To Bot or not to Bot...

... that is the question.

Today is Tuesday and this Saturday is the Gulf Coast Robotic Sports competition hosted by the Hobby Marketplace. I am still trying to decide if I will compete or not. I love to fight robots, but somewhere between losing $30 (in entry fees) and my parents wanting to take me to my driver's test, it makes me second guess. Either way, I am still preparing the robots for Dragon Con in August.

First up, is my Antweight, DDT. At BARF, he did a good amount of damage, but after 5-6 competitions hte parts are wearing down. The motor mounting blocks actually fractured and broke completely on one side; into 5 pieces to be exact. I could not let this happen again.



Here are the UHMW motor mounts I created. Same overall dimensions, but the different material should make it more shock resistant. And yet, I didn't use them.




Here is what I actually did. I bought some standoffs to hold hte top armor, and then simply glued hte motors down like in some realier robots. It looks cheesy, but has actually been the best method in my opinion. No motors broken, and never has a motor come lose. It is just a pain to fix if a gear explodes.



Pacman got a weapon system change. When I got my wisdom teeth removed, I swung by the surplus store and bought some tighter O-rings so the weapon couldnt spin up faster. A lack of friction was costing Pacman some good seconds. But the O-rings were too tight. They transfered all the friction and the darn Wattage Cobalt actually sucked all of the current from the batteries. Ugg, I need another solution.

Easy solution. I changed the ratio of hte belts. The old setup was somewhere around 3:1. Decent, but for more torque, I made the blade pulley larger. Now it has something around a 7:1 ratio. This will mean lower top speed, but really, I never even GOT to top speed at BARF. Recent tests show that this configuration is a solid idea anyway.

Last, is P150. I have never introduced P150 here before, but simply it is hte smallest robot of the fleet. A 1/3 scale of DDT in a sense, definately one of hte most dangerous Fariweights in the nation.

It is in pieces... See the pretty pile of parts? Last GCRS, I foolishly put it in the Antweight rumble, where it made lots of pretty sparks, but it smashed both of its drive motors and its weapon motors. I already fixed one drive motor, but the bearing retainers on the weapon and the casing on the second drive motor are poo.




More updates to come later. And oh, the videos from the last event are uploaded on my Youtube. Cheers!

BARF in the Bay Area

Bay Area Robot Fights (BARF) was today as you may remember from a previous post. In a field of 21 fellow robots, here is how my two bots did:











DDT: 3 wins - 2 losses
The crowd pleaser that never fails to please... okay I will take that back. The first match against "Babe the Blue Bot" was less than ideal because my belt for the weapon derailed like so many times past (I thought I had that fixed!). But the other 4 matches, the bot never failed to bring a smile to the crowd, bouncing off walls and making sparks and parts fly off opponents. "Cause for Concern" was one such opponent who had his 1/2" lexan frame cracked and his bolts sheered. This bouncing was the demise however when a prime hit on "Verbal Irony 4" sent DDT flying into the pit. It was only a matter of time before it happened anyway.





Pacman: 5 wins - 2 losses
We ran round robin for the beetleweights since there were no as many. Surprisingly, this robot had actually captured the crowd's heart although not being a very good spinner (belt problems, hot motors, slipping blades). The crowd, on hearing Pacman's name announced, would chant "Wakka wakka wakka!" because that's the sound Pacman makes, ha ha. I was even surprised to see that people wanted pictures of me and the robot. I will never forget this one young woman (I'm guessing early 20's) came up to me in the pits after a match and excitedly asked for a picture with me and the robot. I said yes because it would make her happy and because I was honored to know someone wanted a picture with me (plus she was, in my opinion, decently attractive XD).


But anyway! Pacman went through opponents by total win or total loss. He ate through some good aluminum pieces of opponents, a few sparks, relatively stable robot. But some really good pushers put him in the pit. Okay, one of those losses probably should not have happened, but it did. When fighting "Push it to the Limit", an impact shook off one of my wheels. But the same impact left him high centered. We freed him but i couldn't move because the loss of one wheel made the robot sit at an odd position so Pacman got pit'd shortly after. Oh well, we had fun anyway.


Overall it was a heck of a fun event. I always feel a bit strange walking into Anime conventions because the people are way too nice and energetic (and costume-y). But I really enjoy this crowd to be honest. They are overly enthusiastic which makes me feel better about the entertainment that I help provide. They really appreciate it unlike some other events.

Now I know I am not too big an anime nut, but I did see some nice costumes that I did not take pictures of. Fran from Final Fantasy (with her bow), a ton of Naruto characters ranging from Naruto himself to Sakura to Atasuki, Wong Tao Yen from Portal, and many more. I really liked the guy who dressed as the Scout from Team Fortress 2. Bonk! XD

Videos to come! I still haven't uploaded them yet. Check my Youtube page for more! And additional pictures here!

Pacman

Wakka wakka wakka...

Coming to an event... tomorrow?

More pictures on my photobucket and when my mom's camera finishes charging.

Also...




Frickin' awesome!

Excuse Me, is that YOUR Bot?

Up until now, I've been having people think that the giant timing pulley robot was my entry for the Beetleweight class this BARF. Well, surprise! I'm taking off the covers, the bot is nothing like expected!

Welcome to the new version of Late Night Leftovers (I might change the name to Shark Attack)!



It sports a 9" edger blade, weighing about 9 oz (I think). Total RPMs should come out around 8000-9000 which should really put a punch on the tips!




Other upgrades include more robust drive motors from my old robot "Ron". Essentially, it is Ron. All the parts came from that robot, but it is just packaged differently. Either way, it should prove pretty interesting and I'm curious to see what it can do to others, say a cake pan ;)

But you ask, what happened to the vertical disk version? I'll tell you, it practically broke it self. When the gigantic disk hit something, it made impacts tangent to the axis at a low angle. So basically, it pushed horizontally against the direction of forward motion. The friction coefficient of the tires are fairly high. So if froward forces are high, but reverse forces are also high and on the same plane, where does the force go? Into the drive motors, because it's the weakest part. Yeah, the 50:1 copals decided to burst: rather just the bushings. Either way, once they blow, I can't fix them easily. Redesign.

Here's to a good but short lived bot.












You were interesting and adorable. Farewell.

One more day till BARF. Better keep building.