Jonny, Jack and Harry's featherweight clusterbot

**jonny** · 16th April 2011, 16:27

hi this is the build diary for our clusterbot.

**harry hills** · 16th April 2011, 16:35

ok then, this afternoon i started work on my shed and have fineshed laying the foundations, the actual shed should come monday.
i also cut the top pannel for my robot, making it 10mm thick hdpe all round with an aluminum scoop, i may add a wepon soon as i have a couple of drill motors lying around. almost had a test drive but i only have one wheel. some 100mm blue wheels will be ordered soon, (hint hint jonny) may buy some red leds to give it evil eyes :twisted: i am actualy quite shocked that nothing blew up the first time i wired it all up. it all seems to fail safe too(it does however make a bloody racket when it looses signal, the speed controlers screach and bleep but the robot stays still) does that still count as fail safing?

**jonny** · 16th April 2011, 16:39

if robochallenge don't get back to me i'll send them another email after champs. been to homebase and bettahomes today and bought a load of screws and a countersink so i'll start work soon

**gizz** · 16th April 2011, 22:44

A quick answer, must the clusterbot stay connected to eachother in some way before the battle start or can you just throw a couple of robots in there counting as one as long as they are within the size limit?
If i recall corecctly the clsuter Gemini in some way was attached?

**team_orr** · 17th April 2011, 00:51

i think thats up to the E.O's, however i would think we could just connect them together with gaffa tape?

Gemeni was under the robot wars rules remember, so each event will be different, i seem to remember there was a typhoon cluster at some point and they used some velcro or something...

seeing as this is official now (long title XD) i may as well start my end of the build diary, no pictures to be uploaded yet, but i can give you the basic lowdown.

The other day i went into homebase and got loads of fixings, screws, etc. i also got my hands on some tinsnips which are great seeing as my last pair was taped to TMG at maidstone and got crushed by Major Damage

(thanks again Tom...) seeing as its a Three way cluster i suppose we have about 4kg or so each (allowing for variation) so the challenge will be getting it so lightweight yet effective. i decided to base it on the same principals as TMG, small, lightweight, compact, rugged. easier said than done, but i drew up some basic CAD (cupcake aided design) drawings and im now looking at building something similar in shape to the origional Monolith built by Remote Control Dave and Marco Roberts, i doubt it will have a weapon (perhaps some type of thwackbot style arm) but it should fly pretty well! i dug out some 120mm blue wheels from my collection and some Drill motors from the old TMG, which is looking slightly worse for wear after its last encounter with major damage (Tracks, then hammer, then claw, then hammer again, then arena flipper, then OOTA...funfunfun!) and some ESC's out of Ministrom (which needs some TLC but should be done with a weekends work) im now on the isle of wights rebuilding Antweights and things so cant really do alot until i get back, so nothing more from me until after easter!

Gizz: i seem to recall the size limit for featherweights was something like 2 meters so i think we are in the clear there
Jack

**harry hills** · 17th April 2011, 08:10

the typhoon twins were joined by thin wire i think.

if youve seen my excuse for a feather i have some black eyes on the front of it, mabye more evilness is needed?

also a name!
hopefully this will be more sucsessful than bed and breakfast, just dont make yours the same weight as your heavy!

**jonny** · 17th April 2011, 21:43

work happended today, lots of it. here's a picture of how my part of the clusterbot looks:

it is made from 10mm hdpe and 2.5mm aluminium. current weight: 2.6kg inc motors which gives me 1.9kg approx for a lid, esc(s), battery and all the other bits and bobs