Team Kaizen Build Diary

[Ocracoke]

Any update on the BotFest4 video?

Unfortunately no. I've been moving house and practically all of my stuff (including the computer that I do all my video editing on) is currently in storage. This is also why BotFest 5 isn't happening this year either. I am hoping that once I can get to the arena and my camera, I can run BotFest 5 (and finish the BotFest 4) video but this is highly unlikely until next year.

I gave Colchester and Maidstone a miss this year for the same reasons but Cheltenham is relatively close to me and I wanted to finally iron out issues in Jibril so it can at least give a good fight.

EXR Cheltenham 2022
I must confess, Cheltenham was quieter than I expected but with 4 MWs in play (Backflip, F7, Audacious and Jibril), we did at least get our own slot. The FWs being a prematch warm up thing I am still unsure about but heck, it was good to give Azriel 1.0 a final run before its retirement before 2.0 is built.

Azriel did OK for what state it was in. It survived 2 of the 3 matches but the electrical gremlins were ever present. The chassis is pretty twisted from being ran over at RL Stoke and the axe gears are now pretty EOL. 2.0 is going to be smaller and denser with a better axe ratio (I am anticipating 9:1).

Jibril needed some prematch tuning. After a donation of a new grub screw from Tom (Backflip), we answered the burning question that had been a question mark since the debut of the 2.0 version - can it self right? Answer... yes but only if the axe is in the "fired" position which is more than the 1.x ever could. In the "rest" position, the axe doesn't have enough leverage to self right properly.

However, the rebuild work paid off. Jibril survived all three melee matches, the axe worked properly... somewhat and the drive worked... mostly. The first fight, we proved it could self right and the axe kept on working but in the second fight, one side of the drive packed up and the axe stopped working. Examination showed the motor grub pin fell out. Given I had drilled the other side with a M4 pin and lock nut, I did the same on the failed side. I also fiddled with the clearences in the axe gearbox to get that to clear (there is a design flaw where the first stage output gear almost interferes with the second stage shaft).

Third fight, I'll admit, I got lucky. Pretty much from activate, the axe stopped working again, much to my dismay and the drive once again failed on one side. However, I managed to keep it going on the one working wheel and both Backflip and Audacious suffered breakdowns during the fight so by a technicality, I won the fight.

Examination post match showed the wire for the motor popped out of the crimp connectors connecting the motor to the Roboclaw ESC. I reattached it and soldered all 6 connections for added security. The axe wiring harness, and I am sure this is from all the banging the robot went through in the fights over the weekend, just sort of fell apart. I think what I'll do is unsolder the EC8 connectors on both sides, attach and solder big ring connectors, get a piece of HDPE board and use some bolts and lock nuts to attach the connectors with to make a more secure connection.

Prior to this event, I was convinced I was going to retire Jibril 2.0 because, as those who have seen the machine over the last year or so, it has been problematic to be nice about it. Blown ESCs (anyone able to fix a Ragebridge?), failed gearing, chassis flexing to name four problems. If you include the 1.x series, which was a real headache, Jibril has been a fairly catastrophic MW.

That being said, the team name is Team Kaizen, continious improvement and I think this event, with the culmination of a win, proves this robot does work. Therefore Jibril will not be retired and make its way to a 2.1 verson. There are definite improvements to be made, including:

• Thicker, angled side arms (with rolled edges rather than sharp angles)
• Longer, heavier axe with a rolled head rather than a sharp edge. This does go against the Scythe-Axe which I am working on retaining in the new axe. The existing axe is a bit too short to reach the opponent.
• Regeared axe for a slightly faster fire rate.
• Weight reduction where possible

That seems like a lot but really it is only the axe gearing that is the major work. The new axe and side arms is going to be a bit of CAD work which I can have done offsite.

This does bring me to the other CAD work I am in the progress of doing. Kaizen 2.0 is, hopefully, going to be built over the winter. Don't get me wrong, Jibril is (now) a fun robot to fight with but Kaizen I have a bit of rose tinted glasses for. It fought in the original MW revivial in 2018, just one year after I started doing fighting robots seriously.

Azriel 2.0 will be, by comparision, pretty much a weekend project. Parts of that have been trickling in over the last year or so and so they are just sitting around waiting for assembly.

Next post will be the usual end of year review.