So I’m taking my first dive into Combat Robots, been playing around with a few ideas and finally landed on “Topsie Turvey” Topsie for short. A Flipper Bot that can drive any which way. Spent the last couple of days measuring and building the CAD Profile for her. This is my first ever Bot so feedback always welcome!
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Looks pretty good. Far better than my first! I have 2 concerns. One is that although it’s invertable, the flipper won’t work, and I don’t know if it can self right using it. The second is that the writing on the front might be hard to see. Otherwise, good job for a first try.
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Building on Alex’s comments, having the wheels in the middle of the chassis may cause a couple of issues.
- If (When) an opponent gets underneath you, they won’t need to get that far underneath before they can lift one or both wheels of the ground. Mid wheels make you very manoeuvrable, but you can get beached easily.
- You’ll need to be careful with the weight distribution, too much weight behind the wheels and the front of the robot will more easily lift off the ground when you accelerate, making it hard to get underneath your opponents.
As for the text being hard to read, I find that a depth of 0.75mm makes it legible enough. You can always use paint to make it pop a bit more if needed.
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I would be slightly worried about it getting stacked against the arena wall, as the wheels aren’t at the rear. It may also be more difficult to reverse off an opponent who gets underneath.
Look at the design of “Firestorm-like” robots - the wheels are at the back so they can always reverse off.
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Hey Guys, thanks for the feedback! Printed the first Prototype and it basically fell apart anyways so here are the revisions I have made:
- Increased Armour thickness
- Added Internal Supports in the Main Boddy and Flipper
- Moved Wheels to the Rear of the Bot
- Altered Depth of the Text on the Chassis
Sorry for the delay in updates had to move house in between starting this project and now lol. As for the concerns on whether it can self right or not I’ll see how it fairs when fully built and if it goes horribly wrong (which im expecting it will) I already have a Mk2 design in place. Images to follow when I get home from work!
Okay so The revised design of Mk1 Topsie Just didnt work as the whole thing had to be overhauled so Instead I have applied the feedback to Topsie Mk2. The only concern at the moment is still its ability to self right even though it can be driven inverted. Ill run with this design for now and if it proves useless I do have a Mk3 Sketch planned out.
