Post by panicattacky2k on Nov 4, 2005 20:50:12 GMT
Robot's name - [Your Robot is at risk if you don't keep up repayments on your] Mortgage vision-b
Shorten name - Mortgage
Robot Concept – Mix Tough as Nails, with Tornado, with a circle, with variable drive, then your half-way there.
Mass – 220 Lb
Weapons – The main weapon is a set of X-axis clamping jaws, modelled on the jaws of TAN to grip fast and push. The jaws edges are rounded off, so that spinners reflect off. In addition, the jaws can lift a robot slightly off the ground to reduce traction.
Can it self-right – It be invertible.
Velocity – a modest max velocity of about 20 mph.
Acceleration – Blink and it’s up to top speed from rest.
Turning Circle – It uses a simple skid-steer system on both drives
Ground clearance – Optional hinged wedge at the rear, giving zero, otherwise it’s a healthy 1.3 cm all around.
Skirts – Sides are skirt-less
Wheel Type – The rear wheels are solid go-kart wheels, and the front wheels are go-kart wheels filled with feathers.
Motors – 2 standard Bosch 750 motors, sitting at the rear of the machine.
Drive – (for one side only), the motor is connected to the rear wheel via cog gears. This gives rear wheel drive. A chain runs up the inside of the chassis connecting the front wheels to the rear wheels. There is gearing on the front wheels to counter-act the loss in the chain. The chain is connected using a clutch, giving temporary 4 wheel drive.
Body Shape – Think of a large circle, with a strong inner chassis, and front jaws which form part of the circle.
Armour – There is a titanium strip going all the way around the side, which is angled to reflect spinners. The side plates are aluminium, the top and base are 4mm titanium, the front jaws are Hardox, and the rear wedge is Hardox. The chassis is made from steel box-section.
Colour – Black.
Summary – a small crazy frog toy is fitted to the middle of the jaws for fun. Crazy frog where are you now?
Strengths – Outstanding acceleration, variable drive
Weaknesses – Drive system in terms of time is in the stone ages, large ground clearance, really an American style robot with British stats.
Chalkie 3G
Team Name – Shadow of the Solarized
Mass – 100 kg
Dimensions - Height - The chassis is 7 Cms high, the wheels make it 9 cm robot. Length - 80 Cms, width - 30 Cms
Wheels –
Big changes in this area, as I dumped the rubber wheels in a skip in favour of some lovely steel wheels, like Big Nipper, these are spiked and grooved to be able to turn and push. I managed to lose 200 grams from the wheels
Batteries – 4 packs of 36v 3600mAh NiCad (Thanks to Scott)
Motors - 4 "Astro-Flight Cobalt 60 Robot Planetary Motor" each running at 36 volts, air cooling makes sure these are kept cool, the fans are run from simple Lego motors. Motors have a diameter of ~ 5.3 cm.
Gearing - As well as the motor's gearing, we are using a simple 2.2:1 module gears to reduce the speed of the motor to a good level of acceleration.
Weapon –
Either:
1 large sword. Only powered now by one linear actuator, via a pivot (diagram on request), saving a good 6 kg in mass from the weapon area. The sword runs flat around the ground and the tip is 1mm above the surface of the arena. The sword can lift 202 kg, at the maximum; otherwise it starts to bend under the pressure. The sword is made out of high tension steel, so it can restand the pressure of a 150 kg robot being lifted 20 cm away from the pivot.
Or:
The secondary weapon is fitted only when fighting a robot with tensioned skirts. It is a simple 1kg unit which has 2 arms, one stays still and the other moves up and down, powered by a Lego motor. The fundamental idea is by getting the resonance frequency of the skirts, so that they have a larger aptitude in movement
Or:
7.5 kg spinning drum at 2500 rpm, powered by a 36 volt MagMotor. The blades on the drum are designed to flip, not cut.
Armour/Chassis –
A lovely titanium brick chassis, milled to custom design to allow the parts to fit inside perfectly, nothing can be shaken loose inside, because there is nowhere for it to go. On the corners of the chassis are steel bars to reinforce them from being the weak part. The sides of the chassis itself from the wheels is a good 20mm. The rear panel has 50mm Dyneema on it to stop the robot spinning around when it hits a spinner. The top and bottom panels fit perfectly within the chassis, and are held on by a series of bolts. The top and bottom are 5mm Hardox.
Colour – Painted Black with sliver stuff to make it look pretty.
Skirts –
Either:
The full skirts, which are something special to me. The sides and rear has two skirts, held down via gravity, but the lower skirts are hinged on the underside of Chalkie 3G and are 40cm wide, and the end is a 10 cm flat bit. So the angle is very low. The secondary skirts lie on top of this under skirt, and are hinged at 10 degree, at the top to rest onto the bottom skirt, which fits inside the lower skirt by a little cut, so the skirt in theory can only be broken by a sub-zero wedge. Also because the angle of the skirts are so shallow, there is nothing for a vertical disc to hit.
Or:
Half-skirts, the bottom skirts are removed to leave the top skirts to come down at a slightly sharper angle.
Or:
No skirts
Brakes - Researching with Lego, I have come up with a way to prevent being pushed around. The 4 wheels have changed to metal wheels, and now there is a Carbon-Ceramic brake disc to each wheel. The idea of this is to give better control with the added speed and an inverse effect is that Chalkie has turned into an anti-rammer. The old rubber wheels would have failed under the pressure, so the new lighter metal wheels are in place to give more traction/torque and to prevent ailing. The weight from the brake system is assumed to be 7.5 kg, because of all the small bolts + pipes etc.
Shape – Invertible box, slightly convex sides, and rear to stop landing onto sides/rear. Little wedge on the front like on Son of Wedgie
Velocity - Doing a quick calculation using the linear speed of the wheels give the top speed to be around 28 mph. This is assuming that the coefficient of friction of the arena floor is 1. The acceleration due to friction is pretty fast, compared to most vapourbots. It gets from 0 to 28 mph in a tad under 1.5 metres. The brakes stop it in 20 cm.
Suspension – To stop being damaged when hit by a spinner or rammer, there is rubber mounting around all the components.
Ground Clearance – 1cm all over without skirts and under front wedge. Dead Zero when full skirts are used
Turning Circle – Something really low, like 0.1 ìM. As this is a tiny displacement, we shall assume it’s zero.
Electrical Bits and bobs – Storm 2 style speed controllers, aerial is the chassis itself, a couple of gyros and an inbuilt CPU controls the main workings.
Summary – The 3rd generation of Chalkie has arrived, with new skirts, new chassis, and better steering, be scared, be very scared, of my beard.
Strength – Skirts, Weapon, Speed, Anti-spinner, anti-flipper, anti-anti-anti-spinner, and anti-wedge. The handling is prefect, could probably get underneath anything.
Weaknesses – Slightly harder to turn with full skirts in use, the drive system in terms of modern day vapourbots is gutless. Non-damaging weapons.
Quocunque Jeceris Stabit
A product of Team Solarized
Shape: Simple wedge, with side bumps and a curved rear.
Colour: Blue
Weapon: A Chaos 2 style flipper with rams etc, I don’t want to go into detail here, because it will make the stats long.
Armour: 5mm aluminium, with little titanium protection strips around the sides and a titanium strip, simpler to Firestorm 5 at the front.
Speed: Top speed is 25 mph, but I like it best at around 14 mph.
Weight: 96 kg
Ground Clearance: Close to zero at front, sides and rear the ground clearance is 2cm for better turning.
Motors: 2 Bosch 750’s at 24 volts.
Wheels: 2 wheels, designed to give grip on most arena surfaces.
Srimech: Flipper, at a lower pressure.
Strengths: Flipper will keep going whatever you throw at it
Weaknesses: A bit out-of-date with today’s standards.
Robot Name – Son of Wedgie
Mass – 100 kg ish
Armour/chassis – I have done a Dantomkia with this robot, replaced the chassis with a lighter but tougher monocoque with all the old stuff being kept inside. The main backbone is a ladder chassis with 5mm steel bars with 4mm titanium welded to the steel. There is still 18mm steel triangles giving strength in the corners. Around the wheel arches is toughen up with extra framework to prevent the armour being pushed back onto the wheels.
Weapon 1 – A backward hinged LP flipper running at 145 psi (10 bars) using an 80mm ram giving about 40 big flips per fight, then it will run on for a long time for self-righting reasons. There is a 3L buffer tank, so it can fire once or twice without the buffer being needed to be fast fed (it will work faster!). These buffer tanks are right at the front of the wedge to stop the front lifting when moving. The flipper is hinged right at the top of the wedge to self-right the robot. At the front of the wedge, the flipper plate widens and runs along the ground, this piece is 2mm steel and is pointed at the front, and it is designed to get underneath full bodied spinners and skirts. However this may get damaged during the fight. The flipper is made from 18mm steel bar, reinforced with triangles, and covered in a 4mm sheet of Aluminium on the top only. The steel is welded together and the cover is bolted onto the steel frame. The hinges are underneath the flipper and to stop pesky axes, the protection is a lump of 5mm steel covering the heavy duty hinge. The ram is covered by a secured net which rises with the flipper. This net can be removed if the rules state that it’s illegal. There is a flipper extension plate, now shorten than the original, but still is a good 7 CM away from the robot. This is designed to flip 200 kg without bending. I will choice if I should use the plate.
Weapon two – A 3mm Hardox front scoop, this has 2 purposes, to hold the front down and to protect the buffer tanks from axes and spinners.
Weapon Three – Skirts and a secondary front wedge. The skirts aren’t fancy with torsion springs, just plain basic removable skirts at an angle of 12.3 degree from the x-axis, and the ends are brushed to lie flat against the floor. The secondary wedge is to prevent over-flip.
Shape - Low Wedge, rounded back to self-right the robot. Rollover bars on the sides to stop it landing on its side. The flipper itself has a backwards wedge on it to prevent robots running straight up and over the wedge.
Wheel type – 2-wheel drive, using C40-500 MagMotor, on 36 volts with a 17.8:1 double stage, gearing system, the wheels are 200mm and made out of Volcalone rubber, giving grip. There is a small ball bearing at the front, which makes the front move.
Batteries – The robot is run by 5 packs of 3000mAh NiCD's @ 36 volts. This gives 16 Amps to get though the full 7 minutes of a fight.
Ground Clearance- At front zero, its 1 cm at the rear, and 6mm at the sides without skirts, pretty much zero with the skirts.
Turning Circle – Because of the ground clearance at the back, and the 2 wheel drive chassis this robot can turn on the spot. This could be a weapon against pushers, once spinning the front will lift because of the gyroscopic forces and it will become a full bodied spinner.
Speed – Top speed is 28 mph, fast enough to beat most pushers and slow enough to be controllable, because it’s normally driven at less than half this speed in a fight with 1 g acceleration.
Colour – See Picture.
Added Controls – A couple of gyros, expensive speed controllers, high-tech radio control blah blah blah, you get the idea.
Summary – Son of the Wedgie, out to kill house robots near you. I have done a Dantomkia, new chassis, same old inners, why replace what works?
Strengths – Excellent control, acceleration, that flipper, top speed if needed, Low Angled skirts, making this beast very hard to get underneath.
Weaknesses – The flipper isn’t in the ranks of Stratos (Why need overkill, when a simple flip over the fence will do), the drive system power isn’t in the same league as Storm 2 (once under, why do you need 10000 horsepower to push against a robot with less traction) The armour isn’t anti-spinner (Meh, attack first, attack second, defence third), Might not perform that well in enclosed arenas (Flipper + Shorter fights + Might get it somewhere it can’t self-right).
Calm Down Dear (It's Only a Robot)
Shape - A Logitech cordless mouse shape with Judge Shread style flipper
Weapon - Judge Shread style co2 flipper, acts as srimech with added bars to make sure it will self-right. Bars form part of chassis.
Drive - 6 wheel drive, on two axles. The front axle has two wheels, the rear axle has double wheels. Powered by a couple of lovely Lems at 36 volts. Tornado style Speed controllers and electrical stuff to provide current of 200 amps
Batteries - Nicads.
Speed - Built for acceleration this machine, with a 24 mph top speed, with acceleration to match Storm 2.
Armour - 4mm Hardox shell, held tight by a titanium framework chassis, with added steel ladder supports. Around the wheels are more support to prevent armour hitting wheels.
Skirts - Simple low angled skirts to prevent other robots getting underneath. Angled at 12 degree to the x-axis.
Ride Height - At front, with the front plough scoop, we can assume it's low, say 0. The sides without skirts is 2 cm to prevent grounding out. The front wedge can be lifted up using a linear actuator for some reason, I ain't though about yet.
Summary - It's a mouse shaped robot, with flipper, designed to be like storm 2, if it was mouse shaped and had a flipper.
Strengths - Go Faster shape, speed, flipper.
Weaknesses - Likes Cheese, armour isn't up with the best.
HHISTWT
Heavyweight
Shape - Low dome, spinning bar, crown top
Weapon - Simple spinning bar, angled downwards at the ends to hit those <8 cm robots, but the tips at their lowest point is 6 cm, the bar spins about 1300 rpm, and is geared to be torquy. The power source is an IC engine from a Flymo Lawnmower, giving 4.5 horsepower with high torque and bullet proof construction. I will give more details on the IC engine if needed. The only change to it, is the removable of the petrol tank to a more suitable location, and oil seals so it can run upside down if needed, and replacing the pull-start is an electric-start I nicked from a larger lawnmower. Direct drive with heavy-duty clutch to drop power if needed. The engine is sitting above the bar (like Amp)
Armour - It has a steel inner-ladder chassis framework, where everything inside the main dome is bolted/welded to. There are some lead-weights to counter-act the weight at the top to create a low centre of mass. The underside is 3mm steel. The dome is ABS plastic formed, with 3mm ABS plastic, with added wood ash into the mix before it set, creating a strongish shell, but not that strong. The bar itself weighs 22kg, with a 3 kg counter-balance in the centre to create a virtually uniform bar. The crown on top is designed to stop axes and crushers, and is lots of thin titanium strips layer on top of each other to make it very hard to break though. the advantage of this is the self-righter as well.
Ground Clearance - The bar's lowest point is 5cm, so all around the robot is a 4 degree skirt, adding like a wedge. The skirt is removable for a standard 15 degree skirt, for those annoying machines. Under the main body is a good 9mm ground clearance.
Drive System - The robot is small and compact, because under that ABS shell, lies the drive system from Chalkie 3G, pushed together some more to create 8 wheel drive from 4 motors. This system gives a good speed and acceleration, but thanks to the small wheels, crap torque. Everything is cooled using a PC style cooling system.
Self-righter - The crown gives a roll-over shape and stops the robot from landing on it's side. If the robot lands right onto it's top, the crown crushes under the force after 5 seconds, and it rolls onto it's side, where it should come back onto it's wheels.
Velocity, Acceleration - 20 mph top speed, gets their within 2 metres.
Tyres - Sticky solid rubber tyres and steel wheels. Can run without rubber. There is one motor for two wheels, which are linked like a car's brake system, so if one motor goes it still has equal number of wheels moving on one side.
Weight - Don't Ask me about weight, I have no idea on what it will weigh.
Summary - Nothing New, Old-school technology, torque spinning bar. Based loosly on the American Amp in terms of it's overall design. The Flymo lawnmower I stole the motor from never failed, and the engine restanded stone hit after stone hit. It runs at a higher power to turn the heavier bar. It's simple bread and butter.
Advantages - Torque from engine giving enough torque to the bar to keep spinning no-matter what it hits. Low centre of mass thanks to blocks of lead.
Disadvantages - Where should I start? - The horsepower from the engine is low, the drive system has low torque to push back, but high traction due to the grippy tyres. The body shell and crown are strong, but not that strong.
The Circle Revisited
Mass – 98 Kg Ish
Weapons – 150 psi THZ style axe. Enough said
Can it self-right – Axe
Velocity – 21 mph
Acceleration – Gets to speed within a metre
Turning Circle – Sod off
Ground clearance – Under body – 5mm, under bars – 1cm, under wedge – Not enough to worry your little head off dearly
Skirts - Nah
Wheel Type – 4 wheels
Motors – Lem 130’s like storm 2
Body Shape – It’s a circle, but around the outside is a fully-floating hoop which is held onto the chassis by a series of well oiled bearings, so that the hoop spins when hit by anything. Perfect for an anti-spinner. The hoop can be replaced with a front and rear wedge to make the robot a dangerous axe machine.
Armour – The hoop has a 1cm steel bar twisted into a hoop and strengthen by a bike style wheel. Around the bar itself is 2cm of hard rubber. The main chassis is a mixture of titanium, steel, and aluminium. The top and bottom being 4mm titanium to stop axes and crushers, the chassis is 5mm steel box section and the sides of the chassis is aluminium.
Colour – Pink with Yellow Spots
Summary – Circle of Life + THZ + Tornado + Storm 2 = Circle Revisited
Strengths – Horizontal Spinners, That Axe
Weaknesses – Ground Clearance, Stupidest.
Team Name: Team WIDTCI (Whatever I Decide To Call It)
City/Town/Suburb Representing: Hampshire
Seggy 4.25
Mass – The chassis itself with no weapons fitted weighs in at 77 kg (give or take 0.5 kg). The heaviest weapon setup tips the scales at 100 kg.
The main weapon is interchangeable, the options are:
Weapon 1a – An invertible flipping arm(think of Big Nipper), this arm is designed to work both ways around and is not designed to lift above 30 degree in either direction, as the stroke of the double ended custom piston is only 30 Cms, but with Co2, at 750 psi on the twin pistons should send a robot into the air.
Weapon 1b – A vertical drum weapon, the drum weighs 12.1 kg, and is tri belt driven using a simple ratio from a MagMotor at 36 volts. The speed is a nice 2000 rpm; the teeth are designed to flip upwards, used mainly against skirted machines.
Weapon 1c – A horizontal spinning bar, weighing 10 kg, the motor is the same motor from the drum, but connected to the bar using 4 chains on a shaft. Runs about 2000 rpm. Used mainly against machines with exposed frame and weapons.
Weapon 1d – This weapon is a four tooth blade, running at 2000 rpm, the good thing of this blade is that it can be adjusted heights, so one fight it could be at ground level for wheels and the next fight if fixed it can be at the right height to hit something else. The system for spin is the same setup as the bar.
Weapon 1e – The Spike of Coffee, basically it’s a 750 psi powered ram, powering a spike though a hole to pierce the other robot, then we fire a little servo to loosen the grippers and pull backwards, the spike has little wings in which to keep hold of the other robot.
Weapon 1f – Passive Active wedge. 23 kg of steel, which means it’s a good spinner stopper. Also it can have electro-springs pinning the wedge down further, so that the front wheels lift off the ground. The active part is a little flail which is designed to damage wheels. There is a tip on the top of the wedge to stop robots driving up and over the top and to make it invertible-ish.
Weapon 1g – This is an ‘active’ anti spinner scoop. It is designed to flex backwards with the forces from the spinner. The twin shocks are designed to be adjusted to allow for mega energy levels, at its maximum tightness the scoop can re-stand a massive 1 MJ of kinetic energy. The normal running tightness can re-stand 100 kJ; because of the smooth, oiled piston in which the main spring is stored it creates a virtually zero friction levels. Then the fun can begin, as the energy is released in what Andy said, one massive amount, pushing the spinner anti-clockwise, which in some cases will destroy the shaft. This bias to the left can be changed to the right. The centre pole is held within an oiled shaft which makes damage zero. To protect the back of the scoop and the front of the robot, there is a piece of 1cm rubber either side of the shock zone. For protection, there are torsion spring loaded side panels, which protect the inners of the scoop and flex outwards when the scoop is loaded.
Weapon 1h – The Pie tossing weapon. This is a full 750 psi flipper, with a Wedge Devolution style front plate. Baby, Seggy has a proper flipper to toss those annoying robots over the fence.
Weapons (b, c, d, e and f) have a little front wedge fitted, this is to prevent robots from getting underneath, and can be removed.
Weapon 2 – 4 rear spikes, each one weighing 150 grams and are fixed. These give protection from ramming and spinners at the rear end.
Can it self-right – It’ is semi-invertible, so that only the rear two wheels are open to attack. Even if the rear wheels taken to pieces, the front two wheels are enough to move. Side rollover cages and rear spikes prevent landing on side or rear.
Velocity – I lost to speed in the past, this time I have increased the speed to take on the speedy robots that are around today. The maximum speed is 30 mph HOWEVER, the normal speed used in fights is 18 mph, which gives the best control and punch, twinned with the gearing, the acceleration is high.
Wheels – Depending on arena surface, a set of 1 piece titanium wheels with added Big Nipper style groves or two piece titanium hub rubbers outside, grip baby.
Turning Circle – The 4 wheels use a skid-steer method. This gives a turning circle of zero mm; however the true turning circle is something like 1mm.
Ground clearance – The ground clearance all over the machine is 20mm, this giving aid to turning, the front has an optioned wedge, which is fixed with some weapons without a scoop (drum, spinners). The skirts reduce the ground clearance to zero
Skirts – This version; I have finally got some skirts to fit against flippers and wedges. These are normal skirts, which when inverted fold back on themselves, when the electromagnet is released. The skirts hold down with a force about 2000 Newton's, meaning that I don’t normally like them, because of the added resistance.
Wheel Type – 2 LEM 130’s at 36 volts, though a double chain reduction gearbox, giving overall 17.5:1 reduction. The chains themselves are protected by axes and crushers by the use of a steel protection bar.
With the front wheels being smaller than the rear wheels, the gearing is different to counter-act the forces, so that both sets run at the same speed. The average gearing is 17.5:1.
Body Shape: Semi-invertible box (i.e. 4 wheels on the bottom, 2 wheels on the top) with rear spikes and side roll-over bars.
Chassis – The main chassis is 6.3mm steel bars with it being enforced with 19mm steel triangles giving a very tough little robot. It is a Chalkie 2 style chassis with only the top and bottom being allowed to be removed to stop those pesky spinners. The sides have added steel plates around, which are doubled around the wheels, so there is no chance that the chassis can jam against the wheels.
There is a 5cm layer of rubber around the inside of the chassis to absorb energy, so this version of Seggy is larger than PCC. The first weapon will fit within a large cut-out in the robot. The top and bottom plates are 5mm titanium.
Colour: - It is a shade of yellow, with metallic threads within the paint, sprayed on to give it about 2mm of paint. When the scoops are fitted, the cut-out is covered with 5mm of titanium.
Batteries – The robot is run by 4 packs of 3000mAh NiCad’s @ 36 volts. This gives 12 Amps to get though the full 5 minutes of a fight. There is a simple recharging battery to recharge the batteries throughout the fight to keep it going.
Summary – The 5th version. The 4th version did me well, but it had some problems, now, I have a proper flipper, faster and tougher front wheel gearing to cope with the different sizes, ladies and gentlemen please, meet Seggy 4.2, now with added rubber. Carlsberg don’t make robots, but if they did they would be the best robots in the world.
Strengths – Interchangeable weapons to suit everybody, speed, control, power
Weaknesses – Some might say it’s a jack of all trades, master of none.
Shorten name - Mortgage
Robot Concept – Mix Tough as Nails, with Tornado, with a circle, with variable drive, then your half-way there.
Mass – 220 Lb
Weapons – The main weapon is a set of X-axis clamping jaws, modelled on the jaws of TAN to grip fast and push. The jaws edges are rounded off, so that spinners reflect off. In addition, the jaws can lift a robot slightly off the ground to reduce traction.
Can it self-right – It be invertible.
Velocity – a modest max velocity of about 20 mph.
Acceleration – Blink and it’s up to top speed from rest.
Turning Circle – It uses a simple skid-steer system on both drives
Ground clearance – Optional hinged wedge at the rear, giving zero, otherwise it’s a healthy 1.3 cm all around.
Skirts – Sides are skirt-less
Wheel Type – The rear wheels are solid go-kart wheels, and the front wheels are go-kart wheels filled with feathers.
Motors – 2 standard Bosch 750 motors, sitting at the rear of the machine.
Drive – (for one side only), the motor is connected to the rear wheel via cog gears. This gives rear wheel drive. A chain runs up the inside of the chassis connecting the front wheels to the rear wheels. There is gearing on the front wheels to counter-act the loss in the chain. The chain is connected using a clutch, giving temporary 4 wheel drive.
Body Shape – Think of a large circle, with a strong inner chassis, and front jaws which form part of the circle.
Armour – There is a titanium strip going all the way around the side, which is angled to reflect spinners. The side plates are aluminium, the top and base are 4mm titanium, the front jaws are Hardox, and the rear wedge is Hardox. The chassis is made from steel box-section.
Colour – Black.
Summary – a small crazy frog toy is fitted to the middle of the jaws for fun. Crazy frog where are you now?
Strengths – Outstanding acceleration, variable drive
Weaknesses – Drive system in terms of time is in the stone ages, large ground clearance, really an American style robot with British stats.
Chalkie 3G
Team Name – Shadow of the Solarized
Mass – 100 kg
Dimensions - Height - The chassis is 7 Cms high, the wheels make it 9 cm robot. Length - 80 Cms, width - 30 Cms
Wheels –
Big changes in this area, as I dumped the rubber wheels in a skip in favour of some lovely steel wheels, like Big Nipper, these are spiked and grooved to be able to turn and push. I managed to lose 200 grams from the wheels
Batteries – 4 packs of 36v 3600mAh NiCad (Thanks to Scott)
Motors - 4 "Astro-Flight Cobalt 60 Robot Planetary Motor" each running at 36 volts, air cooling makes sure these are kept cool, the fans are run from simple Lego motors. Motors have a diameter of ~ 5.3 cm.
Gearing - As well as the motor's gearing, we are using a simple 2.2:1 module gears to reduce the speed of the motor to a good level of acceleration.
Weapon –
Either:
1 large sword. Only powered now by one linear actuator, via a pivot (diagram on request), saving a good 6 kg in mass from the weapon area. The sword runs flat around the ground and the tip is 1mm above the surface of the arena. The sword can lift 202 kg, at the maximum; otherwise it starts to bend under the pressure. The sword is made out of high tension steel, so it can restand the pressure of a 150 kg robot being lifted 20 cm away from the pivot.
Or:
The secondary weapon is fitted only when fighting a robot with tensioned skirts. It is a simple 1kg unit which has 2 arms, one stays still and the other moves up and down, powered by a Lego motor. The fundamental idea is by getting the resonance frequency of the skirts, so that they have a larger aptitude in movement
Or:
7.5 kg spinning drum at 2500 rpm, powered by a 36 volt MagMotor. The blades on the drum are designed to flip, not cut.
Armour/Chassis –
A lovely titanium brick chassis, milled to custom design to allow the parts to fit inside perfectly, nothing can be shaken loose inside, because there is nowhere for it to go. On the corners of the chassis are steel bars to reinforce them from being the weak part. The sides of the chassis itself from the wheels is a good 20mm. The rear panel has 50mm Dyneema on it to stop the robot spinning around when it hits a spinner. The top and bottom panels fit perfectly within the chassis, and are held on by a series of bolts. The top and bottom are 5mm Hardox.
Colour – Painted Black with sliver stuff to make it look pretty.
Skirts –
Either:
The full skirts, which are something special to me. The sides and rear has two skirts, held down via gravity, but the lower skirts are hinged on the underside of Chalkie 3G and are 40cm wide, and the end is a 10 cm flat bit. So the angle is very low. The secondary skirts lie on top of this under skirt, and are hinged at 10 degree, at the top to rest onto the bottom skirt, which fits inside the lower skirt by a little cut, so the skirt in theory can only be broken by a sub-zero wedge. Also because the angle of the skirts are so shallow, there is nothing for a vertical disc to hit.
Or:
Half-skirts, the bottom skirts are removed to leave the top skirts to come down at a slightly sharper angle.
Or:
No skirts
Brakes - Researching with Lego, I have come up with a way to prevent being pushed around. The 4 wheels have changed to metal wheels, and now there is a Carbon-Ceramic brake disc to each wheel. The idea of this is to give better control with the added speed and an inverse effect is that Chalkie has turned into an anti-rammer. The old rubber wheels would have failed under the pressure, so the new lighter metal wheels are in place to give more traction/torque and to prevent ailing. The weight from the brake system is assumed to be 7.5 kg, because of all the small bolts + pipes etc.
Shape – Invertible box, slightly convex sides, and rear to stop landing onto sides/rear. Little wedge on the front like on Son of Wedgie
Velocity - Doing a quick calculation using the linear speed of the wheels give the top speed to be around 28 mph. This is assuming that the coefficient of friction of the arena floor is 1. The acceleration due to friction is pretty fast, compared to most vapourbots. It gets from 0 to 28 mph in a tad under 1.5 metres. The brakes stop it in 20 cm.
Suspension – To stop being damaged when hit by a spinner or rammer, there is rubber mounting around all the components.
Ground Clearance – 1cm all over without skirts and under front wedge. Dead Zero when full skirts are used
Turning Circle – Something really low, like 0.1 ìM. As this is a tiny displacement, we shall assume it’s zero.
Electrical Bits and bobs – Storm 2 style speed controllers, aerial is the chassis itself, a couple of gyros and an inbuilt CPU controls the main workings.
Summary – The 3rd generation of Chalkie has arrived, with new skirts, new chassis, and better steering, be scared, be very scared, of my beard.
Strength – Skirts, Weapon, Speed, Anti-spinner, anti-flipper, anti-anti-anti-spinner, and anti-wedge. The handling is prefect, could probably get underneath anything.
Weaknesses – Slightly harder to turn with full skirts in use, the drive system in terms of modern day vapourbots is gutless. Non-damaging weapons.
Quocunque Jeceris Stabit
A product of Team Solarized
Shape: Simple wedge, with side bumps and a curved rear.
Colour: Blue
Weapon: A Chaos 2 style flipper with rams etc, I don’t want to go into detail here, because it will make the stats long.
Armour: 5mm aluminium, with little titanium protection strips around the sides and a titanium strip, simpler to Firestorm 5 at the front.
Speed: Top speed is 25 mph, but I like it best at around 14 mph.
Weight: 96 kg
Ground Clearance: Close to zero at front, sides and rear the ground clearance is 2cm for better turning.
Motors: 2 Bosch 750’s at 24 volts.
Wheels: 2 wheels, designed to give grip on most arena surfaces.
Srimech: Flipper, at a lower pressure.
Strengths: Flipper will keep going whatever you throw at it
Weaknesses: A bit out-of-date with today’s standards.
Robot Name – Son of Wedgie
Mass – 100 kg ish
Armour/chassis – I have done a Dantomkia with this robot, replaced the chassis with a lighter but tougher monocoque with all the old stuff being kept inside. The main backbone is a ladder chassis with 5mm steel bars with 4mm titanium welded to the steel. There is still 18mm steel triangles giving strength in the corners. Around the wheel arches is toughen up with extra framework to prevent the armour being pushed back onto the wheels.
Weapon 1 – A backward hinged LP flipper running at 145 psi (10 bars) using an 80mm ram giving about 40 big flips per fight, then it will run on for a long time for self-righting reasons. There is a 3L buffer tank, so it can fire once or twice without the buffer being needed to be fast fed (it will work faster!). These buffer tanks are right at the front of the wedge to stop the front lifting when moving. The flipper is hinged right at the top of the wedge to self-right the robot. At the front of the wedge, the flipper plate widens and runs along the ground, this piece is 2mm steel and is pointed at the front, and it is designed to get underneath full bodied spinners and skirts. However this may get damaged during the fight. The flipper is made from 18mm steel bar, reinforced with triangles, and covered in a 4mm sheet of Aluminium on the top only. The steel is welded together and the cover is bolted onto the steel frame. The hinges are underneath the flipper and to stop pesky axes, the protection is a lump of 5mm steel covering the heavy duty hinge. The ram is covered by a secured net which rises with the flipper. This net can be removed if the rules state that it’s illegal. There is a flipper extension plate, now shorten than the original, but still is a good 7 CM away from the robot. This is designed to flip 200 kg without bending. I will choice if I should use the plate.
Weapon two – A 3mm Hardox front scoop, this has 2 purposes, to hold the front down and to protect the buffer tanks from axes and spinners.
Weapon Three – Skirts and a secondary front wedge. The skirts aren’t fancy with torsion springs, just plain basic removable skirts at an angle of 12.3 degree from the x-axis, and the ends are brushed to lie flat against the floor. The secondary wedge is to prevent over-flip.
Shape - Low Wedge, rounded back to self-right the robot. Rollover bars on the sides to stop it landing on its side. The flipper itself has a backwards wedge on it to prevent robots running straight up and over the wedge.
Wheel type – 2-wheel drive, using C40-500 MagMotor, on 36 volts with a 17.8:1 double stage, gearing system, the wheels are 200mm and made out of Volcalone rubber, giving grip. There is a small ball bearing at the front, which makes the front move.
Batteries – The robot is run by 5 packs of 3000mAh NiCD's @ 36 volts. This gives 16 Amps to get though the full 7 minutes of a fight.
Ground Clearance- At front zero, its 1 cm at the rear, and 6mm at the sides without skirts, pretty much zero with the skirts.
Turning Circle – Because of the ground clearance at the back, and the 2 wheel drive chassis this robot can turn on the spot. This could be a weapon against pushers, once spinning the front will lift because of the gyroscopic forces and it will become a full bodied spinner.
Speed – Top speed is 28 mph, fast enough to beat most pushers and slow enough to be controllable, because it’s normally driven at less than half this speed in a fight with 1 g acceleration.
Colour – See Picture.
Added Controls – A couple of gyros, expensive speed controllers, high-tech radio control blah blah blah, you get the idea.
Summary – Son of the Wedgie, out to kill house robots near you. I have done a Dantomkia, new chassis, same old inners, why replace what works?
Strengths – Excellent control, acceleration, that flipper, top speed if needed, Low Angled skirts, making this beast very hard to get underneath.
Weaknesses – The flipper isn’t in the ranks of Stratos (Why need overkill, when a simple flip over the fence will do), the drive system power isn’t in the same league as Storm 2 (once under, why do you need 10000 horsepower to push against a robot with less traction) The armour isn’t anti-spinner (Meh, attack first, attack second, defence third), Might not perform that well in enclosed arenas (Flipper + Shorter fights + Might get it somewhere it can’t self-right).
Calm Down Dear (It's Only a Robot)
Shape - A Logitech cordless mouse shape with Judge Shread style flipper
Weapon - Judge Shread style co2 flipper, acts as srimech with added bars to make sure it will self-right. Bars form part of chassis.
Drive - 6 wheel drive, on two axles. The front axle has two wheels, the rear axle has double wheels. Powered by a couple of lovely Lems at 36 volts. Tornado style Speed controllers and electrical stuff to provide current of 200 amps
Batteries - Nicads.
Speed - Built for acceleration this machine, with a 24 mph top speed, with acceleration to match Storm 2.
Armour - 4mm Hardox shell, held tight by a titanium framework chassis, with added steel ladder supports. Around the wheels are more support to prevent armour hitting wheels.
Skirts - Simple low angled skirts to prevent other robots getting underneath. Angled at 12 degree to the x-axis.
Ride Height - At front, with the front plough scoop, we can assume it's low, say 0. The sides without skirts is 2 cm to prevent grounding out. The front wedge can be lifted up using a linear actuator for some reason, I ain't though about yet.
Summary - It's a mouse shaped robot, with flipper, designed to be like storm 2, if it was mouse shaped and had a flipper.
Strengths - Go Faster shape, speed, flipper.
Weaknesses - Likes Cheese, armour isn't up with the best.
HHISTWT
Heavyweight
Shape - Low dome, spinning bar, crown top
Weapon - Simple spinning bar, angled downwards at the ends to hit those <8 cm robots, but the tips at their lowest point is 6 cm, the bar spins about 1300 rpm, and is geared to be torquy. The power source is an IC engine from a Flymo Lawnmower, giving 4.5 horsepower with high torque and bullet proof construction. I will give more details on the IC engine if needed. The only change to it, is the removable of the petrol tank to a more suitable location, and oil seals so it can run upside down if needed, and replacing the pull-start is an electric-start I nicked from a larger lawnmower. Direct drive with heavy-duty clutch to drop power if needed. The engine is sitting above the bar (like Amp)
Armour - It has a steel inner-ladder chassis framework, where everything inside the main dome is bolted/welded to. There are some lead-weights to counter-act the weight at the top to create a low centre of mass. The underside is 3mm steel. The dome is ABS plastic formed, with 3mm ABS plastic, with added wood ash into the mix before it set, creating a strongish shell, but not that strong. The bar itself weighs 22kg, with a 3 kg counter-balance in the centre to create a virtually uniform bar. The crown on top is designed to stop axes and crushers, and is lots of thin titanium strips layer on top of each other to make it very hard to break though. the advantage of this is the self-righter as well.
Ground Clearance - The bar's lowest point is 5cm, so all around the robot is a 4 degree skirt, adding like a wedge. The skirt is removable for a standard 15 degree skirt, for those annoying machines. Under the main body is a good 9mm ground clearance.
Drive System - The robot is small and compact, because under that ABS shell, lies the drive system from Chalkie 3G, pushed together some more to create 8 wheel drive from 4 motors. This system gives a good speed and acceleration, but thanks to the small wheels, crap torque. Everything is cooled using a PC style cooling system.
Self-righter - The crown gives a roll-over shape and stops the robot from landing on it's side. If the robot lands right onto it's top, the crown crushes under the force after 5 seconds, and it rolls onto it's side, where it should come back onto it's wheels.
Velocity, Acceleration - 20 mph top speed, gets their within 2 metres.
Tyres - Sticky solid rubber tyres and steel wheels. Can run without rubber. There is one motor for two wheels, which are linked like a car's brake system, so if one motor goes it still has equal number of wheels moving on one side.
Weight - Don't Ask me about weight, I have no idea on what it will weigh.
Summary - Nothing New, Old-school technology, torque spinning bar. Based loosly on the American Amp in terms of it's overall design. The Flymo lawnmower I stole the motor from never failed, and the engine restanded stone hit after stone hit. It runs at a higher power to turn the heavier bar. It's simple bread and butter.
Advantages - Torque from engine giving enough torque to the bar to keep spinning no-matter what it hits. Low centre of mass thanks to blocks of lead.
Disadvantages - Where should I start? - The horsepower from the engine is low, the drive system has low torque to push back, but high traction due to the grippy tyres. The body shell and crown are strong, but not that strong.
The Circle Revisited
Mass – 98 Kg Ish
Weapons – 150 psi THZ style axe. Enough said
Can it self-right – Axe
Velocity – 21 mph
Acceleration – Gets to speed within a metre
Turning Circle – Sod off
Ground clearance – Under body – 5mm, under bars – 1cm, under wedge – Not enough to worry your little head off dearly
Skirts - Nah
Wheel Type – 4 wheels
Motors – Lem 130’s like storm 2
Body Shape – It’s a circle, but around the outside is a fully-floating hoop which is held onto the chassis by a series of well oiled bearings, so that the hoop spins when hit by anything. Perfect for an anti-spinner. The hoop can be replaced with a front and rear wedge to make the robot a dangerous axe machine.
Armour – The hoop has a 1cm steel bar twisted into a hoop and strengthen by a bike style wheel. Around the bar itself is 2cm of hard rubber. The main chassis is a mixture of titanium, steel, and aluminium. The top and bottom being 4mm titanium to stop axes and crushers, the chassis is 5mm steel box section and the sides of the chassis is aluminium.
Colour – Pink with Yellow Spots
Summary – Circle of Life + THZ + Tornado + Storm 2 = Circle Revisited
Strengths – Horizontal Spinners, That Axe
Weaknesses – Ground Clearance, Stupidest.
Team Name: Team WIDTCI (Whatever I Decide To Call It)
City/Town/Suburb Representing: Hampshire
Seggy 4.25
Mass – The chassis itself with no weapons fitted weighs in at 77 kg (give or take 0.5 kg). The heaviest weapon setup tips the scales at 100 kg.
The main weapon is interchangeable, the options are:
Weapon 1a – An invertible flipping arm(think of Big Nipper), this arm is designed to work both ways around and is not designed to lift above 30 degree in either direction, as the stroke of the double ended custom piston is only 30 Cms, but with Co2, at 750 psi on the twin pistons should send a robot into the air.
Weapon 1b – A vertical drum weapon, the drum weighs 12.1 kg, and is tri belt driven using a simple ratio from a MagMotor at 36 volts. The speed is a nice 2000 rpm; the teeth are designed to flip upwards, used mainly against skirted machines.
Weapon 1c – A horizontal spinning bar, weighing 10 kg, the motor is the same motor from the drum, but connected to the bar using 4 chains on a shaft. Runs about 2000 rpm. Used mainly against machines with exposed frame and weapons.
Weapon 1d – This weapon is a four tooth blade, running at 2000 rpm, the good thing of this blade is that it can be adjusted heights, so one fight it could be at ground level for wheels and the next fight if fixed it can be at the right height to hit something else. The system for spin is the same setup as the bar.
Weapon 1e – The Spike of Coffee, basically it’s a 750 psi powered ram, powering a spike though a hole to pierce the other robot, then we fire a little servo to loosen the grippers and pull backwards, the spike has little wings in which to keep hold of the other robot.
Weapon 1f – Passive Active wedge. 23 kg of steel, which means it’s a good spinner stopper. Also it can have electro-springs pinning the wedge down further, so that the front wheels lift off the ground. The active part is a little flail which is designed to damage wheels. There is a tip on the top of the wedge to stop robots driving up and over the top and to make it invertible-ish.
Weapon 1g – This is an ‘active’ anti spinner scoop. It is designed to flex backwards with the forces from the spinner. The twin shocks are designed to be adjusted to allow for mega energy levels, at its maximum tightness the scoop can re-stand a massive 1 MJ of kinetic energy. The normal running tightness can re-stand 100 kJ; because of the smooth, oiled piston in which the main spring is stored it creates a virtually zero friction levels. Then the fun can begin, as the energy is released in what Andy said, one massive amount, pushing the spinner anti-clockwise, which in some cases will destroy the shaft. This bias to the left can be changed to the right. The centre pole is held within an oiled shaft which makes damage zero. To protect the back of the scoop and the front of the robot, there is a piece of 1cm rubber either side of the shock zone. For protection, there are torsion spring loaded side panels, which protect the inners of the scoop and flex outwards when the scoop is loaded.
Weapon 1h – The Pie tossing weapon. This is a full 750 psi flipper, with a Wedge Devolution style front plate. Baby, Seggy has a proper flipper to toss those annoying robots over the fence.
Weapons (b, c, d, e and f) have a little front wedge fitted, this is to prevent robots from getting underneath, and can be removed.
Weapon 2 – 4 rear spikes, each one weighing 150 grams and are fixed. These give protection from ramming and spinners at the rear end.
Can it self-right – It’ is semi-invertible, so that only the rear two wheels are open to attack. Even if the rear wheels taken to pieces, the front two wheels are enough to move. Side rollover cages and rear spikes prevent landing on side or rear.
Velocity – I lost to speed in the past, this time I have increased the speed to take on the speedy robots that are around today. The maximum speed is 30 mph HOWEVER, the normal speed used in fights is 18 mph, which gives the best control and punch, twinned with the gearing, the acceleration is high.
Wheels – Depending on arena surface, a set of 1 piece titanium wheels with added Big Nipper style groves or two piece titanium hub rubbers outside, grip baby.
Turning Circle – The 4 wheels use a skid-steer method. This gives a turning circle of zero mm; however the true turning circle is something like 1mm.
Ground clearance – The ground clearance all over the machine is 20mm, this giving aid to turning, the front has an optioned wedge, which is fixed with some weapons without a scoop (drum, spinners). The skirts reduce the ground clearance to zero
Skirts – This version; I have finally got some skirts to fit against flippers and wedges. These are normal skirts, which when inverted fold back on themselves, when the electromagnet is released. The skirts hold down with a force about 2000 Newton's, meaning that I don’t normally like them, because of the added resistance.
Wheel Type – 2 LEM 130’s at 36 volts, though a double chain reduction gearbox, giving overall 17.5:1 reduction. The chains themselves are protected by axes and crushers by the use of a steel protection bar.
With the front wheels being smaller than the rear wheels, the gearing is different to counter-act the forces, so that both sets run at the same speed. The average gearing is 17.5:1.
Body Shape: Semi-invertible box (i.e. 4 wheels on the bottom, 2 wheels on the top) with rear spikes and side roll-over bars.
Chassis – The main chassis is 6.3mm steel bars with it being enforced with 19mm steel triangles giving a very tough little robot. It is a Chalkie 2 style chassis with only the top and bottom being allowed to be removed to stop those pesky spinners. The sides have added steel plates around, which are doubled around the wheels, so there is no chance that the chassis can jam against the wheels.
There is a 5cm layer of rubber around the inside of the chassis to absorb energy, so this version of Seggy is larger than PCC. The first weapon will fit within a large cut-out in the robot. The top and bottom plates are 5mm titanium.
Colour: - It is a shade of yellow, with metallic threads within the paint, sprayed on to give it about 2mm of paint. When the scoops are fitted, the cut-out is covered with 5mm of titanium.
Batteries – The robot is run by 4 packs of 3000mAh NiCad’s @ 36 volts. This gives 12 Amps to get though the full 5 minutes of a fight. There is a simple recharging battery to recharge the batteries throughout the fight to keep it going.
Summary – The 5th version. The 4th version did me well, but it had some problems, now, I have a proper flipper, faster and tougher front wheel gearing to cope with the different sizes, ladies and gentlemen please, meet Seggy 4.2, now with added rubber. Carlsberg don’t make robots, but if they did they would be the best robots in the world.
Strengths – Interchangeable weapons to suit everybody, speed, control, power
Weaknesses – Some might say it’s a jack of all trades, master of none.