Armour ideas / materials

[Jon Smith]

*new readers please note this is a 5 min concept CAD piece of imagination not a actual robot (Yet...)

[Team Invade]

Hi. Thought I'd put a post on here as I'm also 15 and in the middle of my GCSEs and I find everything you've said easy to relate to.


First of all I don't want to discourage building a heavyweight at all! I think your enthusiasm is great and we don't have enough people who want to build a heavyweight, for whatever reason. Having said that, I think it would be quite a huge task for any fifteen year old. I've been involved with this hobby for nine years now and I think I would just about manage to get something going by myself, but I would struggle, I doubt by any means it'd be a top robot straight away, if at all!


Having read this thread the impression I get is that you want to build a heavyweight to gain experience for the career you want to go into in the future and to look good on an application for university. With regards to the experience side of this, I don't personally think (having been involved with the build of both heavyweight and featherweight robots) you get much, if any, more experience out of building a heavy than a feather. The theory and practices behind both are more or less the same, the main reason heavyweights take so much longer to build is due to the difficulty of building something on such a larger scale. Even simple things such as moving the robot about, turning it over, can be difficult when you're first building it and don't have the luxury of the hydraulic trollies everyone resorts to buying! With regards to value in a university application, featherweights and heavyweights of similar designs are often just as complicated to design and build. Inside, Explosion and Eruption are extremely similar in terms of complexity (besides custom build gearboxes, but many feathers have these too!), the only added difficulty for Eruption was the scale as I've mentioned. I assure you building any sophisticated feather, be it pneumatic flipper, axe or spinner will look impressive coming from a fifteen year old (who's not yet an engineer and/or had years of experience like most of the top robot builders!).


One thing you said that jumped out at me was that you've got a few projects planned and once you've finished this one you'll move onto the next. I may be mistaken but based off this I'm not too sure you know what you'd be getting into building a heavyweight, I'm sure anyone who's built one will assure you it takes quite a large amount of commitment. With regards to Eruption, it cost £3000, and took nine months to build (and that considering that the main builder of the robot was an engineer with 20+ years experience). I can't quite understand how you could justify this investment of time and money then just to move onto your next project.


As for myself, equally my aim is of course one day to build a heavyweight by myself, but I don't feel I'm ready for that yet. I'm built a feather this year for the first time completely by myself. It took me four months to build it (admittedly it would have only taken two months if it wasn't for my weekends being taken up by numerous robot events), but it did take longer than I imagined, and it was more difficult than I first imagined also. I took it to the Gadget Show Live and it only had one fight due to an ESC failure, but when it worked it worked well and I know exactly what to do to make it a serious competitor for next year. Of course I love driving Explosion and Eruption, (and Explosion will continue to be my favourite robot of all time ), but I got a much larger sense of satisfaction out of driving something I'd built all by myself, and that's what's made me decide I want to build my own heavyweight to run alongside Eruption sometime in the future. Even after nine years in this hobby, building a feather completely by myself taught me so much and in hindsight was definitely the most logical step to make.


I don't want to put you off building a heavy at all, in fact I'd encourage you to do so, but I'd advise it's best to build up to that. I'd first advise you to build a featherweight version of what you want to build, and perfect the design and gain experience before moving onto a heavyweight. That's what we did and it worked as Explosion's the UK champ and Eruption won Robot Wars only a few weeks ago


Hope that gives you something to think about!

[maddox10]

The roll cage is a weak point, or something so heavy it will diminish the rest of the robot. A good selfrighter ain't that easy to do either. It has to be fast-or else the flipper will be waiting- and strong enough to be shoved around when selfrighting.

[Jon Smith]

Ok Thank you for putting the time and effort into the response that sums up the entire thread. I'm not just looking at this as a university application. Its something I can keep adding to as time progresses and I'm expecting it to take at least a year before I think about active weapons. I'm also fully aware of how costs can add up. For example I needed a new computer, so I decided I was going to build a new budget pc by myself. I originally set out a budget for around £500 and after adding a custom liquid cooling system and a Intel i7 with overclocking enabled I had reached a total of just below £2000.

I not afraid of spending big money. I know that scaling up increases the workload and difficulty. I do already have a garage with a chain lift system I can used to work around (not under) the robot and am prepared to invest in a arc welding setup for the whole construction, and any other tools required.

Yes there appears there's not much gain for going heavy but I look at it this way. I want to be able to show my ability to adapt to different situations. I have done many medium sized projects before and I guess the phrase "Go Big or Go Home" is a understatement for what I'm trying to do.

I'm not looking at 1 month then bang broken robot. I will gather all the electronics for a rolling chassis then do wood concepts refining the shape and design then begin with metal work once I have my final shape I will then begin installing active weapons.


P.S. where you talking about Gadget show live 2012? because I was there and I remember seeing the stand there. (inspiration for this project along with the original robot wars when I was a kid)

I will keep everyone posted on how my design changes and what's going on. I must say sorry for ignoring 50% of the advice that contains the word featherweight and I look forward to asking more annoying questions.

[Jon Smith]

yep completely understand Maddox. Everyone's advice will be taken into account and a re-design will begin. As you may have seen my change of design on the weaponry I hope I can use that to self right. oh yes "What is it?" the new weapon is a very pointy hammer that will hit multiple times to jam shut annoying flippers. (I hope) Thank you for you help once again and look forward to sharing my new designs when they are complete.

[maddox10]

Jon, any idea what kind of power your avarage "good flipper" has? Most aim for "Gravity Power"

It will take a humongous axe to keep those down. Even with jackhammering galore.

[Max]

From the sound of it you will be fine going for a heavyweight. Out of interest where are you based?

[Jon Smith]

Berkshire UK and Maddox would 11339.8Kg of force be enough to keep flippers shut? I just found a fairly nice Actuator capable of that kind of force.

[Jon Smith]

And its not really an axe more like a crusher perfect for fitting wedge shaped noses in.

[psychostorm]

Berkshire UK and Maddox would 11339.8Kg of force be enough to keep flippers shut? I just found a fairly nice Actuator capable of that kind of force.

Is that going to 11K at the tip of the grabber? How do you plan to get underneath the flippers? Even if you do manage to trap the flipper, what are you able to do before your 30 second advantage is up & you have to let them go? Bearing in mind, they have digger scoop steel lids.

[Jon Smith]

11339.8Kg is the force rating for the actuator itself. Just to inform you I don't own the actuator and am in no position to buy it I was browsing to see what kind of force would be available. In terms of the attack I would use a fast actuator to be able to fully close in 15 Seconds +/-. In battle I would only open the grabber wide enough to just get over one point so I am then able to quickly make a tight seal on the robot. To get under flippers I would most often go side on and I will place a thin metal sheet to make contact to the ground. To Prevent this sheet catching I would then place large steel brackets to allow some rotation/movement of the plate. The Low profile of the front panel works well at bringing the opponent right up into my jaw.

You can see that the second after a flipper has "Flipped" there is a large area of exposed chassis and in some cases the plate to get under other robots is attached to the flipper therefore I can use this point to gain access with my jaw.

Please not that not every Robot is the same so people may have made systems to combat these.

[typhoon_driver]

I think you are under estimating the forces involved in modern combat robots which is understandable. I would go to an event before spending money on anything

[swanaldo]

I would take Garys advice. No being rude or owt but you really have NO idea what your letting yourself in for. Go to an event and then enjoy building your featherweight and progressing from there.

[Team Invade]

Can't fault your attitude! Whilst you may technically be able to build a heavy (which I don't doubt), I honestly think you would struggle (along with most other first-time builders) and you still need some experience to know what to build. As many heavyweights are constructed in many similar ways, a 'best' way of doing things has evolved. For example if you look at heavyweight gearboxes they all tend to be pretty similar. To make it competitive you're going to have to keep up with the standards which unfortunately will cost a few thousand pounds!

I agree with Gary's post above. Like most newcomers you don't really seem to understand how good the current robots are. To a certain extent looking at old Robot Wars videos on youtube is pointless as the vast majority are made obsolete by the current robots unless they have been updated to the new standards. You really do need to come to an event beforehand (before you've even designed your robot) to see how it's evolved. One thing you've hopefully noticed is how much it is dominated by flippers. That's the way it's evolved and it's not going to change. The successful robots that aren't flippers (Big Nipper, Thor, Titan etc.) do have to be really top machines to do well when the arena could be argued to be a disadvantage to them. You're going to need an effective active weapon to do really well, but that's going to make it much more difficult to build!

All in all you're really going to need to get some experience beforehand to make a competitive heavy. I still think the best way to do his would be to make a feather first, but if you're dead set on a heavy first time, coming to a few events will still help.

To answer your question about the Gadget Show Live, the UK champs have been held there 2011 to present and I'd say there's a strong possibility of it being there next year as well. I think RoboChallenge were also there a few years before that with demos/pay to drive robots.

[maddox10]

How long is the stroke of that actuator? Just curious. As 15 seconds sounds a tad on the slow side, unless it has a seriously long stroke.