NIBBLET: My first Antweight robot

So, after watching countless episodes of Robot Wars, Battle Bots, NHRL and BBB’s YouTube videos, I’ve decided to dip into building my own. Im going to start off with an Antweight, just to get my head around the basics. My eventual goal is to build myself a Beetleweight.

Screenshot 2025-01-18 at 19.25.25

I (along with my class of Year 6 children) have decided to call my creation ‘NIBBLET’. I have trawled through online forums, build diaries and Thingiverse, and settled on the idea of starting off with a ‘simple’ pushing control bot. I’d love to develop it and give it some form of axe, or hammer, weapon.

I found a brilliant design set of files on Thingiverse which I have had printed and have built up as ‘NIBBLET Mk.1’ Ive gone for a direct drive 4x4 as there is no space for any other way of getting 4x4 with this design.

Let me know what you think, or any advice you have on what to improve for the next version.

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I’ve got that exact chassis. I think it was that or another one that said that you’d have to drill holes in it to get it in weight. Those forks are pretty handy, grabbing me a few wins and some close losses at Rock and Robots, so that’s a good choice. As for weapons, I’ve got nothing. Perhaps you could try and cram a servo in and strap it to a fork for a lifter, but a lot of these pre-made chassis (especially 3D printed ones) is that they’re hard to modify.

I’ve found a polycarbonate lid saves a decent amount and the smaller wheels shaved about 12g off. I think I’m going to try a slightly lighter printed chassis and my battery is massively overkill (from what I’ve been told :sweat_smile:)

Love the design and the colour scheme! What capacity is the battery? It may be overkill but it’s incredibly hard to find small batteries atm.

I think it’s a 300mah. I’ve found a 250mah which is about 5g less. The 300mah battery has given me a run time of around 15min, which is realistically way more than I will need. I’m happy to bring a couple of spare batteries, so if I can save weight, that’s much more useful.

300mah is crazy! I use 200mah and (from what I’ve seen) I might have one of the biggest batteries. 180mah is what I usually see around, but a 4wd might use more power and pushers generally want a lot of the stuff. I feel like a robot called nibbler would want to be a grabber though…

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I agree! Im downgrading to 250mah as it’s one of the smallest I’ve been able to find in stock :rofl: I’d like to add a grabber, or a forklift lifter soon.

So, I’ve been making some improvements today!

First, I’ve swapped the bolts on the front forks out with new, shorter ones, which has saved me about 3g.


Then I’ve swapped the polycarbonate lid for a 3D printed one with mesh cutaways. It’s not weight saving, but it it hides the location of a lot of the internal vitals.

I’ve also swapped out the batteries, downgrading from 300mah (20g) to a 250mah (14.9g). This is probably still overkill, but has made a good weight savings.

Finally, I’ve made enough weight savings to modify some of my wheels. I’ve managed to glue two wheels together, so two of my 4 are able to get extra grip.

Next job, I need to tidy up the internal wiring. It’s an absolute mess! :rofl:

Other than that, Mk.2 is finished!

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We look forward to seeing you with a Beetle Weight at an event soon. I love that your year 6 class is getting involved, brilliant :slight_smile:

Right, I’ve begun work on Mk3. Im going to modify the already existing chassis from Mk.1 & Mk.2. I’m aiming for the chassis to weigh around 45-50g (currently it’s about 58g). I’m also planning on fitting some extra gubbings inside the chassis, that is strictly speaking not designed for. So…

Firstly, parts of the body stick out past the wheels, so I’m planning on removing around 5mm off the sided, hopefully trimming the weight and reducing the profile. GONE!

Second, I need to clear up some space on the inside, to make room for a servo. These raised parts are designed to hold N20 motors, but I’m rocking N10s (which are shorter) so I don’t need them. GONE!

Next, these supports I believe were intended to support the chassis when it impacts on front on. But, I feel they’re somewhat overkill and could be a couple of mm thicker than it needs to be. If I can make it shorter I think I can fit a receiver in the space forward of the motors. GONE!

Finally, and perhaps the biggest cut. I’m going to hollow out the chassis and replace the bottom plate with a sheet of carbon fibre. It will give me another couple of mm to stack up components and reduce weight. With this, the motor platforms can be reduced in length slightly swell, meaning I can fit a battery between the motors. GONE!


These savings might reduce structure, which I’m willing to experiment with. I’ll print the chassis slightly denser than I did for Mk.2. Hopefully that as well as being sandwiched between a carbon fibre top and bottom, will give it some rigidity. Wish us luck!

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Update to the chassis is complete. Should come to about 38g. We’ve heavily upgraded the density of the parts. Only thing I’m worried about is the joint between the central wings and the front and back. But hopefully the sandwich armour will help :slightly_smiling_face:

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