A million thanks goes to Tiger Metals (www.tigermetals.net) for giving us the titanium to build this robot.
Elusive Adversary and its battle scars after an encounter with a fierce beetleweight drumbot
Elusive Adversary is the first combat robot *WE* ever made
(actually, Peter did most of the work). Additionally, it is the first
radio controlled "robot" I (Jeffrey) have involved myself in. Since
this was our first combat robot, simplicity in its construction was
mandatory. Elusive Adversary is a simple, (1/32") titanium wedge with
flaps that bend down and screw (notice the holes near the edge of the
titanium in the picture) into a (1/4") polycarbonate baseplate.
Like most first robots, we learned a lot:
- pushbutton switches like to shut off at impact
- bending titanium at ninety degrees puts too much stress on the titanium, which causes it to crack on impact
- polycarbonate is bullet proof *ONLY* if you eliminate high stress
areas, dull sharp edges, and support it well. Otherwise, this strong
plastic cracks like acrylic... almost like acrylic...
- frequency crystals stop working if they take a direct hit
- GWS micro receivers are rather glitchy even with a deans antenna
- fully exposed, plastic hub wheels is a bad thing
- sticky tires are very hard on the gears of a motor, we've destroyed two STEEL gears already
- titanium scoops bend a lot when hit by spinners; they need to be
well supported. In the future, we plan to upgrade to hardened steel
- sharpening scoops is a nightmare
- setscrews and screws that bolt the wheels onto the hub like to come loose if you don't glue them down
- getting good reception can be tricky
- everybody hates wedges
Fortunately for us, much of what we learned came from testing the
robot before competing with it. Testing your robot is definitely a good
thing to do! For example, we dropped it off of eight feet onto a metal
surface, wacked it with a stick, crashed it into walls at top speed,
tested the reception in "worst case" scenarios (turned out not to be
worst enough...), dropped it off a cliff, and made sure we had enough battery life to
last a
match. (The part about the cliff is wrong though...)
Despite its shortcomings, Elusive Adversary turned out to be a
fairly impressive antweight. The antweights at the Robonexus with
active weapons hardly affected it at all. All of the damage we received
came from a beetleweight with a vicious drum. After the fight with this
beetle, we learned a very important lesson: *CONNECTORS COME LOOSE,
GLUE THEM TOGETHER!!!* Elusive Adversary got thrown across the arena,
tossed into the
air, and flipped over several times, but took relatively minimal damage
until a connector to the receiver loosened. Taking into account the
lessons we learned, listed above from this short fight, we were
fortunate in the long run to have lost.
Considering the amount of damage the titanium and lexan has taken,
reusing those parts is questionable. If Elusive Adversary
returns, it will be a whole new robot with the previously
mentioned issues addressed.
UPDATE: The final decision has been made; the frame has taken too
much damage to be repaired (although we could weld the cracks together).
Elusive Adversary as it was, is retired. At this point, it seems that
we will forget this robot entirely in favor of one with an active
weapon, or build Elusive Adversary 2.0. Should 'ave used ditto marks
huh? : )
UPDATE Again: We *WILL* weld the cracks together! And replace the
baseplate with carbon fiber and titanium. Lord willing of course...
