When I used to watch the 1st series of robot wars I always planned to emulate ‘Roadblock’ as its simple shape and mechanics seemed easiset for me to recreate at home. Since I was in school then, that never really took off but now I have the money and equipment to make an ant-weight hommage to ‘Roadblock’ for the BEEES robot wars.
Here is a link to the wiki where you can find out about ‘Roadblock’s various wins.
Well it’s the start of the new term and so that means BEEES will be hosting it’s robot wars competition. Inspired by last years tournament I’ve decided to enter myself and on this page you can see my progress.
Well after adjusting the legs and making good use of a spirit level I’ve managed to increase the stability of the turret to beyond that of a 3 legged goat.
Next task was to cut the bottom of each leg at an angle so the entire surface of the leg would make contact with the floor whever it was placed. This was very much trial and error but I did use a fancy protractor.
I have some foam sticky pads to add to the legs just to increase grip that little bit more.
Here is a shot with the fixed side panels fitted.
Being a little short on time I remade the front leg bracket with a block of wood. It’s rough but functional and still allows room to adjust the leg height.
Legs loosely bolted in position.
Well as the title says this is a camera holder for the official ? raspberry pi camera board. You don’t get much with the camera and I wanted a simple mount that offered rotation so this was ideal. You can find it on Thingiverse.com and it plugs into the ethernet port meaning it’s compatible with almost every style of case out there.
This is hot off the printer and you can see the “rafts” still attached.
Excess plastic cut off and assembled.
Today’s post is really just a collection of images and videos showing off 3d printing for those of you who haven’t seen it in person. It’s good fun when it works.
This is the printer just starting off and it’s laying a thin base of material to help the full part stick to the platform.
Here is a successful bracket that will hold the back leg in place.
This video shows the printer part way through the prototype bracket.
And this one is the base of a miniture portal turret model.
The running joke in the lab at the moment is that my project has had far more elements of woodwork than electronics despite this primarily being an electronics project. This post just reinforces the joke.
This is the framework for the side panels. Here I am about to drill using a hole saw so I can slide the panels on dowel.
Metal leg extensions screwed in place.
And here is a crude artists impression of the turret body and legs.
Now I know in game the turret uses a “scanning” laser to find its targets but for my design I have chosen to use a ring of red LED’s with the projector lens situated in the center. This was because of safety concerns about having an unattended laser when the turret is out on demonstration.
This is the LED array on the prototyping board. 8 LEDS driven from a split 12v source and controlled via a NPN transistor.
LED locating ring made using a 3d printer.
All soldered into place and lit up!
Here are some potential solutions for the motorised side panels but I may end up fixing them in the open position depending on the weight and complexity.
