Thoughts on robot wars

· daryl

Well that’s my 1st robot wars competition over and done with and I can say I have much to improve on !

Movement – Servos modified for 360 degree rotation have lots of drift and thus slowly rotate when you want it to happen least. Use proper servos or motors and drivers.

Battery life – 300 mAh batteries are fine but excess weapon motor useage will deplete them. Locate the charging port to somewhere that’s easy to access for charging between rounds.

Amour – All cables *must* be projected from cut damage or you risk losing the round early as the green machine experienced.

Overall though I felt I did alright and got through to the 3rd round.

Video recording of the event by BEEES

Servo modification

· daryl

This post is a few pictures showing the modification of SG90 servos so that they rotate 360 degrees rarther than the standard 180 left/right.

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Bottom casing removed and you can see the control board, motor and potentiometer.

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Here is the servo with the top half of casing removed. One of the gears has a pin that physically stops full 360 degree rotation so that must be cut off.

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Small pile of gears and drive shafts.

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My first attempt at soldering a pair of resistors in place where the potentiometer previous connected to. This is to trick the control board into believing it has not rotated far enough yet.

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2nd attempt on the other servo, space is very limited when you put the end casings back on so you really need to shorten the resistor legs as much as possible.

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And back together ready to act as drive motors for my robot.

Robot Wars Inspiration

· daryl

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.

http://robotwars.wikia.com/wiki/Roadblock

Robot Wars

· daryl

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.

It stands!

· daryl

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.

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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.

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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.

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3D Printed Camera Holder

· daryl

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.

 

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This is hot off the printer and you can see the “rafts” still attached.

IMG_20150820_161210Excess plastic cut off and assembled.