Team Troubles Robot Projects

[calumco]

im currently building 2 new robots for the tag team champs in sept. 1 of which ill use in the main comp and the other whiteboards. so i thought i might aswell make a team thread type thing.

at the minute im seriously peed off, i've just letterally typed this whole thing out and my computers messed up and the page closed. so i lost everything i wrote so here it goes again.............................

one of the 2 robots im making has a pnuematic flipper called troublesome and the other has a spinning drum and is called trouble starter (i like the word trouble:P)

trouble starter was a robot originally designed before christmas, and was going to look like barberious 2 from the robotwars days, but since i started to seriously think about making a spinner around a month ago and asking gary aswell as jamie a serious amount of spinner related questions it as apparant this wasn't a great way to go. the main reasons being the drum would have to be HDPE plastic, 250mm dia, and around 400m in length and seeing as the pipe could only be brought in 6 meter lenghts at £219 and seeing as the drum would have to be replaced fairly often with it only being made from plastic i as put off with the design. so with that i started to jot down designs for the new version. after settling on 2 designs, i then scraped those and settled on a final 3rd design. which i started making the drum for today which is 20cm wide and at the minute weights 1.764g and is made out of 4 and a half inch steel pipe with 3.6mm walls WHICH KILLS YOUR ARM WHEN HACK SAWING IT. link to a picture below. the back of the robot is up to where the red spirit level sits.

the drum and the weapon motor in the pic are sat ontop of my other robots chassis base as they have similar shapes and sizes to their designs, both will have 2 drill motors for drive.

http://teamtrouble.sports.officelive.co ... arter.aspx

and her is a link to a pic of my other robot Troublesome (which should similar to the grim reaper from series 7), with all the parts layed out on the top. this robot has been in the same way for over a month now, because i hadn't made a flipper before so didn't realise the cost of certain parts so i had to wait for the money to become avalible to me. i will soon get a move on with this robot also.

http://teamtrouble.sports.officelive.co ... esome.aspx

ill post some more pics up on here when both robots look a bit more interesting in the comming weeks.

i also nearly finished my drag racer today its not very good but i really want to concentrate my efforts on the robots but it should do the job.

[calumco]

materials arrived today, 10mm ali for the drum supporting bulkheads and 15mm hdpe for other areas, i've taken a picture i drew of my final robot design aswell the picture isn't massivly accurate but the robot will be roughly 40cm wide and around 40cm in length- as i go along i will build it as compact as possible so hopefully those dimensions will be smaller. i've also got some 5mm titanium which ill hopefully have mounted at the back of the robot for rear armour.

the robot will be invertible with a bottom base of 3mm ali and most likley a 3mm ali lid aswell or if not a 5mm HDPE lid and the robot will have 160mm dia wheels with a chassis height of 150mm.

on the drum will be 2 big teeth, and the drum when finished will weigh around 3kg

i've tried my best to make it not look like drumroll aswell

[calumco]

today, armed with my cardboard mock up of the wheels im yet to be getting, i started making my feather spinner. the chassis height ended up being 130mm at the back end, and at the front end where the drum has to clear the floor, its 160mm.

at the minute i've had a bit of a re-design, if you look at my drawing i did, where the wheels are covered by the robots chassis- well for now im going to have the wheels exposed- which will save a serious amount of weight in the long run.- then when the robots finished ill see if i've got the weight to get some sort of simipler covering over each wheel.

im still waiting for my ali to arrive so theres no base plate yet but its nicely starting to take shape and im really pleased with how small the whole robot is- with out the drum on the length is 340mm and the width is 280mm without the wheels.

the speed 900 is mounted in a 15mm thick hdpe bulk head and each drill motor will be mounted onto the ali bulkheads which support each side of the drum.

[attachment=0:3b77klwf]DSC02520.JPG[/attachment:3b77klwf]

[attachment=1:3b77klwf]DSC02521.JPG[/attachment:3b77klwf]

[attachment=2:3b77klwf]DSC02519.JPG[/attachment:3b77klwf]

[RogueTwoRobots]

Nice chunky looking teeth dude

Will be keen to see how they fare at the tag champs, as I might go for something simple like that on a shorter drum I'm gonna make if they get a good bite

[Mouldy]

Your robots look really good mate, im impressed. That new flipper robot reminds me of turbulence same shape base plate and internal layout- but smaller lol. Nice one.

[calumco]

spent today doing more to trouble starter, i can't believe how solid it is and the chassis isn't finished yet, with all the force im capable of- i can't pull the drum supporting bulkheads apart:O

heres a pic

[attachment=0:gi3sw5ha]DSC02526.JPG[/attachment:gi3sw5ha]

i've decided to go with my original wheel protection design, and ill finish the rest of the robot off before i start messing with the wheel protection incase i don't have the weight to- if i don't have the spare weight ill just cut the ali base plate back to the 10mm ali bulkhead and have exposed wheels.

in the above pic it weights 4.6kg, not too bad considering the drum motors in there along with the majority of the chassis and that its got no weight saving shapes in certain areas yet- and theres the space to have quite a few. aswell as that the bulk head that supports the wepon motor will be alot smaller once i start getting the insides in there- i've just made it massive at the minute so that i didn't end up making to too small to begin with.

also i've got major plans to make it horizontal disk proof:P in the front drum area particularly which as far as i think- will work, sadly this most likley wont include the wheels

[geeza]

Glad to see that kind of bulkhead design. I have used it effectively in DB5, over 180 fights and counting still in one piece. Only thing Ive had to to is retap some of the threads. As long as your armour works to hold the plates solid you will have no problems. I always say there are two ways to armour a robot to absorb the impacts or just make it solid enough so stuff bounces off, obviously this method means shock mounting everything inside.

[RogueTwoRobots]

Not had as many as 180 fights, but the bulkhead method's worked great for me too. I need to replace one of the ones in Drumroll but that was due to me cutting material out to save weight and compromising the structural integrity of the Nylon, causing it to crack upon a large drum impact. Threads are still holding well, even though the bolts have been undone and tightened up countless times.

Can be a pain with lots of drilling and tapping, but does make for a very solid chassis.

Looking good Calum. Wouldn't say it looks like Drumroll too much, its getting its own personality

[calumco]

lol yh the drilling and taping is very annoying and yh hopefully the ali bulk heads will do the job

i've discovered for some reason the chassis is slightly twisted so at the front end 1 of the ali bulk heads is raised from the floor by 5mm and the other one touches the floor, i've taken it all apart and put it back together again and its still doing it:@, so i think ill just fill the gap between the floor and the bulk head with some 3mm ali and washers to make 5mm, or build the rest of the robot and before i mount the drum shaft i could sit lots of house bricks on it- to say that this is the first time i've made a robot in this way- i've made an alright job of it so far i think, and when it gets wrecked i'll improve on it

i've been doing alot of thinking- and i still can't decide whether im going to have wheel protetion yet, if not i might tape a tenner to each wheel to stop people hitting them.- without all the extra chassis around the wheels i could make the rest of the robot heavily armoured thou.

has anyone ever had a unprotected drill motor wheel ripped off????

[RogueTwoRobots]

has anyone ever had a unprotected drill motor wheel ripped off????

I think the best example to give is Hornet 2, that's been through six full combat events with exposed drill motors/blue wheels and hasn't lost a wheel yet. Kaizer's sides got ripped off at the UK champs in March which left the four wheels exposed and Savage Evo gave them a bit of a beating but none of them came off.

Is it blue wheels you'd be using? Or homemade/different ones? Alternative ones would depend how solid the mounting is and how resistant it is to impacts.

But just remember, you'll have a nice big spinny thing on the front of your robot. Gary's always saying that everyone who concentrates on trying to take his wheels off seem to forget about the Mag-powered disc on the front. Keep that pointing at your opponent and you'll be fine. Plus you won't be fighting a horizontal spinner in every fight so exposed wheels won't be under threat all the time