Robot Wars
The aim of the project
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To work with a group to design and build a feather weight robot ( total weight ranging from 1 kg to 13.6 kg) from scratch.
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The robot must be capable of fighting with other robots in the Robot War under certain requirements.
Robot Design Consideration
At the begining stage, the group agreed that our robot should have 2 big wheels at the back and it should be able to run again if the robot is flipped over. There are 3 designs that need to be considered:
a) Design 1 (Weapons: Steel Spikes, Wedge)
The design 1 is the wedge-shaped robot with spikes on the top which can cut into opponents’ exposed tyres. It is run just by the 2 wheels from the back and those are big enough to make the robot runs again if it is flipped over. Based on simple design, it is expected a light robot which can run really fast and it can use its wedge to rush towards its opponents in the hope that they would run up it and flip over. However, as it only has 2 wheels from the back, it can be difficult to move around as it will drag the pointed- front along the ground.
Figure 1 : Design 1
b) Design 2: (Weapons: Bludgeoning Axe)
The ideal of the design 2 was inspired by the robot named “Stinger” as the design is quite simple to build and we were impressed by the way the spike can swing around to push other opponents away. I redraw my ideal robot by using Solidwork. I changed a little bit in the design to make it easy to manufacture and try to make it as simple as possible. Also, the spike can use to flip the other robot or quickly turn the other away. It has no body (only the spike being drag on the ground), the design 2 is expected to be the lighter robot and run faster than the design 1 robot. However, it means it can be pushed away easily and cause no damaged if it has to fight with a much heavier robot.
Figure 3: Design 2
c) Design 3 (Weapons: Battering Ram, Wedge)
Inspired by the siege engine in the ancient times, this design is created with the battering ram at the front to push other opponents away. Also, it has 4 small wheels at the back and 2 big wheels attached with the motor at the front which made the robot be able to move around in control even if it is flipped over. The group tend to choose this design 3 as it is quite rigid and it can use it own weight to push others.
Figure 4: Design 3
Figure 5: Behemoth Robot
(Source: Hells Plumber, 2008)
Building the robot
a) The chassis
The box section bars were used for the frame of the robot because they were easy to weld and strong enough to absorb the impact by the other robots. The Mild Steel bars that were used were cut to size by using a lathe. The assembly of the frame was based on welding between the bars.
The Mild steel sheets were used for the cover for the robot and they were chosen because of their ability to protect from heat and other weapons. Therefore it protects the batteries and the motor safe. In addition, the material is light and that would keep the limit of 13.6kg. The sheets were cut to size by using the guillotine. Some of the armor was attached to the frame by drilling holes in the frame and some of the armor was attached by welding it on for further power.
Some of the major problems that were faced in the manufacturing of the robot was that the welds on the robot were interfering with the attachment of the armor because of human error on the welds. That was fixed by filing the excessive welds.
Figure 6: The chasis of the robot
b) The standard/ fixed wheel
In order to have two standard wheels, the group decided to buy online. The wheels used for the robot were 200 mm aluminium rubber wheel with a lot of traction. The thickness of the wheel is around 35mm. Each wheel weighted 1.2kg which gave as the perfect centre of gravity so our robot could not be easily flipped or pushed away.
Figure 2: The Stinger in Robot Wars.
Figure 7: The back wheels which the grouped bought online
c) The orientable wheel
One of the members in the group suggested to choose the orientable wheels from the skateboard. There is junk yard next to his house and he could find these wheels easily. This could reduce the price to build the robot. We also wanted to put another one on the top of the robot in case the robot is flipped over.
Figure 8: The robot with the attached wheels.
After choosing the design 3, we discussed again and we found out that it is hard to make the robot like in the design 3 as it looks like (cause the difficulty to make the wedge shape). The group decided to construct the simple robot frame like the following Behemoth robot.
Figure 9: Servo Controller diagram
Figure 11: The robot in the building process
Figure 10: How the motors and the battery attached to the robot
d) Servo Controller
Figure 12: The final design of our robot
Contribution
In the group, my main contribution for the group was to design and build the body frame of the robot.
Final Design Robot
January, 2014- March, 2014
The Robot Wars
Video: Our robot in the Robot Wars
