Team Kaizen Build Diary

[Ocracoke]

The Honey Badger - Rapture @ Chatham 2021
After a long drive down to Chatham on the Friday night (5.5 hours), I turned up to the event knowing full well who I was competing against, those being Super Snappy, K2 and Let the Good Times Roll. Suffice to say, I was definitely the underdog going into that. I rushed on a PTFE front scraper to get the front of the robot as low as possible in an attempt to get underneath the opponent, which ultimately didn't do very much.

The Honey Badger vs Super Snappy
Craig and Super Snappy are well known in the BW scene and this was definitely an interesting fight. During the fight, where we proceeded to dance for a bit before being pushed everywhere, I noticed the robot getting slower and slower. This turned out to be the battery having not been charged so I couldn't get a good speed up. Lost when a tyre came off a wheel on one side and the other was dangling over the pit.

The Honey Badger vs K2
Having already seen K2 in previous events, I knew how hard this was going to be. It was practically a blink and you'll miss it affair after K2 rammed my right wheel (the wheel guards were in the wrong position) so hard, that wheel stopped working. Then with a final hit to the rear, that disabled the Badger completely as the link was ripped out.

After that fight, it was discovered that one gearbox was poorly and the other was completely non-functional as a stage had fallen out of its mount. With some creative work, I managed to get it partially working in so much as it would reverse but not go forwards.

The Honey Badger vs Let the Good Times Roll
By this stage, having had about four hours of sleep prior to the event, I was worn out but I wasn't willing to simply call a forfeit on this. Ultimately, this fight was a walk in the park for Let the Good Times Roll but there were a few occasions where they very nearly went up the front of the robot. Even the flipping arm managed to see some good action however a flip from the drum spinner put the robot on its back panel and didn't have enough leverage against the arena wall to put it back on its wheels.

0-3 for The Honey Badger 4.1. I'll admit, a bit disheartening given that I spent a fair bit of time and effort putting this together but there are things that can be done to improve this so all isn't lost. Had I been in a different heat, I might have done better but that is how these things go. It'll be back as a 4.2.

I'll be working on a YT video over this week for this and then work on the BotFest arena.

[Ocracoke]

Aye but then again, it was just good to be back in the scene and to see everyone again after over a year of not being able to compete. v4.2 will have new 22mm drive motors, new wheels to avoid the tyre coming off again and some studs in the back to prevent it landing on its back the way it did.

Also planning the return of Shu! as something different.

[Ocracoke]

Hmm, I guess it depends on wherever you find working to the BW scale easier than the FW scale. I find working on FWs easier than BWs simply because of size of components but then again, I've gotten better at building over the years so I guess it is down to preference. A BW is definitely easier to manage size wise.

what changes to shu are you planning?

Shu! is going to be fully rebuilt for its v3.0 build. Gonna try and aim for a 15cm square machine with 8mm hollowed out HDPE bulkheads.

[Ocracoke]

Aww thanks Sam. Having rewatched the fights, its simply too slow and, being honest, big for what it is. I don't think the size is the problem but yes, definitely new motors and mend the damage. It'll live again

[Craaig]

You had a super tough heat - hell, I felt like I had a tough heat. You held up awesomely!

[Ocracoke]

Awww, thanks Craig! It was a tough heat, wasn't it? Still, will improve for next time :P In AW news...

Ramu
Ramu had been on the backburner for a long while as I wanted a clear evening to replace the malfunctioning NanoTwo v2 with a v3 model. That was tonight whilst fighting a bad head. After quickly putting the motors on the new ESC and soldering the ESC to the switch and battery, it bound fine... and then appeared to burn out on me.

20210712_191438.jpg

I say appeared. After a bit of time away from it, I took another look at the wiring, tested that the switch wasn't what was broken with a LED and found that the positive wire had come away from the NanoTwo board. In order to get to it, I had to remove the heatshrink and after burning my fingertip, managed to get the positive wire back on the pad. A rebind later and finally, it's alive again.

So, unofficially, it is now dubbed Ramu 2: Whoops, I voided the warranty. If I find the time, I'll repaint the robot and replace the worn Polycarbonate on the front.

[Ocracoke]

Been a while huh? After a fairly good performance at BotFest 4, I needed to take some time off from full on robot combat. Not to go into too much detail but 2021 has been dogged by persistent health issues which has meant I've not had time to really concentrate on anything, let alone full on robot combat but I am now in a position where I can resume where I left off.

Jibril
I am committing to getting the darn video done of it because although there are up and coming changes, it is for the most part finished barring some last minute machine work. Amazingly, the Scythe-Axe works first time and it is very, very satisifying to see and hear it work. That being said, the 39.88:1 gearbox feels now to be a little too geared for my liking so I am going to experiment with a change to 25:1.

My hope is to get into Robots Live! in October with this thing and finally fight some HWs or MWs properly.

Kaizen
I've been planning this one for a while and am nearing the end of the design phase. I am going to stick with it being an axebot (I had planned a front hinge flipper originally) and have most of the parts here to construct with. The design contraints of the transport I have for this robot means its going to be fairly small for a HW and like Jibril will need to be capable of being dissassembled into smaller parts but I think I've nearly nailed it all down.

Azriel
I really feel for this machine. It was rebuilt a while ago to the 1.0 specification it is in now and it hasn't gone into any robotic events since. Since now I have a proper pillar drill, I am going to be doing some lightening work on the axe mechanism and see about improving the overall durability of the robot given some parts are knocking on 4 years old now.

[Ocracoke]

Haha, thanks Sam. I hope to have something up after Robots Live in Crawley, still waiting on the BotFest video as well.

Both Jibril and Azriel are ready to go to the event. Batteries are fully charged and while Azriel is in ready to fight condiion, Jibril needs a bit of finessing at the event itself before it can go in. For some bizzare reason, the bolt holes for the lid have managed to fall out of alignment. My main concern is the axe ESC playing up again but we'll see. My friend and I will be trying to get to the event early as to to get the robot as ready as it can be.