What Wieght robotics should WA host |
Soz bots (450g) |
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7% |
[ 1 ] |
kilo bots (1kg) |
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7% |
[ 1 ] |
bullant (2kg) |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
hobby wieght (6kg) |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
feather wieght (12kg) |
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61% |
[ 8 ] |
other |
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23% |
[ 3 ] |
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Total Votes : 13 |
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Spockie-Tech
Site Admin
Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 3160
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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play nice guys...
actually, the arena is a very good point.. I'm sure Jeff/Nick/Chris can now tell you how hard it is to make a *single-wall*-3mm lexan arena, the 6mm two-wall half-steel/half lexan arena at sidetracked cost around $5000 to build..
If you start off with antweights, you can buy a $90 Futaba Attack 2 ch Radio with a couple of servos that you can modify into drive motors, dont need a speed controller, big batteries, a high current charger, and build a 5-foot square arena with 1mm lexan, and build the bot with hand tools and hot-glue on your kitchen table.
Sure, it wont have the excitement of a robot that weights 25 times as much crashing into each other, but it might be enough to get a few young kids involved, and you can always grow from there..
The bottom line is that the bots have to be built first, before the arena's catch up.. (no one is going to spend thousands building an arena if there arent any bots), so by starting rolling a smaller snowball than usual, it will take longer to grow, but keep pushing and it will..
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Fri Jul 02, 2004 12:55 am |
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DumHed
Experienced Roboteer
Joined: 29 Jun 2004
Posts: 1219
Location: Sydney
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I think a big part of the robot fighting effect is having something large enough to really do some nasty damage, and make the accompanying sounds, sparks, and general carnage.
Also, why look at the whole thing as a list of costs?
My robot was built amost all out of bits I scrounged for free. A bit of imagination and ingenuity goes a long way when it comes to building something cheap.
My radio set (Hitec 2 channel, with receiver and servos) cost $30 in a sale.
Apart from that I spent about $40 in parts, half of which was a set of saw blades, and another 1/4 to a 1/3 was microswitches.
I rigged up a system to control the weapon and the main motors semi individually from the 2 channel controller.
It's very hard to beat the red wheels / XU1 drill combo for motive power, and you also get batteries with it.
After this weekend it also looks like the XU1's speed controller is quite usable too with a linkage to a servo, and a changeover switch or microswitches to do the forward / reverse.
I used some framework from a work bench to make my chassis, and the armour was made from the casings of some unused rack cases.
I only used normal hand tools to build it too (an XU1 drill mainly!)
I didn't have access to a lathe, or anything very specialised so I chose a design based on what would go together with the least hassle.
If I had the time I would have gone on a brief scrap metal / wrecking yard mission too, because you can find some excellent stuff for very small dollars in such places.
Car radiator and heater fan motors are pretty good for weapons, and windscreen wiper motors usually have quite a nice gear reduction and nice easy mounting brackets.
Robots don't have to cost much to build, but if no lateral thinking is applied it will always end up being pretty expensive.
One thing to avoid too is forcing yourself to stick too rigidly to a design.
Play with bits and pieces you can get for free to begin with and work it out from there.
If you design your bot around the available materials it'll be simple and cheap - but if you design it and then have to buy specific parts it'll cost a packet. _________________
The Engine Whisperer
- fixer of things
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Sun Jul 04, 2004 10:52 pm |
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