TSU's silly little robots

TSU · 20 July 2026 18:09

Progress is… progressing.

I soldered Somatic Damage correct! mostly…

Theres drive, but no weapon. I assume the lack of weapon is because one of the solder joints to the brushless ESC is dodgy (Soldering the pads is my least favourite part!) but i must admit i bought some flux infused solder AND some nice clamps and they made things so much easier, less stress for sure.

Nom is almost ready, hopefully… I’ll make a post about them soon for reasons that will become very apparent…

Elephant Wheels’ weapon arrived today! Not only does it look quite snazzy (Thanks Team ULL!!!) but it also DOESN’T hit the floor either!

I’ll be getting them soldered up right after Somatic Damage, knowing now how to solder up a Malenki Nano is going to make it a lot easier for this one, so thank you everyone who made the suggestion to swap AND to Mark for the help with queries

I have a new set of body and wheels for this one coming hopefully tomorrow since the bot is currently overweight, but after that all is good!

The plan is hopefully to take all 3 to GrocS this weekend! Somatic Damage in the main competition and Nom in the Plastic Ants competition. I’m hoping to bring Elephant Wheels along purely for whiteboards, so if anybody had a robot they’d like to throw in at it please let me know! would be much appreciated. Mainly looking to test it out against flippers and horizontal spinners, just to see how this bot can handle things in its current state. So, if anyones going to GrocS and wants to take this thing on in a whiteboard it’d be much appreciated!

Though, thats assuming i can get this thing into my bag, since its quite a big robot compared to the other two, and i don’t even have a nice box for it yet…

Anyways, just wanted to make a post, excited for this weekend! i’m really hoping i can break my curse of robots dying the day before an event, so here’s hoping!

HBantweightrobots · 20 July 2026 19:57

probably a silly post here but, have you ever considered that there is a chance that elephant wheels could get stuck sideways? maybe you could put something on the end of those wheels to prevent from the thing.

TeamChiffChaffs7 · 20 July 2026 20:49

If it did ever get stuck, I think all Elephant’d need to do would be to spin around. Eventually it would topple back onto its wheels, similar to a virtual bigwheel I run.

TSU · 20 July 2026 20:51

yeahhh i considered it quite early into the design, at first i had a sort of curved Pyramid in the middle of the wheel hub but i realised it basically did nothing to stop the thing from happening, problem i have is trying to think of something like that whilst also keeping it in weight AND the size limit. Currently my best option is praying but that doesn’t really hold out too well in the arena…

I’ll have to see how physics allows this thing to work when i wire it up… but yeah i considered it, but i’m unsure how to tackle the problem

TSU · 20 July 2026 20:52

thats kind of the most i can hope for yeah… is that the weight & spinning speed of the arm is enough to throw me around and help me self right, will have to give it a test

in an enclosed environment far away from me…

IrregularJoe · 20 July 2026 22:16

My new meltybrain and I could be up for a whiteboard!

Dylan_Furniss · 21 July 2026 00:09

I’d be happy to fight with anything I’ve got lol, more fights is always good

TSU · 21 July 2026 06:42

Sounds great! would be interesting to fight it and see how that plays out haha

TSU · 21 July 2026 06:42

awesome! If you are able to it’d be much appreciated, hoping to get at least a few in to guage how good this thing is haha

TSU · 23 July 2026 18:44

Howdy folks!

This is going to be the first of two posts (hopefully) before GrocS this weekend!

First of all, Somatic Damage is done AND ready, heres how it looks!

the robot is 8g underweight! which is honestly insane, super happy about that! I have upgrades in mind, i’m worried about how thin the weapon mounts are, so i’m likely going to revert back to the old thickness that they were at before, and then add some polycarbonate forks to the front, other than that, no other upgrades currently planned, i really like the direction this bot is (hopefully) heading!

It does seem to swerve to the side a little sometimes, i’m unsure if thats a trimming thing or something else, but its a little late for redesigns atm so lets diagnose that one AFTER GrocS.

Will Somatic Damage actually do well? will the weapon mounts snap? Will i actually be able to face a robot thats not a horizontal spinner? i guess we find out this weekend…

TeamChiffChaffs7 · 24 July 2026 09:36

Maybe you should think about screwing that other panel down.

TSU · 24 July 2026 10:01

yeah, i tried screwing it in since there is a screw hole, but something seems to have gone wrong with the print and i just can’t get a screw to go in there, which sucks

TSU · 25 July 2026 06:19

Somatic Damage and Nom 2: Nom Again are ready for GrocS today!

Unfortuantely Nom isn’t sporting its signiture(?] head, since i’ve beek working on a design for one that should make it more competitive, but keep it looking silly!

Elephant Wheels will unfortunately not be there; i thought itd be best sinfe the weapon arm seems to be under a lot of strain at the end, so i feel like theres no point rushing ot to be ready for whiteboards if the weapon snaps off in one hit… The other two will be up for whiteboards though! (so long as they are intact by that point)

TheVigilante · 25 July 2026 07:34

Why if it isn’t the updated grabber kitbot from N&B!!! That’s what Sunday Drive started out life as haha.

Did you order in parts from them or did you print them out from the 3d files they’ve kindly released themselves?

TSU · 25 July 2026 09:24

it would be! with some hopefully changes soon to come to make it slightly more original…

I just bought the kit online! I’ve been meaning to replace Nom with a newer version for a while now, just missing the proper head at the moment!

TeamChiffChaffs7 · 25 July 2026 22:41

They released the files? Where?

TSU · 26 July 2026 08:12

On their website under the pusher bot kit there is a link to the parts:

TSU · 26 July 2026 17:38

I’m officially back from GRoCS, would just like to say thank you to the event organisers for the wonderful event! Even though both bots went 2-4 I had a blast!

Below you can see some of the damage to Somatic Damage, as well as some pen markings on the body and Spinner courtesy of Sharpie McUnicornface

Somatic Damage will be back at ORCs next month! (and also whenever the next GRoCS event may be) Featuring a sturdier construction, better forks and a more powerful weapon! Will be doing an event report for both soon (with a very long post planned for Nom) and also perhaps be working on another new robot? Maybe, we will see. Until i write those post though, thats all!