Team Gas Diary's

[Max]

That thing is rapid!!

[Gaseraki]

That thing is rapid!!

Cheers man. Cat is actually quite fat and slow but I will pass on the compliment to her

[Bodge Job]

aha thats fast! and aha my cats the opposite, she got scared from a tiny walker I made, it was smaller than an ant weight :L. any way thats a nice looking robot!

[Gaseraki]

Sorry for my lack of updates.
The 13th of July was my wedding so was quite a mad dash to do all the sly things like creating a seating plan and developing the perfect groom speech. But on the side getting Trojan ready for robot wars Newport.
Marco and liz married.JPG


I was hoping this build diary would be somewhat perfect but not all that much was missed



Undocumented was:
Cutting and attaching the prongs to the weapon shaft
Cutting and attaching the top and bottom armour
Cutting and attaching the front scoop

So not too much missed. I also failed in taking a picture before it was combat damaged but its not changed too much. Just a bit dirtier
2013-07-21 21.41.42.jpg


Newport was a great stress test to see how the robot faired. Not going to go detailed on exactly how it went but bullet pointing it incase people would like to skip it

Newport day in summary

• Arrived with robot fully ready only needing a battery charge
• Weapon was jamming later to find the locking pin was still in (then to find out that electric lifters don't need one)
• Weapon still not running properly used only to lift up and down before a fight to show I had one better known as “Storm two’ing”
• First fight I was very nervous as my featherweights never last till the end of the fight usually going out to mechanical failure, so wanted to turn a new leaf
• Was running well till I got a flip from beauty right on the corner sending me into a billion degree spin.
• Landed with the power light off thinking my link had been dislodged. Very upset
• Find out that actually a power cable inside had been undone. Proceed to duct tape every single connector I could find
• Second fight robot ran really well. Power slammed many robots. Not flipped. Enourmole causing me some grief
• Think I took out about 3 other featherweights
• Lasted till the end very happy went back to the hotel buzzing
• Next day turned up late. Robot was ready to roll so didn't feel the need to turn up early
• First fight of Sunday. Robot felt a bit sluggish. Blamed it on maybe flat batteries
• Still a good fight. Lasted till the end. Body slammed many robots.
• Decide to use the break to go over the robot. Tighten up all screws and bolts
• Find I am missing two bearings on both rear wheels. No wonder it felt a bit sluggish
• Pop in new bearings and fix them in a way so its impossible to come out.
• Last fight robot felt very good but arena was a bit in decay and had big holes and uneven surfaces.
• Got stuck several times (like other robots) but still power slammed a few robots and lasted till the end
• Said my goodbyes very pleased with lots of todo’s in my head

With that being yesterday the robot bug has officially taken root again and have many plans

• New featherweight for the wife

TROJAN III - to do
from top down (highest priority to lowest)

• Weapon functioning properly - wasn't working well at newport
• Front scoop braced - was buckling towards the end of the event
• shave 400 grams - bit overweight
• wheels replaced - 50a banebots wheels shearings could last one more event
• more visual stimuli - Robot got lost occasionally in the chaos of 20 feathers so LEDs?

ROBOT TEAM - to do
from top down (highest priority to lowest)

• Rename to Team Berserker
• Shirts made
• Website made

All this by next event which looks to be October. This is probably how I burned out last time so I am going to be careful I don't try and do thousands of things at once then end up doing none.

This week going to sketch up the new featherweight for Liz and vital planning for Trojans changes.

[PJ-27]

Any video links? Would quite like to see it in action!

Also congrats on your marriage!

[Gaseraki]

Only one sadly and its one of the bad ones as I was stuck on the arena floor for periods of time and didnt slam many people and got flipped a bit
Been checking youtube hourly but nothing
When I get home I will upload the only video I have

[ChrisKazoo]

Was nice to meet you at Newport Marco. From what I saw Trojan performed very well. You did make a habit of pushing from one end of the arena to the wall on the opposite side at high speed :P


I have some point of view videos from inside the robot which hopefully I'll get uploaded tonight.

[Gaseraki]

Pleasure to meet you too Chriss. Loved the comedy with Loki and the sheep

Found some videos, woo
Great video uploaded from Harry

contains all the fights and the intro alone is well worth a watch.
Particular proud FW fight is around the 44 minute mark

Really hard to see Trojan III at times and this is why making trojan more visualy distinctive is quite a priority.
Been looking at a few cool options today

[Gaseraki]

Trojan 3.1 completion


Righty as you can see, build diary out the window. But for good reasons. I wanted to keep some new features confidential!

From the bullet point list of changes:

Better visually.

Trojan III is no longer a ramp with 4 wheels. Well it still kinda is but I have cut up and welded the front scoop so its a bit more dynamic. This should fix the buckling issue as its very well braced.

512 rgb led pixel matrix
The back panel has been replaced with polycarb and now holds a rgb panel! This is fully controlled via bluetooth to a smartphone and can play animations and graphics on the fly.

I had to construct some new internals for it all to fit together and it should survive the stresses of robot combat fingers crossed

I am very excited about this mainly because it so far looks awesome but also adds so much visually to the arena
Weapon downgrade

The drill controlled prongs has been swapped with a servo controlled prongs. Actually the prongs just run across the floor and a servo pushes against a copper rod to lift up the prongs to the right height to avoid getting stuck.

I had to get the weight for the other upgrades somewhere and the drill motor shaved a substantial amount of weight. I have found a cheap supply for 20kg torque servo motors. I have ordered a couple and I may see how high torque servos cope for prongs in the future.


Pictures and videos:
2013-10-02 23.54.37.jpg2013-10-02 23.54.51.jpg

wip pictures


2013-09-08 11.48.11.jpg2013-09-25 17.07.26.jpg2013-10-02 04.12.34.jpg2013-10-02 04.12.44.jpg2013-10-02 04.12.19.jpgFuture upgrades for Trojan 3.2
High torque powered prongs
dynamic rgb lighting strips which can change colour according to robot velocity
Ti body panels

Maidstone here we go

[RogueTwoRobots]

That is soooo cool

[razerdave]

Awesome work Marco, would have thought the forks would lift higher though..

[Eventorizon]

That is an awesome looking machine.

And the forks could be fairly effective. You don't have to lift someone very high to get the wheels off the ground, it would have similar control properties to Ploughbot.

But I take it that its non-spinner given its construction and materials?

[Gaseraki]

That is soooo cool

Thank you very much

Awesome work Marco, would have thought the forks would lift higher though..

Cheers Dave. Those prongs are literly only designed to lift up to avoid getting stuck on the floor. Its a bit of a test but they wont be lifting anything.

That is an awesome looking machine.

And the forks could be fairly effective. You don't have to lift someone very high to get the wheels off the ground, it would have similar control properties to Ploughbot.

But I take it that its non-spinner given its construction and materials?

Thanks mate. Yeah theory of the forks is to hook people without a solid base under the robot or cause some damage while ramming. Point of the robot is its drive and torque and I need a weapon to aid that.

I have been going back and forth on wether I can take on spinners. Its definetly not spinner proof (aka bomb proof box) but I think it can take a few nocks on the front scoop and even if it gets through that there is a 16mm HDPE bulkhead before the motors.

If I do go to a spinner competition I will heavily modify it and take loads of spares but I would be very very worried and expect to be destroyed.

[Mouldy]

That looks awesome marco, very tornado like...

If you keep the front end onto the spinners they'd be lucky to damage it.

[PJ-27]

How did you make that front scoop in your apartment/workshop?

Those angles would have to be done on a brake, or welded on as individual pieces?