Update

Two-and-a-half days to go, but with us leaving on Thursday morning, I'm now down to my final build day tomorrow; still got quite a bit to do so a mild panic is now starting to set in!

Anyway, here's the progress so far. Visited Gary's workshop at the weekend with the intention of getting the drum completely done and mounted and getting the armour on. But these things always take longer than planned so only managed to get the drum done, but it's much better than it was going to be. For example, temporary HDPE endcaps were overthrown by some nice titanium ones that used to be bearing housings for Hornet 2's disc, and Gary kindly let me have them for the drum. This also meant that I could do away with some bolt-on bearing housings that I bought and let me just have ones integrated into the titanium endcaps:



Have also fashioned some bar teeth from the old drum so it's got some bite now:



This drum was originally going to be a temporary one for the competition but it's pretty sturdy and weighs in at 2.6kg so providing it holds up (which it should) it could be a keeper. I'm still going to go for a drum with ring teeth since Dave donated me a nice drum he had made but rather than that replacing this one once it's built, I'll probably have them as interchangeable drums.

So that's fitted in the robot now; it's a bit offset so I'll need to make some spacers for it to stop sideways movement. May actually bolt on one of the bearing units I've now got spare, it can act as a spacer but can also provide extra bearing-y goodness



Current state of the machine. Needed to move the shaft forward a bit as the drum was hitting the bulkhead when it rotated. At the bottom of its spin, it is a mere few millimetres off the ground so just as well the Robo Challenge floor is nice and flat
Gave the drum a few spin-ups today (no videos sorry) and it's taking a bit of work getting the setup reliable. A combination of the tensioner not being great, belts warping themselves from heat and general new-ness means that they haven't been the most successful of spin-ups but I'll hopefully get it fine-tuned in time for the comp. Doesn't help that the belt is a bit long and gets in the road of itself. I've ordered some shorter belts from RS but they wouldn't arrive in time therefore I'm picking them up at a trade counter on the way down on Thursday so will have to fall back on the good old 'work on the robot in the Travelodge the night before' practice - haven't done that in ages!

So tomorrow, I've got to:

- Cut and fit the outer armour (layers of HDPE) and fit a piece of steel box section at the back to stop it getting beached there.
- Fit the bolt-on bearing to one side of the drum and make a spacer for the remaining gap.
- Take the angle grinder to the teeth to remove some sharp edges that could catch and rip the belt
- Cut a clearance hole for the LED and mount it (may just hot glue it)
- Fit the receiver switch (may just hot glue it)
- Make a carry cradle (might not hot glue that)
- Paint!

Might not sound too much, but it's several little jobs that may end up taking longer than planned. Add to that getting the car washed, printing off directions, packing tools and clothes, charging batteries, getting the tent and accessories ready etc and it's going to be a busy day. Oh well, full steam ahead!