Please hold for incoming clacks message…
Sapient pearwood is a species of tree that grows in extremely magic-polluted areas. Rare in regions surrounding the Circle Sea, but commonly found growing throughout the Counterweight continent. Totally impervious to both magical and physical damage, objects made from sapient pearwood will follow their owner anywhere, any time, throughout any dimension in the space-time continuum.
Driven by many, many tiny feet (and also rage). Weaponised tongue ready to lick its opponents, the arena walls and floor, and the inside of the ball pit. It doesn’t have eyes, but somehow it’s still looking at you suspiciously.
+++ Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot +++
A diversion from my usual antics of function over form and too much robot in too little space, this one is pure form over function and way too little robot in too much space. Based on The Luggage from the works of Terry Pratchett, I built it because I thought it would be funny.
No shuffler bonus for BEVs, so severely compromised as an actual robot. Drive is via 2x Team SC drill motor/ESC combos powering a pair of extremely inefficient shuffler mechanisms (unless you consider “stompy noise” the primary output of the system, then it’s extremely efficient), with the front and rear cranks timed together via scrap bike chain, hopes, and dreams.
The chassis is built from approximately 80% of the 22mm Flexlink extrusion, corner brackets, and slot nuts I pulled from the metal skip at my previous employment. The chest is all 12mm plywood and wood glue, so it’s basically carbon fibre.
The tongue and lid mechanism are powered by an industrial worm drive motor, which is basically a car windscreen wiper motor but more expensive (if you don’t find it in the bin). TPU gears handle shock loading and stall protection by just skipping a bunch if the weapon motor stalls.
Radio setup is an ESP32C3 and a Google Stadia controller. Since the weapon system is continuous rotation I don’t need reverse, so I just used a handful of MOSFETs on some protoboard rather than shell out for a third ESC. Power is a 5S Lidl drill battery because I don’t have any suitable big lipos.
Thank you for reading about my latest silly robot. I have to go now, because when I was gluing the teeth on with contact adhesive the tube burst and squirted everywhere, and the fumes are making me light headed. Fingers crossed we’ll be at BEVs, I’ll be wearing my best Hawaiian shirt and trying to bribe the tech check crew with giant golden chocolate coins because my robot is 500g overweight.
