Goals
To build a competitive lightweight class
BattleBot.
Build Progress: February March April May
After watching a few episodes of Battlebots
and seeing several of the builders web sites,
we gravitated toward a semi-wedge design.
We wanted a simple design that would not
be vulnerable to being flipped. In order
to accomplish this we wanted to allow the
bot to be driven upside down. Going beyond
a simple wedge design, we opted to include
a lifting arm. The arm would serve double
duty as a clamping mechanism.We decided to construct the frame using 1/2"
square steel tubing. We felt that this would
provide a excellent strength to weight ratio.
Additionally, the tubular frame design would
not cause radio interference, unlike a metallic
sheet design. For the armor, a fiberglass/Kevlar composite
was chosen, again for the strength to weight
ratio. Fiberglass is low cost and has a higher
strength than Lexan. Kevlar would be used
on the outer layers for protection against
the kill saws. A nonmetallic armor was would
allow us to have an internal antenna, avoiding
radio interference problems (hopefully). In order to provide adequate traction, we
planned on using Colson wheels, due to their
proven success with other well known bots.
We decided to use a chain drive from the
drive motors to the wheels, so that a small
amount of misalignment could be accommodated. To power the bot, we decided to use two 18V
cordless drill motors, knowing that this
had been a popular choice with other builders.
One of the advantages of using cordless drill
motors is that they typically come with their
own batteries and chargers. A CAD model was created using the appropriate
sizing to optimize positioning of the components
and the overall size of the bot.
Build Progress: February March April May
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