Team Kaizen Build Diary

[Ocracoke]

I guess, perhaps I was reading it a bit too literally. Anyway, proof of mobility video ahoy!

[Ocracoke]

New motor has arrived and I am glad to say that The Honey Badger 4.1.1 is now reassembled! Weighs about 1.3kg so may add in some more armour onto the robot. I'll be putting together a build review video later on this weekend.

[Ocracoke]

So... yeah... two BW events, not a single win between them. Here is how the story goes.

The Honey Badger 4.1.1 - BBB Beetle Champs in Bristol
Prior to this event, I had to rush to get the new replacement motor installed. I had intended on putting a scraper on the bottom but was out of time so I ended up going to the event with effectivelythe same robot as Rampage minus the wheel guards. Nevertheless, the new motors were a boon and work nicely enough. I had to recycle a old controller because house moving meant my OrangeRX controller was not with me.

The Honey Badger vs Night Fury vs Tentamo no mae
It just had to be Night Fury, didn't it? Tentamo didn't worry me so much but Night Fury did. The Honey Badger did OK in this if a little uncontrollable at times but then it got caught facing Night Fury head on and ripped the front. A second attempt and a massive gouge next to my speed controller appeared along with a missing wheel.

Tentamo then pushed me broad side on which took the tyre off the other wheel and rendered The Honey Badger immobile.

It took a lot of sellotape, soldering and melting of plastic to get the motor reconnected and the wheel reassembled but I had it back together in time for its fight against Igor.

The Honey Badger vs Igor
Igor is a grabber/control robot that seemed to be having a hard time getting hold of the Badger but on 3, 2, 1 the Badger lurched forwards, jumped Igor and the wheel promptly fell off. Still mobile technically as it was able to move on the other wheel and the remnants of the spokes on the damaged wheel and it became a very much more technical fight. Had I'd been able to get under Igor and got a good flip in, I would have hoped to have won the fight but as it was, no.

The Honey Badger 4.1.2 - Scouse Showdown
This was the first event I was invited to be a judge at so I was quite chuffed to be there (thanks Ben!). I brought The Honey Badger along for a Judge's whiteboard fight and spent about 20 minutes replacing the wheels with the Fingertech wheels that BBB sell. It was a bit fiddly without the right twist key too but I got the new wheels on. I also helped Dave Weston get the arena up and down... damn that was heavy.

The Honey Badger vs Slav King vs Darren
From my perspective, the fightwas very brief. Slav King, a drum spinner, hit the Badger and the wheels flew off. It looks like the grub screws on both sides need a touch of blue threadlock to keep them on and not unwind. I won't lie, I was a little deflated by that, especially when I've seen other robots use the same wheels in the same event against spinners but at this point, I was just happy to get the Badger back in the arena.

With the house move still ongoing, I am not sure I'll be able to have The Honey Badger 4.2 built before Rapture. I want to dedicate time to Jibril, Azriel, the ants and even the BotFest arena. Also, it is Team Kaizen's 5 year anniversary and I want to celebrate that somehow.

[voyanuitoa]

Any update on the BotFest 4 video?

[Ocracoke]

The BotFest 4 video has been delayed for a long while, I do admit. When I viewed the footage from the event, the audio source defaulted to my laptop rather than the camera so you can hear me and the other roboteers nattering away whilst the fight is going on which obviously isn't good.

What I think I can do is mute the video and add in some music (I purchased a lot of music for the BotFest videos) but that requires me to be able to sit down for while and actually edit the thing.

[Ocracoke]

Moving house is a royal pain. I have, however, managed to dig out Azriel and Jibril for the upcoming event at Portsmouth. We also played "fit the Middleweight in the Smart car" game. If the side arms are taken off, it fits but the axe has seized up and the battery wire has broken a connection. The Featherweight *looks* OK but I can't try as the transmitter has broken in storage as well. I need to invest in a new transmitter + carry case.

Will update on the video now that my personal rig is up and running again.

[Ocracoke]

OK, so I've got a second transmitter which I've managed to bind Azriel to and that works fine. Batteries all charged and is good to go. In typical fashion however, Jibril is being the problem child. I got the wiring soldered back up but must have done a dodgy solder somewhere as when powered on, it started to turn on and then sparked with a bang.

I really hope the speed controllers et al are OK. I'll find out when I dig out the entire wiring loom tonight.

[Ocracoke]

Extreme Robots Portsmouth 2022

So for this year, I am no longer running solo as I've got a friend, Dan, on board with the wholer roboteering thing. We drove down to Portsmouth and got to the event with plenty of time to spare. The event changes are rather exciting, I'd be interested to see where these go. The only bug bear I have is with the FW changes as they've now been made a permenant pre-show feature which seems to start an hour before the main show. In of itself, that isn't bad but as I'll explain later, that I find to be a problem.

Azriel took part in both Saturday FW melees. There are now three different melees, depending on the wepaon severity. Since Azriel has a blunt axe, it went into the "weakest" melees for both. Dan drove first and for a first time roboteer (beyond a AW he put together), did quite well I thought. Ended up being flipped up and over and not enough power in the axe to self right meant it was game over.

Second melee, I drove. Azriel was feeling the fall out from the first melee as once again, electrical issues in the circuitry meant that for part of the fight, ultimately resulting in a technical immbolisation, it was running on one wheel.

Jibril 2.0 arrived at the event needing some minor surgery. We realigned a drive wheel so it would mesh better with the pinion gear from the motor and I padded out the axe motor with a couple of washers sellotaped in so it wouldn't lose mesh with the axe gearbox. That seemed to work quite nicely. Tech checked fine, it was all ready to go.

Got into the loading pen with Raphael, Backflip and Audacious, powered on fine... and then nothing. No movement whatsoever. The announcer then announces Jibril entering the arena only to be followed by "Annnd its broken down" with a subsequent "awwww" by the audience. You can imagine how I felt, especially given all the issues with the last version breaking down.

Subsequent testing seems to indicate that I've somehow killed a RageBrdge 2 ESC. I need to swap it out with a known good ESC to validate this but what really bugs me is the the VEX speed controller indicates it is getting a signal but no power overall. With only two weeks to go until Guildford 2022, this is not something I needed right now (who does?). Ultimiately, I came away from Portsmouth 2022 feeling quite deflated and convinced Jibril is cursed in some manner. It was still a great event and glad I went to see everyone.

If I can't figure out why Jibril isn't working, that only leaves Azriel for Guildford at least and since they've been regulated to a pre-show event only, I am really struggling to find a reason to go to Guildford. I know FW only events exist (RoboDojo being the main one) but their schedule just doesn't work with my commitments.

I've also committed myself going to Robots Live in Stoke in July of this year, specifically because a) it is the closest "big" event to Merseyside this year and b) I've invited someone to the show because I want them to understand what I do and why I do it. I'll feel awful if I only bring Azriel to the show because as good as that robot is, it is just one part of the overall Team Kaizen.

I'll be restructing the robot line up in a few days so I know what I am focusing on.

[Ocracoke]

So the Ragebridge is dead. I spent another 40 minutes or so working through the possible points of failure and even doing the simple thing of plugging in the battery to the ESC directly, the thing just will not take a RC signal when powered on. I do want to see if I can get it repaired but for now, a 30A Roboclaw will have to do.

Fortunately, the Vex speed controller is fine and the modifications to the mountings worked nicely, the axe now swings neatly in both directions. Axed the battery speed controller cover to make sure it was OK and although it wants setting up properly on the transmitter for more power, it works.

Sadly, I won't be going to Extreme Robots in Guildford as the new ESC won't arrive before then, so best wishes to all that do go! I'll be taking the oppourtunity to address a couple of wiring gremlins and a potential refresh of the drive gears to make sure Jibril 2.0 works properly at Robots Live in Stoke.

[Ocracoke]

The Honey Badger 4.1.2
I wasn't originally intending to attend Rapture in Chatham but as a space was free, I've said I would. Had a bit of a mare trying to find the robot since house moving has meant everything is currently hidden and all over the place. I will be spending a evening or two getting the damage repaired from Slav King and seeing if I can move the wheels inbound so they aren't whipped off after 5 seconds.

After Rapture, I'll be rebuilding the shell yet again. I am not sure if the flipper motor is working properly so will be taking the chance to replace that to transform this into the planned 4.2 version.

Jibril
I've managed to get hold of a RoboClaw ESC to replace the RageBridge. Not immediately sure if it'll hold up for very long but once Stoke is out of the way, I can hopefully concentrate on getting the wiriing sorted properly.

BotFest
So this video... ehh.... the footage isn't unusable but the audio sure is. It turns out it was recording from the laptop rather than the arena which has put me in a bit of a bind over it. The good news is that I purchased a lot of music to overlay with but as it might have been noticed, I am really struggling to find time to do anything robotic.

I've reached out to a friend of mine who can do video editing and I am hoping they can salvage at least some of this. Prior to BotFest 5, I'll be running a pilot event to ensure the event is filmed correctly for that.

[Ocracoke]

The Honey Badger
Unfortunately, I ended up with what turned out to be the C-Virus on the Friday, a couple of days after I finished the rebuild (which I filmed hastily) so the Badger didn't see any action at Chatham. Felt pretty rotten about it having to pull out at the last minute but it had to happen, I just wasn't well enough to drive 5 hours one way.

Jibril & Azriel
This has a knock on implication for Robots Live at Stoke. By the next weekend when this event is on, I should at least be testing negative but it does mean getting hold of parts is tricky. The RoboClaw ESC needs some work to make work in the existing wiring for Jibril. Azriel is fine to run. I am rather glad not to be running solo these days.

[Ocracoke]

Robots Live! Stoke 2022
Going into this, I knew Jibril needed some work. The axe worked fine but the drive needed some addressing so as we got into the event, off came the side to work out why the gears weren't meshing. It looks as if the base plate had twisted so one side of the wheel support was lower than the other, causing a lack of decent engagement. Some washers went in and a test drive later (including a slide into the pit) and it seemed to work OK. It still wasn't engaging fully but good enough to fight with. Azriel needed only minor fiddling before the event.

Jibril
Saturday was interesting in that I managed to get into the Heavyweight competition with F7 as a cluster, fighting Tenshe, Yoton and Uriel. I think the gear started to slip right at the start of the fight but I definitely got a few good blows in on Uriel before Tenshe enforced flying lessons and I ended up on my back. I appeared to have no power as the axe didn't respond at all, nor did the drive. It transpired that one of the battery cables had wrapped itself around a wheel and tore the wire off the connector in a familiar repeat of Cheltenham 2019. Doh.

The Sunday morning we arrived late but as there wasn't any HW whiteboards running in the first event, I took my time and adjusted the wheel properly so the gears meshed correctly. In testing, Jibril is very accurate in driving. I can point it in "a" direction and get it where I want to go without it spinning off. However, the axe was a casualty where the grub pins on the pinion second stage had failed. It was "working" but there wasn't very much power being transmitted.

However, because it was driving fine, I was OK with throwing it into a HW melee at the end of the second show. This ended up being against Tornado, Gabriel, Switch, Thunderchild and Eruption. This effectively became a repeat of the first fight where Eruption flipped me clean out of the arena. Apparently they had been told not to do that but meh, I was just glad to have a MW that was working.

Jibril needs some work before the next event. Obviously the grub pins need fixing, the axe needs reattaching and some tidying up of the electronics but otherwise still works OK.

Azriel
The featherweight went into 6 Melee battles and by the end, was quite worn out. The batteries aren't charging fully anymore, the alignment on the axe gears has failed so in the last couple of fights it was tempermental as to wherever it worked or not and most crucially, despite multiple attempts at repair, the wiring situation meant that it was constantly cutting out.

That being said, it survived one of the melee fights and came close to doing so on a few others but now is the time to completely overhaul and rebuild Azriel. Bear in mind, this robot was put togteher on a shoestring budget and from spare parts dating back as old as The Honey Badger 2.x so its done well for what it has in it.

I am hoping to debut Azriel 2.0 at EXR Colchester later on this year.

[voyanuitoa]

Any update on the BotFest4 video?