobot_v8 open.PNG

In the image, the front wedge itself doesn't go all the way to the floor, but two hinged metal pieces will drag along the floor, giving some it a front edge.

The chassis is made from a series of 20mm stacked aluminium extrusions, held together by a series of vertical bolts (not shown). The armour is a triangular strip of Arris rail pine (made for fence posts). As long as I've secured it properly, this fairly soft wood, this should absorb the impacts, and can be changed after every fight. Looking at other build diaries, I haven't seen many with this combination of materials, perhaps there's a good reason for that.

The model doesn't yet feature a few things, such as the battery, feathertwo and a series of rubber dampers to absorb some more impacts; but I've got several kg left in the allowance.

My key parts:
TX: Turnigy 9x (So far I'm happy, cheap, lots of channels, and mixing should I need it)
Feathertwo dual
Two Argos drills (mounts made by Roboteernat)
750N, 50mm Linear Actuator
4" 'stealth' wheels
For now just the original Argos battery, but this will be swapped out at a later date.

So far I have been focusing on getting the frame and mechanism just right. For the flipping/self righting mechanism, I found a program called Mechanical Expressions to be particularly useful, building a 2D structure, and applying the load of another robot on top.



The video shows a cross section of the robot, cut through the LinAc. The video shows that I can transition the top panel from 45 to over 100 degrees, all with the weight of another robot on top; while staying inside the LA's force limit of 750N.

I have also created the basic circuitry, and placed it in a testing chassis made from an off-cut plastic window ledge out of a skip.

I've started ordering a lot of the hardware now, so exciting times. Any thoughts and suggestions welcome.