Team Death - New Heavyweight

[team death]

More progress with Team Deaths heavyweight today.
As usual I like to have a wander round the car boot sales before I start work on the
Robot for two reasons-one-if your looking for cheap bits for a robot build it can sometimes
come up trumps and secondly I like the banter.
Today the boot sale delivered the goods on three fronts, I managed to get a vital bit
of Robot fabrication metal in the form of a Wheel clamp £8 three bags of bolts of the
perfect sizes £5 and a antique hammer thats perfect for welding pinkin £1-see picture 1.
So in the afternoon I started on the Robot again, Adam was not available this week
as he will be in Scotland to watch the filming of Robot Wars.
Although the bodywork of the Robot is 3mm mild steel it dosen't offer great structural
protection against spinners so I worked on strengthening issues.
I cut to size to lengths of steel box section to form the backbone of the robot and
welded them in place.
These sections will eventually be supporting the Wheel support bearings and I
measured very carefully to make sure there would be no issues like for instance
where the bearings are bolted.

The car boot purchase of the wheel clamp was cut to shape to accomodate the rear
of the rather large wheels and this was the tail section of the robot-the colour of
the wheel clamp was very like the gas cylinder and I regard that as a good omen.
Heres some more pictures of progress thus far.....
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Looking good, even a matching colourr. I'm almost becoming attached to a black & white colour scheme...
I'm looking forward to being back in action on the Team Death robot next Sunday, for now I'm on a Megabus speeding through Berwick-upon-Tweed towards Glasgow.

[daveimi]

I build exactly the same as you, my team name is Skipdiving Robotics :-) i just see it all as a cheap bit of fun. What are your plans for a drive train:-)

[team death]

Hi David
I think that's when its time to splash the cash-regarding drive train/motors and
speed controllers, I cant see me picking up sprockets and chains at a car boot
sale or speed controllers and motors in a skip.
At some point Adam and myself were going to put a call out for a complete
set up,we are still at quite early stages but if anyone has a full system-ie
speed controller/motor/drive system WHY at a second hand price,get in touch.
Because the wheels are large on our robot I'm probably looking at a drive ratio
5 to 1 minimum.
May even consider buying complete robot-not to dismantle but to share a similar
drive system.

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Another Sunday, which means another update to this build diary!


Today we spent a while reinforcing one side of the bot, and aligning things up for the bearings. Before using a lathe to fashion the rods that'll go through the wheels and to a bearing either side. My first time using a lathe since high school Design & Tech lessons, safe to say i'm a little out of practice and will need to be a little more accurate, but can't expect miracles on the first time in 10 years!

We also managed to weigh the bot, plus everything we have currently that'll go on/in it, and it came to 43.5kg. Colin estimates the bulk of the weapon will be around another 10-15kg, so that gives us plenty of room left for the electronics, which compared won't weigh much at all, and gives lots of space for bulking up armor if needed.

Next week we'll repeat this for the other side and wheel with what we have learnt doing this, hopefully second time around it won't take quite as long to get the measurements correct, and we'll have time to do other stuff on top of that!

[team death]

Heres a few pics I took of the progress this Sunday, Adam is working on my
vintage lathe 1940s/50s.
Note the bearings and wheel now fit on the turned steel bar.
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Another update!
This sunday was a bit of a mixed bag, after running into a few problems. Progress was still made, everyone runs into problems at some point!.

Firstly we came across a slight problem when we started trying to attach the bearings to the wheel poles so we could align everything correctly inside the bot. The company unfortunately sent Colin 3 of the same size, and one bearing much larger than the others. Undeterred we scavenged a larger circumference pole and cut it down and sliced it at one side so we could stretch it out and put it over the initial pole making it fit snug into the much larger bearing.
After finishing that, we set about fitting it all and aligning it into the chassis nice and aligned, this didn't take too much time, although we used everything in sight to jam it all in and hold it together. After doing this, we were ready to attach the bearings to the chassis, and after buying an angle attachment for the drill we started confident we'd get it going.
Unfortunately, this proved to be a lot more difficult than anticipated, struggling to fit the drill and bits into the chassis and found it hard to apply enough pressure to the angle attachment to make the drill actually do anything other than scratch the metal. After a bit of brainstorming, Colin decided it'd probably be quicker to ditch this idea and he ended up using the arc welder to melt holes. We then set about using these as a starter for the rest of the drilling, however we were still at a loss with the drill. We ended up having to use an angle grinder and cut out the previously welded bars, and then drill holes into them whilst they were wedged into a workbench, allowing us to apply the needed pressure to get the holes drilled.

Colin will try to re-assemble the bot before next Sunday, so we can get back to it from where we left off.

images, in order;
- The good start, finding the position for wheels and making sure it's all even, using pretty much anything in the workshop to jam and hold everything in the place we like.
- Colin demonstrating the angle add on for the drill.
- Colin drilling into the beams for the bearings, after cutting them out of the bot.
- The now sad looking chassis after the middle support beams were removed, having previously been welded in. Despitely essentially only being tacked in, it still put up a large fight to get it all off again!

[team death]

In a attempt to rectify the complications and lost time on our Sunday build, I have had a four
hour session today fitting the bearings to support the wheels of our robot.
It turns out that probably this was the better way to do things around-for some reason
the two bars down the middle of the robot would not fit back into thier original
position and to do so would have meant having very badly aligned wheels, I'm not certain
why this was-it could be any or all of mutiple reasons.
So the two bars now run from thier original position at the back but end up at a point at
the front, this will be no detrement to the robot and they wont be seen inside the chassis
anyroad and I consider it more important that the wheels look straight.
At some point the wheels will need to come off again to fit the drive train and weld
the wheel to the spindle,I'm hoping there won't be any issues when it comes to removing
them because even fitting the bolts in the bearings was very fiddly.
Now that the wheels are on it certainly makes it easier to move around and I can imagine
powerfull motors will have no trouble driving it along I also was able to test the maximum
drive inclination,which turns out to be 45 degrees.
Heres some pics I took-note the spirit level used to make sure the bodywork was level
when the wheels were on the ground.
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Sunday's here again!

Today was mostly spent doing preperation work for the weapon. Which we're going to keep the exact details under wraps for a bit longer, but for now we can tell you its a multi function single weapon system, which we think may be unique. Saying all that is quite long, so we just refer to it as "the device" .

Also todays events included some rather odd smells. Firstly we had a blast of probably at least 20 year old air from the inside of some pneumatics Colin had around the workshop, and a rather acrid smell made from ancient paint being stripped off a metal bar ready for welding. Hopefully that wasn't as toxic as it smelt!

Next week we'll likely be focusing further on the weapon, there may also be a trip to a scrapyard for old passenger service vehicles upcoming for one or both of us sometime in the coming weeks too, as we need some additional parts still.

Only one picture from today, Colin doing some welding, just tacks mostly at this phase still.
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This sunday, we had a rather odd star of the show, in the form of a £1 skateboard that Colin picked up from the local car boot sales.

Today, we worked entirely on the weapon, making sure it all fit where it needed to be, and the intended movement was achieved. We used the skateboards wheels to ensure smooth running of the weapon and control its intended movement by bolting panels to the side of the movement of area (to be done later in the week, but the parts have been cut ready). A lot of time was spent scavenging metal from around the work area, doing some aligning, and cutting out extra metal that got in the way of the new intended design for the mechanisms.

Continuing on from the previous post, we won't quite reveal specifics of what the active weapon is, but you might be starting to get an idea of it.
Next week, we'll hopefully pump a bit of air into the weapon, and make sure that its actually working by itself instead of being pushed / pulled by one of us, and doesn't act differently under its own power.

Images; The donor skateboard, although by end of the day it certainly wasn't skateboarding again, followed by the end position of the wheels, now attached to a jack and rolling nicely along a little panel.

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Another Sunday, and another small update.

Today was unfortunately another day of problems and issues. Although we somewhat expected it to not be plain sailing considering the weapon design.

Unfortunately after pumping air into the jack, it shot upwards as intended, however it didn't hold any real amount of weight. This left us with the decision of trying to go full pressure, we were testing with around 120psi, which would also require us to call in someone else to work some piping or switch the jack back to its original hydrolic mechanism which can lift up to 2 tonne, but is a little slower. We decided to go to for the latter, but we soon realised that to fit a camshaft and motor in place, we'd need to strip out some metal to make space considering the jacks air input holes and release holes were in awkward positions in the body.

So unfortunately by the end of the day, the bot was back in pieces without wheels attached and the main centre reinforcement metals removed. The plus side being, we now know how to strip it apart quick if we're pushed for time doing repairs in the heat of a battle!

No pictures today I'm afraid, but if you really want some, look up a few posts for the one where the bot is pieces, it's basically that again for now!

The overall plan for the weapon hasn't changed, we'll just have to revise and rethink how we achieve the intended action for it.

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This sunday, we started work on a different approach to the weapon. Although the type of weapon hasn't really changed, just the approach to achieving it has done so, to a method a little more tried and tested.

Colin had already acquired and split a gas bottle in two, and the first job for the day was to split it into 4 pieces, cutting it in half again and taking an inch and a half out of it so it'd fit snug inside the other scoop instead of resting above it. Part of this required some wooden slats cut out to place below the existing scoop and the new one that'd be inside it, to get the distance we want between them and know how much to cut off each side. Towards the end of the day, we tested the work so far by drilling holes into some spare metal around the workshop, using them as pivot points and attaching them to the new scoop within the other, and testing the closing mechanism of the new one for the new weapon design, and it seems to work a charm! Robots coming a little too close will hopefully be in for a surprise!

The day was disrupted with a minor calamity halfway through as I lost grip on the angle grinder whilst trying to undo a welded tack, causing the grinder to bounce around the scoop, whoops!

Todays images, Colin and some welding, hole drilling and the wooden cuts we used to measure the excess that needed cutting off all sides of the new half-gas bottle for a smooth fit inside the curret scoop.

[katch]

If nothing else, your gaining experience for quick repairs, taking it apart regularly isn't a bad thing !

[team death]

In a attempt to get further ahead with the robot build I have done a four hour
working session today and dealt mainly with the scoop weapon detailing.
I needed some pretty beefy steel bar to be the pivot point for the alien like
inner scoop and had walked past the potential candidate many times on the
way to the workshop in the form of a old steering box from a nissan pick up
truck, I had it in mind that it would form part of the build at some point and
it's time had come.
I set to it with Big Bertha (9 inch monster angle grinder) and after some major
slicing I managed to optain a 35mm bar about 9 inch long and two bearing like
collars which of course fitted the bar perfectly.

During a previous build session with Adam we had made some brackets for the
skatebord wheels to run in, but because that idea had been mothballed they
came in handy as support brackets for the collars I had just made and even
the bolt holes were in the correct place.
One major misshap was my trousers catching fire from the sparks off Bertha
and burning a hole in them-talk abour warm down under....building robots is
dangerous.....yer I know.
Quite pleased with todays progress and the fact that the robot contains
two gas bottles, a lawnmower grass blower, a vehicle clamp, wheelbarrow
wheels and a pick up truck steering box bits adds to its quirkyness.
Picture 1- steering box
picture 2 -parts out of box
picture 3-burnt trousers
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Yesterday myself & Colin met up again, and did the usual Sunday stuff - building a robot!

The task that occupied most of the afternoon was strengthening the poles between the two halves of the scoop weapon up to the pivot point. The ones we did prior were somewhat thin metal, so we found some much thicker metal cut them to size and Colin bore holes into them.
Initially we started by Colin boring holes, and every so often he'd stop and oil up the area. However I suggested to speed up the process, we see if we had a suitable bottle or other item so instead of doing that, I can be stood aside and constantly oiling up the area to be cut. After a quick look around, Colin found an old school oil can, which seemed to speed up the process with me applying oil directly as needed whilst the drill was boring.
We did have a few issues with drills though, whilst giving the usual one a rest, we switched to one Colin acquired in a box of other stuff for the nice price of a few quid. We however found out why it cost this, after a few minutes of boring, it began to smoke - seemingly from the motor. However, it gave the usual one enough of a rest, so we went back to that. Although, after a while, that too also began to smoke. We ended up having to give that all a rest and went to ensuring the alignment of the scoop when it closed into each other, it wasn't quite doing that - but we improved that easily enough by increasing the height of the pivot point with some washers.
Thankfully, after giving the usual drill the sniff test and smelling nothing burnt out, and the drill functioning as expected afterwards, no damage was seemingly done by the drill smoking. As for the old few quid one, it was sparking internally around the motor too, so it seems the motor is in need of a rewind or replacing entirely.

By the end of the day, we had managed to finish the original task of increasing strength of poles, and after I left around 4pm Colin worked further on the weapon and unfortunately found that the last pole we had welded on was a little off, possibly as we may have rushed to attach that to be done for when I leave. Colin disconnected and re-attached that, and had the weapon now closing to an almost perfect cylinder - so that seems to be all that sorted.

Next week will probably be discussing and working on the method of closing / opening the weapon itself, or perhaps working on some teeth for the weapon to help grab and hold onto its victims.

Unfortunately, no photos were taken yesterday.