Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

Apparently it has not dawned on many people that I already have a fairyweight. "Are you building a new P150?" they ask. No, I am not. Pookie is not for me; she is for Wazio. And as such, being finally completed last night, she is currently being shipped across the United States to Wazio's place in Nevada. So here we are, final reminisces of the bot's memory. May she kick lots of male bots in the nuts.













Farewell! Parting is such sweet sorrow...

Updates: for lack of better words.

Post Concert more, back to bot building and school packing. Yeah sure I have a month until college actually begins, but for me the terms are slightly different so I'll have to get ready by the end of July. Still, there are priorities to be had like finishing Pookie for Wazio.

Last report showed the basic frame plates cut and assembled with the motors and batteries placed. Well since then, I moved those around and I even wired up THE ENTIRE ROBOT!




That is how it looks right now (picture literally taken 2 seconds ago). Fully packed in, drive motors working, and with bottle cap wheels attached. It feels pretty robust and seeing it spin up, I feel like this is a quality competitor if driven correctly.





The electronics are extremely compact. I had to go thought many painstaking efforts to get everything configured the way I wanted them. I had to remove all the pins from the receiver and solder directly to the board. The PWM leads themselves were cut to about an inch long to reduce the amount of wiring running around. I even practiced board stacking where I soldered one board on top of another so save space.







You can see the "power poles" right here between the two boards.





All these modifications allowed the robot to stay really compact. (I need to take a sizing picture some day) All that is left to do is dremel the blade mounting screws off, and to make a new top cover.



Even Pacman got a makeover in time for Atlanta's Dragon Con Robot Battles event. I mounted the motor on top this time to simplify the belting system and added a self-righting hoop to keep the robot on one orientation. Don't worry, running inverted was never a good strategy so it was not like I lost anything. These new makeovers prompted a new color make over so I happily used a different color plastic and some silver to create the illustrations.



One last thin I might do is upgrade the battery for higher voltage and more capacity. After all, I do have 8oz unused.

I Have Never Been Acquanted with "Free Time"...

... does he live around here?

I guess not. The past few days have been royally hectic for me. Not to suggest anything bad because they were definitely fun. On Wednesday I went out to karaoke for my friends to sing many great classics and to discover "Drops of Jupiter" by Train was not on the song list. But there were lots of things that have happened and after the dismal last few posts, it is time to recapitulate.












The Offspring concert at Hard Rock Cafe was amazing! Eric, Tina, and I arrived at an early 4:50pm while the show was actually at 8. This gave us a great spot in line. We were about 5th? For a sold out show of some 2000+ people, that is amazing. And was was even more amazing were the seats we ended up with... can you say up front and center floor!? I had a great view of the stage and the performers when they came out. It was simply amazing.




I mean, keeping that spot was another story, as there was lots of pushing and shoving. But a little bit of shifting and "counter-measures" and I was able to retain my great spot all the way until the end of The Offspring's performance. Eric and Tina were not as lucky.



But The Offspring hold a dear spot in my heart because they were the first band I really heard. Deprived of CDs and other media, I was not able to get much. But a gift from my father's friend resulted in a collection of music, where I first heard The Offspring's Conspiracy of One CD. It was an honor to finally get to hear them live and almost catch that guitar pick he threw into the crowd.




Dexter Holland is a holy disciple of punk-rock. I am serious, that is how the picture came out.







There was also the odd coincidence of seeing the sound guy on stage who happened to look like my AP Chemistry teacher from Junior year. Did we just crack open another side of Mr. Reed?



I ended the night with my favorite whopper (the angry whopper) and the purchase of two Offspring shirts. One for me, one for my brother.






The second awesome thing was the arrival of parts. My order from China finally came in, and in it came the necessary parts to finally finish Wazio's fairyweight. I'll call it Pookie in spirit of his old fairyweight.

(uh, picture later)

Really, the only part in that box for him was the motor, but it was very important and is the major part I plan around in my fairyweights. Here is a status picture of how it sits. A .1" thick titanium blade about 1.5oz will be spun by that motor at about 11600rpms on a 7.4v Lithium Battery. Drive motors are speed hacked Airtronics servos and the base materials are all garolite composites. Tomorrow I will be wiring up the electronics (Banebots 3-9 escs and Phoenix 10 esc). In either case, I know it will be underweight (weighing only 5.05oz right now) so I can add wheel guards later on.

Other goodies (11.1v 1750mah Lipoly, 30amp Brushless esc, etc.) in the box are for my new beetleweight, Ice pack, when I get to mill the frame.