Sooo I had a spur of inspiration to build something new, unfortunately too late for Nationals but i think i have realised that i just seem to enjoy designing and building robots more then competing with them.

Anyways here we go:

VOLI (Vol-eee)

Drives - BANEBOTS P60 16:1 with 3" Colsons. 500kv NTM Brushless on 64:1 geared another 2.25:1 P60 for lifter.
Batteries - 5s 3000mah Lipo.
Weapon - Lifter. 6mm Bisalloy Wedge (Full Class), 6mm Bisalloy Forks (Sportsman).
Electronics - TZ85 for drives, 150amp Hobbyking special ESC for lifter.
Armour - 10mm Aluminium frame. 5mm Aluminium base/top, 15mm Mystery plastic outer armour.

Key part of this robot i felt needed a bright colour and to be bold NO MORE DRILL MOTORS
I bit the bullet and finally invested is some reputable drive motors as well as wheels while i was at it..


The general CAD i slapped together

At first knowing i wasn't going to Nationals and the next event being who knows when i was like i will just build this robot slowly over a few weeks/months then next you know with the marvels of CNC'ing:
(spam of photos warning)

Fitted main part of the frame together, being that the CNC Router i use is quite old and in much need of a service so between the sloppy frame and tool deflection circles are more slight ovals, several very fine passes around the holes and eventually become nice enough to press bearings into them



Rough mock up of the drive setup, when designing this time i realised that inventor have this awesome feature where it can calculate the centre distance for a certain belt length using selected pulleys, that would have made hextechs chains a thousand times easier to work out


Next was the long tedious work that is lathing, i have become very lazy being around all this CNC stuff, manual work is tough haha
Machined up some press fit sleeves for the colsons, not having an internal broach to make keyways which would have been the ideal way to fit the wheels to the shafts i just milled flats on them and loctited some grub screws in the sleeves to be snug on the shaft


Cut the plastic side plates with the laser, no idea what material it is, feels similar to uhmw but lasers out real nice, some kind of polyethylene i guess


Wired it all up, one day i am going to design a robot purposely around having the neatest wiring possible haha >_>


Top cover with smaller removable hatch to get to the battery quicker and yes the grains on the Aluminium run different ways and it bothers the crap out of me but ah well


so yeah thats it so far about 15 hours work, if i get fired i will be lost forever at making robots haha.. oh and it drives nicely but didn't get a video yet as my camera was flat at the time.

Left to do is drill all the holes for the top cover and design the front wedge and sportsman forks then get them cut out and put on
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Barton Robotics Youtube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/dyl30

Barton Robotics Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/BartonRobotics

Looking very neat

This is super nice. I really like this kind of robot, in that it's tactical, not destructive. I may be a little biased though, my 30lber could be its British cousin.

http://i.imgur.com/TSulO3D.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/KBA3E2X.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/t3SRPr9.jpg

Looking forward to videos etc!
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Online store - www.ranglebox.com
Pulsar and friends.

Slick dude…i want to see it at the Nats though
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Miles Blow - Julie Pitts
www.mulesfilm.com.au
www.wombokforest.com.au

-Pickasso- Vivid Sportsman champion 2015

that is some mighty fine work there mate! i like it!
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Creative Instigation - Build Something Awesome!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTuWeJ4OrAcsmjKir9L4JNg

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Cheers guys, if anything else just wanted to make pretty robot

bit of progress over the weekend, top cover bolts on and lasered out a 3mm version of the wedge to see how it all fits.
I have a much better idea on how i want the proper wedge to be and with the frame only weighing 11kg leaves plenty of room to beef it up and make it spinner proof.

Photo of the 3mm test wedge:




For the Sportsman Class will just have 2 forks as the lifting arm, designed in a way to prevent other lifters getting underneath when the forks are down atleast.

Another addition I am working on is getting the hell away from stick radios, after the years and years of using a pistol grip radio for RC cars and watching my own fights over and over face palming at how bad the driving is due to massively over correcting with the sticks its time to see if i can develop a pistol grip radio with a 3rd proportional channel ie UP and DOWN controlled movement. I see many pistol radios which are 3 channel only have a on/off 3rd channel.
So my idea is firstly to see if the on/off 3rd channel can be swapped out for a potentiometer to get proportionate control forward and reverse.. i Imagine someone here would probably be able to tell me whether it would work or not..
IF it does fail then ill just simply rip a board out of a 4+ channel stick radio and fit it to pistol grip radio with a XBOX/PS toggle (small, has 2 POTS per toggle and has a return to centre spring) around the thumb area

and lastly a video (wedge is just skirting atm, have yet to attach it to the pulley and probably wont until i get the complete wedge, also using a pistol radio so slightly less horrible driving )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NapxRWDDAvc
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Barton Robotics Youtube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/dyl30

Barton Robotics Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/BartonRobotics

Very slick dude, love it
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<Patrician|Away> what does your robot do, sam
<bovril> it collects data about the surrounding environment, then discards it and drives into walls

Little bit of progress with Voli.. mostly just been waiting on some laser stuff to be delivered which arrived today.
Added some extra bracing to the front section of the frame.
Decided to change from using a bearing and just run bushes, gives more material in the front supports to make it as rigid as possible.


Emailed a bunch of laser cutting places to find the cheapest to get wearplate supplied and cut. Action Laser Cutting in the WA ended up being the best price wise for 6mm Hardox450. Also they appear to have sent extra parts for some reason, only ordered enough for 1 wedge and got 1 extra wedge and 1 extra support of each type, looking at the parts im guessing due to the extra ones not being cut very well so thats nice of them
Spinner Class Wedge:


Edges will be bent like the mockup wedge above.

Last thing i have been working on is a new controller to get away from using stick radios which i am just not very good at using due to using pistol grip radios for RC cars most of my life.
Sourced this radio from hobbyking, 4ch pistol grip with gyro intergrated RX (havent played with that but might come in handy one day)

the 2 extra channels are 1 on/off switch and the important one is the variable knob.
just have a servo horn on it atm so i can reach it with my thumb but toying around with ways to get it to return to centre on its own might come up with a nifty 3d printed design

left to do:
-Weld up new wedge
-secure all the wiring and internals a bit better
-design sportsman class lifting arm

looking forward to next years season
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Barton Robotics Youtube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/dyl30

Barton Robotics Facebook Page:
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very nice! I like the pistol grip radio... I've been looking for something similar myself, I much prefer how the bot drove with that kind of controller. Something about them feels much more natural

wicked build

A wild robot appears.
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Steven Martin
Twisted Constructions
http://www.botbitz.com

Been a while since an update.
Hadn't touched Voli since last year and with Vivid coming up it was time to drag it out from under the bed and finish it.

All that was left to do since last time was to make a sportsman legal lifting arm.



Also I had an idea of changing how the lifter functions instead of how pretty much every other lifter works ie controlling the speed and having to return to the correct positions manually or using limit switches which i dont believe can be done with brushless anyway.
So into the world of Arduino programming I went and with a lot of help from Steve manage to come up with a simple PID controller to operate the lifting arm to control its exact position like an RC Servo.
The setup uses a potentiometer on the end of the gearbox shaft as essentially a shaft encoder and well I imagine most people on here know a whole lot more about PID controllers then I do so get the jist of what the end result was.
The lifter is on a ON/OFF button on the tx, I had it on a variable position channel but I figured I only really need full up anyway.

Will pretty it all up with some paint and decals so it looks good for the crowd/videos

and now for the next 2 weeks it just lots of driving practice, it gets a mad 4wd drift going on the workshop floor.

https://youtu.be/FGa4Hm2ds8g
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Barton Robotics Youtube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/dyl30

Barton Robotics Facebook Page:
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Wow, that is one good looking bot! I like the idea of treating the lifting mechanism as a servo, think I read about Charles Guan doing something similar on one of his bots. I'm guessing the hinged bits on your lifter are for self-righting, Sewer-Snake style?

haha actually they are there cause there is a bit of play in the whole system so doesnt always return to the exact same position and when i had a solid arm if it travelled too far into the floor it lifts the front wheels off the ground and the whole thing drives poorly.. with the hinge it always is touching the floor and able to get under and lift other bots..
Doesnt drive too badly when upside down but driving ability should be enough to not get caught by any flippers
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Barton Robotics Youtube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/dyl30

Barton Robotics Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/BartonRobotics