I am excited to announce that SendCutSend has extended an initial sponsorship offer to Btown Sting. Honeycomb has been intentionally designed so that all parts are off the shelf, 3D printable, or Laser Cut at SendCutSend. I've been having all of my G5 Titanium, 6061, and AR500 components manufactured by SendCutSend for over a year now, and I've always been super satisfied with the quality, accuracy, and quick turn around I get on my parts. Even before this, I always recommended SendCutSend to people whenever they asked how I fabricated my parts.
It's been a while since I've updated the blog. I've been a bit lazy on it because of the lack of events due to covid, so I've been taking it easy just waiting for more events to open up. Since this event in February 2020, I've only competed in one other event. I'm going to spend the next day going over design changes and other updates related to the bot.
Event Recap
Round 1 - Dark Destroyr
I actually didn't get any video of this fight as we didn't have time to set up the camera and begin recording before the match started. Dark Destroyr was a fully 3D printed bot by a rookie team, I believe this was their first event ever. Dark destroyer was made mostly of PLA and PVC tubes. Once the match started I gave them one good hit and the PLA components shattered prompting a tap out from their team. 1-0 for the day.
Round 2 - H5N1
I've fought H5N1 previously, and I was super excited to get to fight them again. At the previous event at the same location they ended up winning the entire tournament, so I was super excited to get to fight a well designed destructive bot. Off the bat I noticed that my actuated ground scraping forks were working very well allowing me to get underneath their wedge and get the best of most exchanges. However, this is where I noticed that on every hit, my bot would pivot forward and the weapon would catch the ground sending my bot backwards as well (which cant be good for my belts or weapon motor). After a few good exchanges I eventually dislodged their top panel exposing their battery for the win. 2-0 for the day.
Round 3 - Snowfire
Sorry for the crap picture, I didn't have a better one, so I ripped it from the video.
After my morning look around the pits and watching their fights from earlier in the day, I figured that Snowfire would probably be my toughest opponent. Snowfire is a 2WD robot using the Fingertech Beater Bar as their primary weapon. Snowfire has a very rugged build with the only majorly vulnerable components being the foam wheels and weapon belts. During this fight once again I was noticing that during most exchanges even if I got the better hit in, my robot's weapon would catch the ground sending me backwards not allowing me to capitalize on any good hits I gave out. During this match I managed to launch Snowfire with their weapon at full speed into the acrylic side wall, punching out one of the panes. After much back and forth I eventually lost one side of my drive and was pitted by Snowfire. 2-1 for the day.
Round 4 - H5N1 pt. 2
We ended up meeting H5N1 a second time in the losers bracket. During this match it went similarly to the first one, with my forks really getting underneath their wedge giving me the upper hand in almost every exchange. We end up getting entangled a couple times, with the second time us staying entangled for the majority of the match before a stoppage was called. After the second entanglement they were stuck on their side with no way to self right. 3-1 for the day.
Round 5 - Snowfire pt. 2
Now that we've fought our way through the Losers Bracket, we are once again fight Snowfire in the finals match. Unfortunately for us, Snowfire quickly gets the better of the first exchange and removes one of our wheels, prompting a tap out from me. 3-2 for the day taking 2nd place with our only loses being to Snowfire.
Post Tournament Design Criticism
Identifiable Issues
On most exchanges due to the design of my side plates my robot tips forward causing the weapon to catch on the ground sending me backwards. This prevents me from being able to capitalize on my opponent while they're in a vulnerable position, and this also can't be very good for my weapon belts and motors.
Just as they have been historically my wheels are very brittle and tend to get broken way too often. They need to be a more durable material.
My weapon speed seems to be really low, I'm pretty sure that with the 1500kv motor and battery at full charge its only going about 150mph tip speed which is fairly low especially for beetleweight bots and I'm ending matches with over 50% or more of my usable battery left. I think if I got my weapon spinning faster I could really start delivering those super destructive knockout hits and really send robots flying to the roof.
Proposed Solutions
1.
Old Side Plate
New Side Plate
The idea behind this new design is that the weapon will now be supported directly under the shaft instead of 1 inch behind. With the old side plate I was essentially creating a fulcrum for the bot to pivot on with the weapon on one side and the rest of the body on the other. After an exchange the bot would pivot forward causing the weapon to catch on the ground sending me backwards. With the new plate, I have essentially removed the fulcrum now that the weapon is supported directly underneath. This should eliminate the bot from tilting forward and better improve my weight distribution which should also give me more traction on my wheels.
2.
I got polycarb wheel water jet cut. I really like the sandwich design with the rubber slips, so I'm going to continue to use that, but just replace the brittle acrylic with the new polycarb rounds.
3.
I'm upgrading to a 2700kv Propdrive V2 motor. This should push my weapon speed to around that 250mph sweet spot and really start to damage and remove parts from other bots.
