Wow, *WAY* overdue for an update... New year’s resolution: make updates more often than once a month… No promises…

Let’s see, last Saturday we went to our first event, the Marin Ant Wars V. We didn't do too well. =(. Quick rundown:

Elusive Adversary - Peter built this robot completely without my help (although I must take credit for those useless outriggers that Crunchy tore up =) ). The robot is basically unchanged since the Robonexus. Here are the differences:
    - double supported wheels (we haven't stripped a gear since we implemented this)
    - Whorly 340mAh 11.1v for a ton of weight savings
    - Servo actuated spikes used for trapping the opponent
    - carbon fiber base plate for more weight savings.
    - everything is held together by tapped aluminum bars
    - better receiver
Hmm, need to look into what I meant by "basically unchanged"... Unfortunately, Elusive Adversary went 0-2 at the MAWV. First, we fought Rebel MK2. For the first thirty seconds or so, Peter pushed and outmaneuvered Rebel until Rebel got a "lucky" hit on Elusive Adversary's scoop. This caused the toggle switch we to shut off. Wow, pushbutton switches and toggle switches don't work. High time we abandon these silly little switches... In the next fight, Peter skillfully avoided Crunchy's weapon for about a minute or so, then, when he was just about to push him out, Elusive Adversary fell out of the arena. =( In our last fight, the rumble, Elusive Adversary did fairly well, being one of the last four or five robots standing until Mc Pee Pants got through an opening in the baseplate where the spikes retract to, peeling the side of the opening back slightly and separating the battery to ESC connector. Uh, I think we didn't learn our lesson from Euler... Oh well, at least that relieves me of having to make the engineering section for Elusive Adversary! ;-) Lessons:

- If a connector doesn't lock together, it will come apart
- Toggle switches are a waste of money, slide switches have not been crossed out though…
- Razor Blades for the scoop make Andy mad =)
- Our spike assembly isn't very durable
- An active (or destructive) weapon is a great thing to have

The Joke -  I threw together this fairyweight from stuff laying around (aside from the weapon motor, which I purchase from a local hobby store).
The Joke lost two fights, against Change of Heart and Baby Bunny. Fortunately, I beat Fry me a River by default and Microdrive by knockout. Hoping to spare me the trouble of creating a page for The Joke, I didn’t take any pictures ;-). The photo on the database is a view of an older version that blew up when I ran the weapon too fast. Essentially, The Joke consists of a piece of carbon fiber with all the electronics and weapon motor/gearbox on the top and the motors and hand-made titanium disc on the bottom. At the event, The Joke became his own worst enemy. In its first fight, it ripped of both it's wheels(but amazingly still chased after Change of Heart!) and continually flipped itself over (putting your batter five centimeters in the air is a bad idea). Furthermore, when the throttle is over 50%, driving becomes impossible as the forces in the blade dictate the movement. More lessons:

            - Make your frame as stiff as possible, otherwise the blade may bend over and hit yourself. During testing, I ran the blade up two fast and the combination of the vibration and gyroscopic forces caused the blade to hit one of the Sanyos, breaking a magnet, clear the brushes, and tear through the steel case!

            -  It is not a good idea to cut out blades with shears. This makes it harder to cut the blade evenly and to warp. This causes vibration. Carvings out a new disc with a dremel tool reduced the vibration significantly.

            - .032” in thick titanium is too thin for a blade, the teeth bend too easily (yea, like I didn’t know that already)

            -  Horizontal teeth should be flat, not have a curve like saw blades. When hitting the sides of an opponent with an overhanging titanium wedge (Baby Bunny) caused the side to bury itself into the tooth.

            - Resting the weapon shaft on the floor exacerbates the already horrid handling.

            - I need a better way to stop wedges. During the first two fights, when I hit the angled surfaces of my opponents, the blade ramped up the wedge and threw The Joke into the air and upside down.

            - A wider stance and lower center of gravity would have been nice.

           - The Joke is a good name for this miserable failure =(.

 Anyhow, The Joke wasn’t meant to win, but it proved to be quite entertaining, seeing as though it had lots of good fights and others had fun wisecracking about the name. The rest of the entertainment came from ripping off wheels and causing about a hundred dollars (I think) worth of damage to Team Misfit! ;-) Boy, this sport is already having a bad effect on me…

 Here’s our current status:

            - We’re designing a drumbot and an RC/autonomous overhead bar spinner.

            - Elusive Adversary and the Joke will probably be abandoned. If we build newer versions, Elusive Adverary will have a flamethrower and The Joke will be completely redesigned.

            - I burned up a Basic Stamp while trying to program The Chosen One, indicating a deadly, yet invisible bug.

Thank you Mr and Mrs. Sauro and Andy (and who ever else deserves the credit) for hosting such a great event! Videos of the event are at www.marinantwars.com/

 Posted by Jeffrey Scholz 1/20/06

Wow, I haven't updated the site for almost a month, wow! Okay here's a rundown of what's going on:

- I got a SERVO magazine six days ago and guess what I found? Well, for those of you who don't know, SERVO was holding a Hack-A-Sapien contest, and the winner was Mr. Daniel Albert! When I got to the Robonexus, Aftershock's regulator mysteriously failed. After desoldering the integrated circuit from the switching regulator, I found out that a pin leading to the case had stressed out and broken just at the case. Amazingly enough, my table happened to be just next to his, and he had a replacement! Mr. Albert gave me some of his precious time, and after fifteen minutes of enduring the lack of appropriate desoldering equipment, he finally got the regulator out and gave it to me! Subsequently, I modified the circuit to accommodate the new component and it worked like a charm (other than getting VERY warm, but nothing a heatsink and heatsink grease I brought along couldn't fix). Yay! This allowed me to compete, even though the mini sumo "contest" was a short one. The regulator is still in Aftershock right now. So, many thanks Mr. Albert, and congratulations on winning a roboraptor pet!



- I am suffering the consequences of rushing The Chosen One before the Robonexus, I'm having lots of trouble getting all the components into such a small space. The frame is done, aside from the fact that I lost my tiny hex wrenches AGAIN and can't tighten down the setscrews for the wheels properly. I think its time to put a hex on those wrenches... =)

- If you have read this site carefully, you probably noticed there were some typos. If you read it carefully again, you probably won't find them. =)

- Elusive Adversary is being reworked, and the is undergoing some major upgrades, Let's see...
    - bigger tires to self-right better,
    - actuated hooks to stop fast wedges from sliding off our wedge,
    - a smaller battery to save weight (850mAh and 11.1v lasts FOREVER),
    - a carbon fiber and titanium baseplate to increase strength, decrease space consumption, and decrease weight, that will attach to a repaired titanium wedge with drilled and tapped aluminum bars and
    -  reinforced with a graphite rod frame.
Hopefully, we will take this new robot to the upcoming Marin Ant Wars event.

- Merry Christmas!

Posted by Jeffrey 12/17/05