Hopmeister - Antweights

Hoppin · 15 May 2023 16:43

I’ve always thought the best design ethos for antweights is “Serious antweights are cringe”. To me, antwieght robots have always been about sliding one aspect to the extreme. With that being said I made some over-engineered, not serious ones for SCAR 4.

F3
If you went to Robonerd, you saw the last version of F3, this version had a few changes in order to fix it, includes new frame (bulkier), new (bigger) lipo, new forks (Yes, they’re unnecessary ) & the weapon got pushed forward by 5mm, felt like as the larger vertical spinner I really wanted to maximise that insane reach advantage it has.

Just some photos I could find around.

TPU frame now, 2 pods which are connected to the Carbon Fibre brace, didn’t have any issues with it the whole event. (Thanks Rob & Filo for making these bits <3)

End boss who? These were really overkill, but I had them done since V1 all the way back last year, felt time to put them on.

Assembled frame & electronics. Nearly raring to go.

Landmine
Main topic of this post. New build, new silly. Just something that exploded after one hit. A real big “Highlight reel” robot, even if it was for the opponent. So I do my usual, message Rob Weston.

Chit chats with the GOAT

In conclusion, evolve the Gordon.

Landmine required a good amount of “tactical weight saving” took the dremel to it a bunch to make weight, but overall nothing that really changed the core concept of the robot. I don’t have many of the build process images, but hopefully it can show in the following.

Some CAD design for it, don’t think it was particular hard to get right, atleast when I was doing it.

Carbon Fibre frame, top of the picture, along with various Filo & Rob made bits for other Ant & Beetleweight things.

Electrically, here’s how it works, 3S lipo in, 3S voltage goes to brushless ESC & BEC, BEC goes to malenki. Later swapped the link out for just a regular switch.

Much of the rear carbon fibre get dremelled, tail also, changed some screws, wiring, some mounting holes went. But there’s both robots, ready for the event.

Embu_Rob · 15 May 2023 17:01

Nice man, those are some amazingly wild bots - we love to see it! Keep up the good work

Milo · 17 May 2023 09:19

Seriously GOATED with the sauce, keep up the crazy builds

Hoppin · 8 October 2023 21:36

How much is too much?

Landmine 2 is fastly approaching and I’d like to take this opportunity to document it’s current progress.

For those unaware, the robot is a 200mm, 4S, Walking undercutter, having recently caused quite the stir up from the tip speed, with a theoretical 984mph tip speed. Very epic (Will discuss at the end on this specifically)

So design wise, the big change was the shuffling pods. I haven’t really tackled non-roller style movement, but have been pretty eager to try.

Voltage was a pretty deciding factor into electrical setup & subsequent design of the walker, not wanting to do the same micro BEC step down setup used in Landmine 1, decided that a full brushless system was the move, plus it’d be able to get some pretty high RPM.

Premise wise, it’s rather simple. 1404 motor runs a spur gear to another gear on a 2:1 ratio. Which turns the subsequent CAMs inside the bearings and then the legs. The motor itself is recessed into the printed mount. Which then has heat inserts on top to allow for the frame to screw into. I was pretty worried about the lack of smoothness with the walking mechanism whilst this thing is spinning, so I’m hoping the bearings provide a nice smooth transition between legs.

Frame wise. It’s largely the same principle. Big CF thing, with shit ziptied/taped to it. It worked surprisingly well last time. But decided to up the thickness to 3mm, rather than the previous 1.5mm

The motor on the previous Landmine was a 2204, 2300KV Gartt. Normally a pretty fucking beefcake motor for antweights, but on this robot, it was struggling a bit on the spin up. Upgraded to an StanFPV 2604 2410KV motor, which I’m hoping, along with the additional voltage, has enough torque to get this weapon going

Weapon Motor comparison

So here’s some basic PLA prototyping on the CAM mechanism, just to make sure it moved. Seemed to work pretty well. These then got printed by Jake and his fancy Bambu to make some Nylon CF legs, CAMs, Gears & Housings. (Big thanks boss)

Here’s an assembly pod.

via GIPHY

Got some walking video just before Robonerd

Here’s the frame! Cut on my 3020 router. First time with CF and I’m rather happy with the results.

Even cased him up some lil feetsies!

His current form. Right now all that needs happening is wiring, along with a final walking test just to check it all over. Overall I’m super happy with the progress and really look forward to showing it done

Here’s a 16mm brushless motor for another antweight project. Should be epic.

On a serious note. This robot is very much pushing it on a technicality. I’m fully aware of that. I’ve spoken with EOs of events I’ve attended recently about the legality of this robot and am fully acceptant of their final decision (It’s their arena afterall!). I think we’re very quickly approaching an epoch on Antweights in which the tools available to us allow for the pushing on boundaries the Antweight rules just haven’t been updated to account for. Very much open to hearing opinions about the current state of Antweight rules (More AWS, Antfreeze rather than BBB & Dojo).

Joe · 11 October 2023 14:59

Amazing. Lovely machining. loving both the shuffle mech and particularly the 16mm brushless (been working on a similar project as the latter but I always struggle with motivation for ants!)

I think we’ll have to see if tipspeed may have to make it to antweight after this bot - if you have a test box, I’d love to see it hit a 4mm wall and see if you can get some breaching.

hhills · 12 October 2023 06:17

Not casting too much shade as I’m well aware I’m in the minority but I think the cube rule did have the happy side effect of nerfing tip speed issues before they could come to be.

But that’s excellent work all round from a design standpoint. Was the 3mm Cf purely from a stiffness perspective? Wondering if a 1mm sheet frame with stiffening rods bonded along the skeleton cloud prove lighter and stiffer still (although stickier and more time consuming)

Hoppin · 12 October 2023 07:52

Thanks Joe, probably my proudest moment from a design perspective! However, I think the mechanism gets carried a lot by being such a high voltage. 16mm brushless were done with this guide, they’re also gonna go on some shuffling mechanisms. Think they’ll also have some super cool lifting/crushing applications however!

Honestly, there should be, don’t know if it needs to be 250? I know there’s talks about a 500-600 ish soft cap (kinda NHRL vibe). But I think with stuff like the Malenki HV & sourcing some appropriate LiPos. It’s rather easy to do this. I’ll hit some polycarb in the box once it’s all assembled, just needs some of the steel kickplates and the latch and I can do that, super curious myself to see how that goes. Dojo folks did some maths and theoretically it’s got the energy to do that.

Hoppin · 12 October 2023 07:59

Agreed, that its one of the advantages the cube rule has, but I do think it’s a rare positive for the cube.

Thank you Harry! Surprising amount of work went into this walking shitpost so I’m very glad it goes noticed! As far as rigidity goes, I was exploring 1mm titanium, but it’s also just more expensive! The last robot used 1.5mm CF and it held up quite well, even with some sliiiiiiight flex in the last fight, which may or may not have obliterated it’s own drive motor… So I’m hoping 3mm is enough to keep it rigid.

hhills · 12 October 2023 14:05

Matched thickness CF is going to be way stiffer than titanium while also being lighter and a just a tad sexier too.

3mm should be pretty mega in an ant. Can’t wait to see some video!

Hoppin · 1 November 2023 23:42

Here’s some progress on the 16mm gearboxes. Always had the intention of using them for something overspecced, and this is it. V1, my 4S, full brushless, walking hammersaw. So, if you saw my first post over on Facebook, this concept was around for a bit. But I wasn’t a big fan of the execution, so decided to give it a rejig to make it generally look less fat, and a bit more streamlined.

Originally, it was just a 2S lipo, with an N10 driving the arm. Really didn’t like the mounting in it, was just a bit shit.

Things I did like, drive and it’s mounting, weapon itself (Though would need to drop the motor size down!).

Here’s the earliest work on the rework, Kingmax servo for the arm, orange TPU cheeks (Same colour as Greg) & fork mounts. Looks a lot more purposeful. Motors were now a 1404 brushless motor, 4S lipo in, 1104 weapon motor (Would be upped to 1303.5)

Here’s the motor after last post, it’s now has a 1404, with shaft still to be cut down & a different gearbox which will have about 2000rpm at the output shaft. I asked the guy from Finland about what RPM he ran in his saw bot, and it’s about the same. These got some green loctite between the shaft and the motor, and are looking great!

The classic Psuedo robot to see what it looks like with the parts from Lasered Component. It’s got like 8 forks & 6 discs, so not shy of spares!

The servo for the fella, Kingmax C507. Love this thing, so small. 11g rn with wires.

Here’s some legs. Can’t lie, I wish they got printed in black, but it’ll do. PLA-ST, they’re gonna get casted this week, have printed molds, etc. Looking to try it with 30A.

Here’s it in current state, with all the bits I have now (missing ESCs, Rx, Panels) it’s about 157g, so I think it’s super doable , panel materials should arrive this week for machining, thus I can wire and finish it in time

Hoppin · 28 January 2026 09:28

It’s been a long time since I’ve touched this forum post and have missed a lot.

Quick updates for the above. Motors died womp womp.
Landmine also did 1 event at SCAR 9, but thats dead and it’s banned from everywhere else.
F3 is dead.
Terry is also dead.

And I’ve built 3 other ants recent which I actually quite enjoyed. You may have seen them on facebook. But one ant in particular is a nightmare to run whilst doing all my EO duties, so I’m building something to replace it.

A while ago I clocked the robot Antix, super cool undercutter. Really appealing to have the whole drive assembly on these steel drive plates, including the forks.

Here’s a sequence of CAD images to show the development. Starts off with a giant 4S lipo which I use in Jennifer, 3mm hardox side rails. This got pretty unholy on the weight/size side. The goal with the iterations was to shorten the depth of the robot

Drops down to a 2 x 2S Series setup, which the goal was to make the robot shorter from a depth perspective. Smaller chassis, less weight, etc, etc. But tip speed prevents 4S, so now it’s a custom 3S pack using GNB 300mAh 1S 60C LiHV cells…. fun.

The drive pods are now 1mm Titanium. I have a bunch of this stuff lying around, and titaniums springy properties feels pretty suitable for this application. Maybe I have to go to 2mm Ti, but I’ll have to see how it goes.

Weapon is a 2mm hardox bar with the gimmick of this being a sharpened blade edge. The majority of Antweights have TPU front sections. Which this seems to be a cool solution to, or getting stuck in the wall/floor.

Chassis construction is pretty easy; TPU frame, with 2mm CF for the weapon mount, 1mm base and some 0.5mm dust covers as lids.

That’s where I’m at currently, I need to look at mainly the forks. I’m not super happy with how they are visually, I’m considering some 2mm Hardox forks for it. But I want to keep the sprung feature, possibly with o rings.

Also need to consider some visual features on the frame.

Hoppin · 27 June 2026 21:12

Updates since last, been a bit busy with TWLB & the ever slow march that is Aero 2. But MITE Ants VI is approaching and along with the trophies I’ve been working in my entries.

The first part of Starlight’s construction was the battery, without this, the whole project fails. So had a crack at it.

Quite frankly, was a bit of a terrifying experience knowing one wrong wire could result in a smokey end… to the battery atleast. But with some diagrams and slow approach, it was complete, was able to get 2 made for the machine.

Then the robot got a prototype, with the goal of making design changes if needed, then swapping out to real parts. Currently in this iteration there was major issues. 1. The forks still sucked and looked ugly & 2. The drive rails could pivot due to the only holding force being the screws into the TPU. So some changes had to be made.

Bit later on with a CF weapon support and forks.

CAD photo showing the keying feature I added to the drive rails and chassis. Goal is to stop the drive rails pivoting upwards, resulting in the weapon scraping the floor.

Here’s those changes on a new chassis with the weapon attached. Slowly adding on the CF parts as needed. Still not a big fan of those forks.

Eventually I changed from 1mm Titanium to 2mm Carbon Fibre. Couple reasons for this, main concern was there not being enough surface area to hold the drive bolts in without them tilting, the other was the Titanium I got cut with Garfie was a touch out of tolerance.

Cut with some other parts at home, first time using a 1.4mm end mill for this. Had the size available for ages, so finally got it’s use.

Countersunk in for face mounting. Super sleek.

Here’s the robot with some attempt at rear wheels, the batch they came from sucked and these were the best of them. Good enough for a test fit.

Jennifer, my 4S 4WD vertical spinner is the current defending champion of MITE, and whilst I was happy with the run it had, there were many changes that needed addressing.

Bite. The weapon disc previously, wasn’t particularly optimal. The combination of years old design and inexperience, with a weapon that spins at a ridiculously high 62k theoretical RPM means the robot doesnt really get big bite without being at 40-50% throttle.

So designed a different weapon with more space for tooth impact. Removal of the teeth on the counterweight side to hopefully help with this. Also slightly lighter at 18.5g vs 23.1g

Weapon tolerance was a big issue at the last event, getting to a point where the weapon was sliding with the robot turning at the end of the event and throughout the event, was able to hit it’s own wires, killing the weapon. Simple change of tighter tolerance and press on. Easy.

Wire routing, just another simple change of removing some of the wire slack and adding a hole for the weapons to go through.

Other minor changes include the swap to 1500RPM motors & another config for the hammersaws attending MITE VI.

Final photo with Jennifer & Starlight, looking fresh.

MITE VI’s 3rd entrant is still getting cooked up, but taking inspiration from Joe’s Fling Prawn in taking a big brushless motor & bolting an arm to it.

Here’s the initial sketch for the idea, on top of a robot built by Killoy RC’s Josh. But the idea is to take a rotolink mount to the roof of the robot.

There’s some design goals with it I wanted to keep along the journey of this ant and they’re the following.

3S. Joe’s a fucking chud, because he used 2S on Fling Prawn. A real drilla like me, is using 3S, because more flip. In addition to being directly mounted. Maximum efficiency.

PEBA, Morgan had given me the remains of a roll because he’s a chud and couldn’t print it. So decided to take a crack at it and implement it into this robot. With the goal of using it for a future cluster bot with the lad.

So heres the 1st rough draft of the design, PEBA chassis & plow. With some TPU guards & hardox forks to boot.

Here’s it all printed and assembled so far. The gearbox ring has gone to morgan to be squared off, with the rest of it being wired up. Still need to machine all the CF parts, but that’s sooned to come.

The PEBA printed ok, chassis was fine, but was having a bit of problems with the scoop on the really shallow angles, having it be a tad lumpy in areas. Slowing it down tended to solve it.

More to come for Octane, but thanks all for reading so far xoxo

Craig · 28 June 2026 09:19

I didn’t know antweights could be cool

Hoppin · 28 June 2026 11:10

Thats because big AWS corporation wants to think like it’s 2019

Thanks for the kind words Craig, been hell fun to make these guys and it’s always nice to push boundries with them like any ant should.

TheVigilante · 28 June 2026 11:29

I won’t lie that I’m actually kinda scared of Jennifer and Starlight. They’re both incredibly eye catching. I love the little orange chevrons on Starlight!

I’ll be at MITE Ants VI as well and knowing me my first opponent will probably be one of these or a hammersaw haha. Really keen on seeing how the PEBA performs at this event because I’m always keeping my eyes peeled for new filaments I could potentially experiment with in the future.

Hoppin · 28 June 2026 14:07

Thanks! Im considering changing the chassis colour on Jennifer so its a bit more poppy, but super happy with them aesthetically outside that!

Yes! Looking forward to seeing you there, I can assure you it’s more of a chill time than AWS is, so hopefully nothing too scary! One of the hammersaws is built by a friend of mine, and it’s her first ever event. So I wouldn’t worry too much about it . But Kyle’s one I am concerned about haha.

PEBA should be pretty neat, it’s got a bit more spring to it than TPU does, so hopefully that makes flipping a bit better. Plus it’s a bit lighter than TPU.

But again, thanks for signing up cannot wait to see you in July!