TSU's silly little robots

[TSU (Joshua Bloxham)]

hey peeps! recently i started getting back into building robots, after a few years of not competing at all. first bot i’ve built is my two-wheeled drive vertical spinner, Somatic Damage.

the mid section of this bot is a little jank with the wiring, with it being a big weak point on the bot, but it hopefully won’t end up being too huge of an issue. i really like the shape of this bot, the shape being inspired somewhat by a bot i remember seeing in a video of Ant Freeze 4.

the bot unfortunately weighs in at 151g. Because of this, and the fact that the event that i plan on taking this to isn’t until early june, i’m redesigning the bot to save weight and make it more competitively viable.

this is how the redesign looks, i’ve shortened the pointed sections by 1cm, which should hopefully save some weight, and also cut the wheel guards in half to save around 3g. so plenty enough i hope! i decided to put that saved weight into wedgelets, which should hopefully give me some way of winning the ground game, and also scooping up robots into the weapon. hopefully the weight i’ve gained from adding these wedgelets, isn’t more than the weight i’ve lost!

one question i would like to ask people,

this middle section of the robot here is 5mm thick, i’m just wondering if maybe i’d be able to make this section of the bot thinner, without the robot possibly snapping in half or anything, probably can. rest of the base plate is 2mm thick, so i’m wondering if i’d be a good idea to maybe make the mid section 2 or 3 mm thick to save even more weight. if 5mm is a bit overkill that is…

[hhills (Harry Hills)]

I would absolutely skinny that up a bit as solid 5mm will be too much. For pure strength I would bat it down to maybe 1mm and add in a 1mm polycarbonate brace panel across the rear - in my opinion far stronger than any printed solution.

I would also consider ditching the printed wedges and wedgelets in favour of sheet plastic like more polycarbonate as I could see those thin spikes snapping off very quickly.

Shape is pretty neat also, I like how it sort of feeds robots into the weapon and it should still function as a decent controlling pusher if the bar stops.

[TSU (Joshua Bloxham)]

Yea, 5mm may be overkill, i could swap the wedges for polycarb and add a brace, i’m just wondering how big of a weight difference there will be between ABS and Polycarbonate. The tips of the wedges snapping is definitely a concern, that’s for sure. If the weight difference isn’t too big then i would definitely consider it over ABS.

[hhills (Harry Hills)]

1.05 g/cm3 for ABS and about 1.20 g/cm3 for polycarbonate. For what its worth HDPE is 0.97 g/cm3 o lighter than the both of them and absolutely no chance of splitting like a printed part could.

[TSU (Joshua Bloxham)]

I see, that shouldn’t be a huge change in weight for this weightclass would it surely? i didn’t even know you could get HDPE that thin for this class to be honest, might be worth considering depending on things. i think for now i’m going to just go with ABS, get the robot completed and see where i am at with weight, and then go from there i reckon. best to see if i’m under the limit before i do much else, or at least i think so anyways given that the current bot is overweight. if i am then polycarbonate might be a pretty good way to go

[TSU (Joshua Bloxham)]

Hey peeps! Whilst i’m currently waiting on the parts for Somatic Damage to arrive, the parts for my 2nd of 3 robots on my new fleet have arrived, this is (at some point) going to be my new drum spinner, Night Ligjt

A few big things to learn from this build…

1, the motor mounts might be too big/the chassis might be too short, not sure how big of a problem putting the chassis together will be, as my screws haven’t arrived yet.

2, the beater bar i printed is too long for the robot so it doesn’t fit inside, thankfully it was a test print and 'll just CAD a new (and improved) one and get that manufactured asap

3, i need to stop having holes so tight on this robot, the motors don’t fit through their holes, and the wires for the spinner don’t fit through their hole. Nothing a good filing (hopefully) can’t fix i suppose

Anyways, the chassis altogether comes in at 47.82g which might be a bit on the hefty side, some parts in this bot are definitely overkill and the robot may even be a bit big, who knows, will find that out when i do the soldering very soon…

(Ps. Shoutout to me for forgetting to order the wheels and ordering 4 PAIRS of motors instead of 4 motors. At least i have lots of spares i guess…)

[McMullet (Sam Roberts)]

That looks very smart. Shame about the beater bar but yeah that’s the beauty of test prints!

[TSU (Joshua Bloxham)]

very true! glad i ordered the test print or i’d be pretty disappointed when i got the final weapon done haha. need to do all the soldering for it now but still waiting on the screws (and wheels) to arrive first

[TSU (Joshua Bloxham)]

hey peeps!

with 2 weeks to go until the event i intend to go on, now is a great time to get all of the robots i have ready. none of them are in a complete state at the moment unfortunately. so uh… how are they doing then?

Somatic Damage:

Last time Somatic Damage was weighing in a bit too heavy (at around 151-152g), and a bit too long as well in my opinion. so, i set out to change that by making the chassis 1cm shorter and cutting the wheel guards in half which should also half the weight of them (freeing up around 2-3g iirc). but i also wanted to put some wedgelets onto the robot to give it more of an edge in fights. so, with those changes in mind i ordered the prints and when they arrived.

well… there were problems. first of all, the wheel-guards were too big, for some reason i made them a couple of extra mills too tall so they didn’t house the motors at all, something i have since rectified. BUT, they were lighter, and will be even lighter with them being shortened some more.

Unfortunately, i can’t say the same about the chassis. Despite the fact that the chassis was shorter, despite the fact i freed up spaces on the motor mounts internally for the chassis, even despite the fact that i ordered this to be printed at a lower filament than the previous chassis. It was heavier…

(Old Chassis)

(New Chassis (Heavier one))

(Fun lil size comparison)

The old one weighs in at 26.94g. You can decide if that’s good… the new one, or new ones since i ordered 2, weigh in at 28.92g and 32.28g. somehow, defying all odds, the robot has put on weight, and a lot of it. spending today cutting down more weight where i can but mostly hoping and praying. not really sure why 1 print was so much heavier than the other.

but what about the other parts? well, the printed weapon mounts are slightly heavier (less than a gram), but they now offer ground game and also are more maintenance friendly, the top plates (of which there are 4 technically) weigh between the same and about 0.5g less, and the new wedgelets for the sides weigh 0.15 ish grams. not too awful i guess, but i DO need to free up weigh more weight on the chassis to get this bot to a fuller potential.

Night Light:

i got nothing, whoopsie. just need to reprint the mounts to make more space for the brushless motor wires and also re-CAD the beater bar.

Manta Ray:

The last robot i plan on bringing, which i haven’t spoke a word about on this thread yet, is my first robot i ever got, Manta Ray, who will be filling in as the “Ol’ Reliable” incase my other two bots don’t end up working so well. I haven’t touched Manta Ray in a long time, and at some point the NanoTwo looks to have died inside of it. so i have ordered new electronics for it and i’ll be shoving those in when i get around to doing all the soldering for everything

that’s kind of it for now, i guess i’m looking for advice on a few things so, any help here appreciated:

1. How much infill do people tend to use for their chassis prints? i know infill isn’t everything However, since i order my prints from Treatstock i can’t really change much about the print. i’m doing 25 for this print but i’m wondering if it’d hurt to go lower to make more weight or not, or if 25 is an ok amount.

2. how thick do people have the walls on their robot? i do 3mm but i’m not sure at what point it becomes overkill

[TSU (Joshua Bloxham)]

Been working more on Somatic Damage last night and this morning, and here is what i’ve got going. i’ve mainly just made more sacrifices to the back plate, hollowing it out and also removing some of it at the back. the wheelguards are pretty much ABS Blocks so it shouldn’t be too big of a deal to remove that small section. Any other advice or pointers would be much appreciated! but for now i think this is pretty much the most i may be able to do? i dunno…

[TSU (Joshua Bloxham)]

Here is how the back will look with the motor mounts on it. also what infill do people usually print their chassis in?

[hhills (Harry Hills)]

Only comment I’d make is that the screw holes seem to be very close to the edges of the material and I’d be worried about splitting the sides out by the time I’d got a screw in there.

Most of my robots in abs are between 50-80% infill for what it’s worth.

[TSU (Joshua Bloxham)]

Yea they are a bit close but i haven’t had any cracks or splits yet. If i have the weight after the rebuild i’ll try and make space for it to be better mounted but its worked ok for now.

I see. Definitely a lot higher than mine then- i’ve stuck with 25% for the chassis so hopefully it’ll pay off ok

[TSU (Joshua Bloxham)]

My prints finally arrived (and very quickly too) this is way, WAY better than before. 5 grams spare for screws and also the additional little wedgelets but they have a combined weight of less than a gram so it all should be good. Event is this weekend and all i need to do is put it together and resolder a wire.

After this i’ll deal with Manta Ray and then sort a 3rd bot as i’ve bailed on my current 3rd due to it needing a redesign.

[TSU (Joshua Bloxham)]

Somatic Damage is sorted now, i’ll say more about that after i get everybody sorted but for now its onto Manta Ray

Manta Ray was my first ever bot and i’m bringing him in to play the role as the “Old reliable” bot. I know it can perform well which means that if Somatic Damage absolutely sucks, i have at least got Manta Ray to fall back on.

Manta Ray is a 5 year old robot, and it shows. The electronics are completely dead so i’m soldering some new ones ahead of this weekend. Planning on this to be Manta Ray’s last event before i swap it for a different, more custom design. And, i’m hoping for it to do well for its last outing, or go out in a blaze of glory, whichever comes first.

For the people going to ORCS1 this weekend, does anybody have a spare lipo that i can use for this bot for the event? The lipo on Manta Ray needs to be thrown out since it has started to puff and i’m not sure i’m going to have time to order a replacement.

[TSU (Joshua Bloxham)]

Got my duo ready for ORCS tomorrow. Was hoping to take Night Light but i never managed to finish him as he needs a redesign, and i never managed to finish Manta Ray either unfortunately due to the electronics being way too big for the inside of the bot. Collecting some bits at ORCS that’ll hopefully mean i can get the lil guy up and running for a proper retirement event sometime soon.

But anyways, here’s Somstic Damage and Nom, hoping things will go well tomorrow but you never know till its all over.

[Strang_H (Henry Strang)]

My brain says Somstic Damage but my heart says Nom. Builds are looking sick, hope you have a good time with them

[TSU (Joshua Bloxham)]

haha cheers! meant to put Somatic Damage my bad

hopefully it’ll be a good time, i haven’t tested the spinner fully yet as i think i’d rather have it fail in the arena than outside. Nice to be getting Nom into the arena to as its about a year old i think and this will be its first event!

[TSU (Joshua Bloxham)]

Quick post to just show off the damage to Somatic Damage after today’s fights. 2:3 record isn’t amazing but i’m happy with all of the fights (other than the one where the robot just died after a second, i’d have had a rematch if the robot wasn’t dead by the end of the event)

If anybody has pictures of the damage SD did to their bots, i’d love to see! Unfortunately didn’t get any pictures of that, but i wish i did!

All i can say for now is i’m very happy with how this robot performed, and i’m hoping i can get it redesigned, fixed and ready for the next event i attend, i plan on writing a full report for the event but i just wanted to show off the damage quick, as it’s quite cool

[Joe (Joe Brown)]

You did really well, something about the shape of the bot and the bar spinner meant you threw bots more than the other verts of the day. Great job, keep at it!