Design Finalization Honeycomb v4 - Lead Up To September Scuffle

Final design update leading up to September Scuffle in Houston.

I've gone ahead and decided to go through and highlight the major design changes leading up to this next event, but first, RENDERS.

Design Changes

I'm going to go ahead and list off the major design changes from the previous iterations.

• Full HDPE Chassis
  No more titanium for Honeycomb. Even though it was very durable, it weighed too much to iterate the design much farther than where it already was especially for updating a new drive system.
• Drive Pod System
  Honeycomb will now have pre-assembled hot swappable drive pods that will heavily increase drive reliability through indirect drive, 1/4" steel wheel shafts, and now wheel guards.
  
  
  
• Casted Wheels
  I'm not sure how this will turn out, but the hope is to decrease weight and have a more robust drive through custom casted 3D printed nylon wheels with a steel reinforcement bushing. Might attempt a reinforced nylon or reinforcement screws down the road if the parts delaminate too easily, but figured I would try out non-reinforced to start. Hopefully I'll be able to get the polyurethane casted in an obnoxious yellow without excessively negative material property effects.
  
  
  
  
• Weapon Assembly
  I've moved away from press fit steel on an aluminum stock and will now be doing a sandwich weapon constrained by 2 1/4" grade 8 steel bolts down its length. The idea will be to tap the fingertech pully so I can directly screw down and constrain the assembly fully with the 2 bolts without the need of additional fastening hardware. This will save a significant amount of weight as well getting rid of the aluminum hex stock allowing me to allocate more weight to the drive system.

I'll try to get some manufacturing updates out over the next few weeks, but if not you can look forward to a event recap video from September Scuffle.

Stay Buzzin'

-Bloomington Sting

Year Recap, Design Updates, and More

 

This is a long overdue update on where Honeycomb is for competitions and design updates. I'm currently working on the development of a new bot and will be updating in the near future.

Current Bot Rank: 56

To give a general overview and summary of some issues that arose with mechanical and electrical design.

Bot randomly loosing power -> mounted the power turn switch directly to the chassis to allow for tighter turning to really get good connection for the power.

Reliability of 3D printed parts -> moved to machining the plastic components out of solid HDPE for better material properties and rigidity.

Ease of Electrical Service -> Moved to WAGO clamp connectors for power distribution for all systems. Directly soldering motors to ESCs without intermediate connectors. Improved serviceability and reliability.

Tire/Drive Train Reliability -> Full redesign of drive system. Moving to a drive pod system for serviceability, reliability, and pushing power. No longer using a direct drive system, now using gearing to reduce shock put directly into the drive motors. (See below) Need to redesign weapon assembly to save some weight, will probably move to a sandwich design and replace the center aluminum hex stock with plastic (probably HDPE, or 3D printed nylon)

Honeycomb 4.0

Santa Slam - December 2020
Placement: 2nd Place

Had a pretty good event overall here, my soldering needed some work as my power switch got damaged and I had to emergency solder a link connector for my final fight which ended up failing in the first collision. Overall since this event my soldering skills have improved tremendously and I think if I had the skill I have now then I could have taken home the win. This was also the event where I was randomly loosing power due to my power switch being under tightened, but that was addressed by the next event.

Spinners Spring 2021
Placement: 4th?

I didn't have my camera setup with me at this event, so I'm borrowing some of Peter's footage of our fights from this event. Go check out his channel here for some other cool videos of his bot Ablation competing -> Repeat Robotics

NHRL July 2021
Placement: 25th of 123

In July of last year, I finally made my pilgrimage to the holy site of all 3lbs combat robotics. Norwalk Havoc in Norwalk, CT. I had a great tournament and ended up gong 3-2 over all with my first loss to Silent X by Jamison Go. You will probably know Jamison Go from Team SawBlaze on BB, and my second loss to Animus by David Rush, who competes and drives for team Malice on BB. Great event, great experience, I hope to come back in the near future with a more competitive Honeycomb 4.0 and really show what I'm able to do.