Crabsolutely Clawful Beetleweight Crab Robot

[joebrown]

Hi guys, Long time lurker, finally got an account!

Last month I built my first beetleweight, based on my ant.
I filmed the process and made this video hopefully showing other newbies some of the process involved in building one of these bots. I also included the fights it had at the UWE Beetleweight Brawl.

Obviously it's not a particularly competitive design, with the focus on a fun theme but I was pretty happy with how the fights played out.

I had issues with ground clearance for my wheels (I didn't spend enough time carefully measuring!) and you can see this when the bot either stops moving or likes to go in circles. I also think I mounted the motors pretty shoddily, do people have preferred motor mounts and mounting methods?

Another key issue is the exposed weapon mechanism - and the linkages used have plastic joints which instantly got shredded by the drum spinner bourbon! I've found aluminium versions for future events...

Anyway.. I'd love to hear any and all feedback about the robot, and the video!

Cheers,
Joe

[Ocracoke]

Fighting Crabsolutely Clawful was a blast, shame the lifting arm on Shu! broke in doing so. Trust me though, it won't happen again.

Nice video - the motor mounts are near enough the same as what I use to hold the motor for the lifting arm down though I think you jack your mounts up? In Shu!, they are all flush to the base plate, which I guess helps as they were pretty much OK after the fights it was in.

[joebrown]

Nice, I've found the picture of how you've mounted the weapon.

I do think flush to the base would help, I'd not precisely worked out how the wheels could work both on top and bottom so it was a bit bodgey.. next time a thicker base bit where the wheels are I think!