Seal Of Approval is a nice robot. It’s served for around half a year now. The Mk 1 was prone to tipping over if on acceleration. The Mk 2 was better but still had some issues. A Mk 3 is in the works now.
However, the thing with sportsman anweights is that, when brought into full combat tournaments, they shatter the notion that a robot has to be built “just so” and not as a paste coating the arena. Since I don’t want my silly little seal getting blown to bits, it’s time for a new antweight. A 3D printed antweight…
The Seal Avenger (a pun on Robot Wars competitor The Steel Avenger) is looking to be a pusher with a steep and thick front wedge with a (highly) concerning top panel thickness. I’ll likely rig some sort of grabber or lifter to it somehow. Currently, 1 chassis has been printed. It had a few flaws, being that part of the robot got bent during 3D printed and the top panel having the text “Slealy Mk 2” (the name of my sisters toy seal, and Seal Of Approval’s older sister).
I might make it to ORCS 7 (is that the next one?) and if not 8 or 9. It’d be funny if both my robots debut events were both the 9th time it had been run. Currently, I’ll use the defective chassis to test how it drives and SOA Mk 3’s power (it’ll be good to go as soon as it can get a front scoop and fur). I could try adding forks or maybe some sort of back wedge.
Done some test drives, and it ran okay, if a bit slow, and as soon as it tried to push the new Seal Of Approval chassis the battery died. Since my charger was presumed missing after what was thought to be a loan to someone at GRoCS, I had to sit around for a few days to get 2 more. After that it was found the 2 spare batteries were almost dead. After half a year without being perfectly maintained, they’ve likely degraded a bit. Charged them back up and the robot runs fine. Also working fine is this sandpit I got for my birthday to drive it around in just like the Rock and Robots one!
It’ll have it’s first outing today, at a family meeting with cousins.
First things first: The current chassis is pretty tough. At the cousins house it got driven off shelves plenty of times and ran fine. However, I saw an undercutter online and printed it off yesterday. Currently the chassis is done, but it still has to get wired up. If anyone could tell me a good weapon motor/bar combo that’d be appreciated. The screws are way too hard to put in though…
For starters, many online models have specific weapon blades and motors that you may be able to find on the model’s page.
However, if it does not, I would recommend using the BE1806 sold on the BBB shop which the blades from team monsoon sold Here fit onto very well. They have a good selection of discs and bars of different weights.
TSA is all wired up and runs great, other than the steering being the wrong way round. The weapon motor works, but the spinner itself hasn’t arrived yet. It’ll get here eventually. It’s a tight squeeze, but everything fits great. One problem is that the wheels the design is meant to use if only found in America, so the spinner will whack the floor a lot.
Not slow forum day now! The weapon arrived once I got home form school. I bolted it on and had a good hour of fun of driving it around, tearing up the test sandpit floor along with a foam block and a cardboard box. Problems so far are that the traction is atrocious, barely controllable with the weapon at around 30%, with it not being great with it off. Steering is reversed, the switch is soldered to the battery instead of the ESC, the wheels are too large…
I’m also having trouble biting the target plastic, or anything that wasn’t cardboard for that matter. That should be a weapon issue.
If anyone knows any better wheels that have more grip, that’d be appreciated.
The faster you spin, the harder it is to engage or “bite”. However, the faster you spin the more energy you store and can transfer. when you do connect. That’s probably why you’re grinding away at your test targets. The faster you are moving forward into a target, the better the engagement also.
As for grip - potentially a weight distribution issue? Any spare weight to put something over the wheels. Other than that it will be custom silicone tyre if the BBB or Shakey style ones aren’t suitable diameter.
I think I’ll try 25mm wheels next. Other than that I’ll swap around the left and right motor wires to fix the steering issue. I was setting the spinner to 50-60%, so maybe I’ll turn it down a bit?
I’ve found an old prototype chassis to rip apart, and I’ve printed off a green version of this one to find it’s weak points. So far no major damage, so either the weapon is bad or I’ve made something bombproof. I hope it’s the latter, but I’m not so sure.
Nope. Locked it away in the conservatory. The sandpit was so it didn’t chew up the floor. I was safely behind a big glass pane. Made making small adjustments (adding testing targets, etc) a pain, but otherwise my mum would probably lock it away.
What wheels are you running on these? They look like the 34mm pololu style
I’ve found reasonably decent grip with these or doubled up with a Printed hub, failing that I’m a fan of the scalextric style wheels BBB have now in stock for my grippy escapades
