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.
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.
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.
We ended up finishing 2nd at Maker X Ohio. Big congrats to Snowfire for taking the tournament undefeated. I'm gonna throw together a quick video of our fights, we were unable to get our first and last fight due to extenuating circumstances, but we have our 2 fights against H5N1 and 1 fight against Snowfire. I'll probably do a full event recap at some point soon whenever I finish with the video, but with Midterms this week I'm quite busy.
As far as pros and cons go I'll make a quick list, a lot of these points are relative to the old design.
Pros:
Much higher damage, with my weapon assembly being about 70% heavier than the previous we were dishing out much more devastating hits consistently.
Ground scraping forks were pivotal to us winning most of our fights as they allowed us to get under other people's wedges and really toss them around.
ABS and the aluminum standoffs proved to be a lot more robust than the old design and allowed me to give and receive many more hits than I used to be able to take.
The grade-8 steel dead shaft significantly increased the durability of the bot by moving the load from the 3D printed parts to into the weapon assembly.
Making the 3D printed parts simply dividers rather than load bearing/structural components improved reliability, and even when a part would crack/chip it usually wont warrant a full replacement.
Looks cool AF.
Cons:
With the new weight of the weapon, on lower friction surfaces driving becomes difficult/impossible due to the weight distribution being quite front heavy.
Had a scare and got weighed at 3.2lbs, even though I've calculated the weight at exactly 2lbs15.7oz. I've also used multiple scales of a higher accuracy to weigh the bot prior to the event consistantly weighing in at 2lbs15.7oz +-.1oz. I'm going to chalk that up to inaccurate scale used by the event, because it kept fluctuating between 2.9, 3.0, and 3.2lbs. This scale also didn't have accuracy greater than one decimal place, and no oz or fraction of ounce weight accuracy. We ended up checking weight on other scales and concluded that the scale wasn't accurate.
Improvements:
Move the the fulcrum point where the skids touch the ground up .75" to put more weight on the wheels and improve traction.
Lower mid plate print density to allow for the fulcrum improvement.
Up the KV rating of motor from 1100 to 1500, which should increase the max speed of the weapon significantly.
A bit late, but I'm updating a couple posts leading up to MakerX Columbus Combat 2020 next weekend. First of all I'd like to recap Taproom Tapout and what it means for me.
Taproom Tap Out was a fairly successful tournament with 2 strong wins, 1 good loss, and 1 fight of me getting my shit tossed by a Weta. Since I already posted the video I don't feel like there is much more I can add that would be worth while.
The biggest thing after this tournament is that I no longer have any spare metal parts for Honeycomb. I've been working hard to get my new bot up and running.
The bottom image is not a fully accurate representation of the new design, didn't have a most recent render on hand.
List of changes: Old -> New
3D printed weapon motor mount -> aluminum weapon motor mount now attached to the frame with aluminum standoffs
3" total height -> 2-3/8" total height
2-1/4" chassis height -> 1-1/4" chassis height
live 3/8" aluminum weapon shaft -> dead 5/16" grade 8 steel weapon shaft (also changed to roller bearings instead of ball bearings)
side plates 1/4" aluminum -> 1/8" titanium
3" acrylic wheels -> 2-3/8" banebots wheels
sprocket and chain -> belts and pulley
polycarbonate wedge -> ar500 forks
4140 weapon teeth -> ar500 weapon teeth
drum design -> new hex drum design which should be robust and significantly heavier
no z-support standoffs -> z-support standoffs to help make the robot more robust between the top and bottom plates
flat back plate -> rounded back-plate so I can no longer get stuck on my back.
no side armor -> side armor to protect the shaft mounting point
Hopefully all of these changes will solve reliability issues, up damage, and potentially lead to more consistent performance across tournaments and throughout the day at tournaments. The bot was also redesigned to be 100% laser cut with the only part needing to be machined being the aluminum drum that the teeth mount on. I am also planning on completely removing the lexan wedge option and plan on potentially introducing a large fork/full wedge option to deal with some of the bigger spinners that have historically given me trouble in competitions. This would involve removing the weapon and all related sub assemblies and replacing all that weight with said wedge/forks. This modular option will not be ready for the next tournament, but this new design was created with this potential option in mind.
For this tournament we were headed down to Nashville, Tennessee's Adventure Science Center. We ended up getting there around 10:00AM Saturday morning of the event. We unloaded the car, and moved inside to the room that the tournament was going to be hosted in. We got set up at our table and got the bot ready for weigh in.
Ready for a tournament!!!
The box was pretty cool, with a pit on one side and a free spinning disk in the middle. So when attempting to accelerate tangent to the disk, the disk will just spin out and cause you to not move where you are expecting to, or when driving over the disk it may create variable driving conditions that few drivers are used to.
The box we will be fighting in.
I compiled all the fights and the rumble together into one video. Below the video I have some comments and thoughts I had about each fight. Due to the size of the bracket there were a max of 4 fights for the day. Sorry for video quality of the rumble, we didn't have video stabilization on :(
Fight 1 Honeycomb vs Tweetle - Quarter Finals
Tweetle is an overhead saw bot with a wide base and aluminum scrapes on the front. However, I noticed early on that the center 2 forks actually ride up a bit above the ground, and I suspected if I just went head on with my wedge, I would most likely be able to get underneath him and knock him around and really control the fight. All goes pretty well and I end up winning this fight with no issues. Only thing to do is recharge the battery.
Fight 2 Honeycomb vs Pyramid of Death - Semi Finals
Pyramid of Death is exactly what it sounds like, a pyramid shaped robot that is very low to the ground on all sides, and on one side it actually has a ground scraping metal wedge. I figured that my wedge could get under it on the sides without the metal wedge, as they were not actually touching the ground. Additionally, the drive train for Pyramid of Death seems relatively powerful, but slow and lacking wheel traction, so I think if I can get to one of the sides I should be able to push POD around and really control the fight. It ends up going well, I end up getting tearing up his wedge a bit and close out the fight with a nasty hit which completely flips POD over and he gets counted out.
Fight 3 Honeycomb vs Tweetle Round 2 - Finals
Tweetle ends up making it all the way through the losers bracket and we end up meeting again in finals. Over all my plan going into this match was about the same. Part way through the match however, I break my mid plate which holds my two bearing plates the proper distance from each other so my weapon shaft doesn't fall out. The two bearing plates separate from each other enough for the weapon shaft to fall out. This renders my weapon useless for the rest of the match, and I lose this match to judges decision.
Fight 4 Honeycomb vs Tweetle Round 3 - Finals
Since I was undefeated for the day, Tweetle had to win 2 times since we were in a double elimination bracket. After the break in the lasts match I pressed the two halves together and wrapped duct tape around it so that it wouldn't come apart again. I think as long as I continue to use the 3D printed center part, I may continue to just tape it as these 3D printed parts are good with compressive forces, but are pretty weak under high tensile forces, shear, and shock. So maybe the tape will be good insurance that the two sides wont come apart in the future even if the mid-plate breaks like it did during fight 3. With the weapon fully working, I was able to get a lot of good hits off during this last match. Tweetle ends up driving into the pit after a while. This is the final round and I ended up winning the tournament 3-1.
3lbs Rumble
The remaining functional bots took it to the arena to bout it out for 5 minutes. During this shoot we forgot to turn on our image stabilization so during some refocusing of the camera it ended up being pretty shaky for the majority of the match. :(
The Recap
Just like last time I think I still have some of the same issues with just material properties. Currently, I am designing a new 3lbs robot, and when I go to have parts cut for the new bot, I might have some new parts cut for Honeycomb to make it more reliable.
I think I could also cut down the size of my battery to 850mah, 650mah, or possibly even lower. Currently, I'm running a 1000mah 3S battery which is definitely over-spec'd for this bot. I could probably up the power of this bot by cutting down to a 850mah or a 650mah, but up to 4 cell battery for higher weapon speeds. Need to do some rough calculations, but current estimate is I can definitely reduce to a 850mah battery, possibly the 650mah.
Overall, this was a really fun tournament that wasn't too far away, hope to make my way back for the next tournament hosted by MTRAS. (Also love coming down for the BBQ :P)
This is pretty late, but I have been very buy with the start of the school year. Without wasting anymore time lets get into it. For this tournament me and RJ traveled to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. We left home about 10PM Friday evening, with plans on arriving there at about 8-9AM Saturday morning. Travel goes well without a hitch, and we end up arriving at around 8:30AM.
This tournament was hosted by Raymour and Flanigan furniture store, and they had the box set up in the middle of the Store, and it was the first thing you saw when walking in to the store. Very cool setup with a lot of couches and chairs surrounding the box for people to sit and watch the event.
The box setup in the main lobby of the store
When getting there, they had us move around back to their warehouse area which is where they had us set up pits.
I ended up wearing my old high school robotics shirt, represent.
Me rebuilding the weapon assembly for the 4th time that morning.
The first fight of the day was against Captain Doom. Captain doom had 5 ground scraping forks on the front of their bot and a powerful drive train that made them very difficult to bully around the box. Without my primary weapon this match was going to be near impossible to win due to their more powerful drive train and low ground clearance. At the end of the match however, we have a giant collision that ends up knocking something lose in Captain Doom and they are rendered immobile. We win the match and qualify for the round of 8.
Since Captain Doom was just a push bot, we didn't have any repairs to do outside of charging the batteries. This left us a lot of time to try and figure out why our weapon wasn't spinning up. Upon the recommendation of another builder (I can't recall who) we lowered the kv of our brushless motor and swapped from a 3200kv motor to a 1100kv motor.
Me rebuilding the weapon assembly yet again.
Finally ready, with the weapon working.
For the next match of the day, we were facing Mondo Bizarro. Mondo has a very nasty vertical spinner on the front, but a relatively weak drive train. So for this match I wanted to stay away from the front of his bot and get around to the sides and the back. However, this did not go quire as planned, and I took a lot of early hits that ultimately led to the failure of my weapon. This fight won me "Most Destroyed".
After it was all said and done, we were unable to continue on the day. We finished top 8 and got this cool gif.
cool gif
Overall Thoughts:
I think performance was pretty okay, but had issues with reliability off the bat. Below are a few thought on how to change the design and how to prepare for future competitions next calendar year.
Remove all 3D printed parts from the design. They are pretty rigid, but tend to snap and break instead of losing chunks and chipping. Want to switch over to UHMW for the mid and back plate, or possibly 2 different materials. The logic being that the back is subjected to more hits, and the mid is subjected to more torque and sheer force as the different sides get hit. Will probably get completed after the November Tournament in Virginia.
Make the permanent switch over to a lower kv motor. Maybe not 1100kv as that seems a little bit too low, but under 2000kv. However, all I have on hand are 1100kv, I'll see if I can find some 14-18 hundred kv motors before the next tournament. (Will probably get completed before the next competition in 2 weeks)
Practice driving, I really shot myself in the foot not practicing driving more, with that being very apparent in the Mondo match.
When replacing the set screws for the wheel hubs, I noticed that the hole in the hub isn't actually lining up with the slots in the drive shaft and the set screws are actually sitting outside of the slot. So, I'm going to do a slight rearrangement of the wheel assembly to see if I can get the slots to line up with the set screw, and if not I'll grind the slot slightly wider to accommodate. I suspect that this was the reason why I lost so many wheels in my first competition, since the set screws weren't in the slots, any loosening of these screws would cause the wheels to come off with enough centripetal force.
Also related to the wheel assembly is that the mounting hubs are actually not screwed in all the way due to the short length of the screws used to screw it in. I believe at some point in the design process I changed the depth of the counter sink and never adjusted the screw size to accommodate for the new longer distance the screw has to reach to be fully threaded into the mounting hub. If I have the time I'm going to make my way over to the hardware store to get a 1/4" or 5/16" screw to replace the current 3/16". I didn't necessarily have issues with the hub ever coming lose in the last event, but better safe than sorry.
Additionally the teeth on the weapon are only held in place with zip ties working kind of like a shaft collar. I think I'm going to try and replace them with larger zip ties to get a more effective collar on the shaft, possibly add some sort of high friction item on it so that it really chokes the shaft and doesn't slide.
Update On Current Status
With the competition coming up in just a few short days, I'm getting down to the wire here. I still have to manufacture 1 more wedge, I don't think I'll need more than 2 for the whole weekend. However, if time allows I will try to cut out one more so that I can have a total of 3 for the weekend. I currently have only 1 extra back plate, but I'm not really worried about any of the bots at this event having the destructive power to destroy the plate outside of Silent Spring since most of them are wedge bots, or other vertical spinners.
Yesterday evening the Blue Loctite, vice grips and brightly colored duct tape to mark my vice girps came in the mail. This morning I made my way over to Kleindorfer's hardware. They have consistently been a great help to help me find the hardware that I need, with fast and professional customer service. They helped me locate replacement screws for a few different applications around the bot which include...
Wheel set screws - will lock
Drive motor mount screws - will lock
Shaft collar screws - will not be locked
Weapon motor mount set screw - will lock
I was able to get most of them in a higher grade than what came with the parts originally to hopefully, when paired with Loctite, hold up better to repeated screwing.
Today I was also able to print out the outline for the new wedge, the new angle of the wedge even on paper is looking a lot better than what it used to and I will hopefully have it all cut out and ground down by Sunday.
Officially signed up for R&F Robot Fight 2019 (9/14/19) and Hill City Robot Combat 2019 (11/9/19). Was unable to sign up for NERC Franklin Institute 2019.
Rebuild
Currently: The bot is completely rebuilt, have run a weapon and drive test and everything seems to be working. Updated the circuit to allow myself to more easily turn off and on the bot (and make it compliant with safety protocol.
To Do: Cut and grind new wedge and backup wedge, buy stainless steel replacement screws for all set screws and shaft collars, buy loctite and apply to appropriate areas.
While flying home, I had a lot of time to review a lot of the film more closely, and reflect more on things that went right and wrong in and out of the box at the last competition. I'll be splitting up the list by rough groupings of what the note has to do with.
Driving Technique and Bot Configurations:
For the first couple matches I had the control toggle on on the controller, this toggle is designed to give finer movement and control of RC devices. As I quickly found out I was one of the quicker bots in the arena and should be leveraging that to my fullest advantage instead of trying to focus on the finer movement.
Use speed to more effectively get around to other bots sides.
Remove wedge for large vertical spinners with a wedge.
Weapon Management and Battery:
From what I can tell the battery is over specd and is capable of running multiple matches without needing to be recharged/replaced. However this is only speculative and is based on 2 relatively short matches. Maybe cut back to a 750mah or 850mah to help cut weight and size. Will need to do actual math for this, ugh.
Rev to higher rpm, with 4 weapon teeth I can afford it. Didn't seem to have any termal or reliability issues after removing that one tooth. Also didn't cog as much (only during a new dig match) as it did during pre-competition testing.
Weapon reliably started up and reved quickly. Considering changing weapon gear to 18 or 22 teeth so that I can get a better ratio to hopefully solve any cogging that is still existent.
Things to Change/Improve/Redesign:
Loctite, almost lost semi-finals to a lose drive motor, luckily it didn't come lose till the tail-end of the fight. Wheel set screws, weapon set screw, drive motor mount screws.
Even out the grind on the drive motors key slot.
Prep all my motors leading up to next event (luckily at this last event I didn't have any motors burn out) so that if one breaks I can actually change it.
Lower wedge angle, and grind it more flush with the floor.
Make sure wedge is actually touching the floor.
Things to buy:
LOCTITE on drive motor mounts. All 6-32 screws seem to stay tight and probably don't need it. Maybe on set screw for wheel and weapon mount?
Belt Sander to grind wedge better, (brownsville???) if not go to grainger or other tool supply store
3/16 steel setscrews for weapon hub.
possibly new sized banebot hub?
Switch out screws on shaft collars to stainless steel ones from the stripped crap screws that are on them now.
Event Update
Events that I am attempting to attend in the next couple of months leading into the new year are...
This may change based on class/project/test schedule this coming semester. Each event is about a month apart so that I have a break between tournaments to reprint, fix, and update design between events. Currently, I am registered for R&F and HCR, and will be attempting signup on Friday at 8PM est for the NERC event. I have been warned that the event will be very hard to get into and that the signup will fill up extremely fast, so I plan on being online and on top of it that day.
After this weekend and getting my first real driving practice with the bot with the weapon in full swing I have a lot of personal notes for ideas on how to improve the design before the next tournament in September (hopefully). First things first I want to cover pros and cons of the design that I saw this weekend.
Pros:
reliable/rugged
high potential damage
very fast, seemed to be one of the top 2 fastest bots there in the weight division which has potential for a lot of out driving these drive motors are very well rounded and are probably actually over-sized for this weight division.
lots of torque, won a few pushing matches
invertable, can drive upside down
after reducing the weapon teeth from 5 to 4, I had a lot higher weapon reliability.
Cons:
relatively high wedge clearance, wasn't winning wedge on wedge fights
steep wedge, couldn't get people up the wedge due to the aggressive 45 degree angel
difficult to open and close top of robot quickly
need a main power switch that powers and unpowers the whole bot, opposed to the janky 5v eliminator workaround I had
Ideas for redesign:
Less steep wedge to allow bots to actually drive up it and into the weapon, lower the grade of the wedge by 33% and bring it down to 30 degrees instead of 45.
Better ground wedge, have it have a lot tighter ground clearance to allow me to win more of the battles for the low ground.
Possibly change wedge material to aluminum sheet? (not sure if weight will allow)
Redesign backplate of the robot since I abandoned the side armor in favor of a front wedge.
Use loctite to connect the drive motors with their mounting hubs, they tended to unscrew themselves after rougher matches and when the weapon was running for a long time, this connection should be almost permanent except for when a drive motor burns out. Actually had a drive motor twist its leads to crap after it came unscrewed during a match.
Add tolerances to the mounting holes in the backplate so that I don't have to sand it for 50 minutes every time I print a new one.
Possibly add a well for the nuts that attach the top and bottom plates to the frame, to hopefully decrease time it takes to remove and attach it.
Look into why the nut in the middle of the top plate keeps getting stripped and messed up. I've had to dremmel off the screw 3 times now. :( not fun.
Yesterday, marked the completion of the first ever tournament Honeycomb has been a part of. We finished a proud 2nd place, and lost a hard fought match in the finals. Video to be edited and uploaded within the week so stay posted!!! Below are a few pics and our schedule from the day.
4:15AM
We had an early start to our day. We spent the morning getting ready for the day, grabbing breakfast, double checking that everything was packed away and that we weren't forgetting any important items that would be needed during the day.
5:15AM
We hit the road for our three and a half hour drive up to Columbus, Ohio.
9:00AM
We arrive at the Ohio State Fair, we get the bin unloaded from the car and meet up with Tad Douce, to receive further information and our entry passes upon arrival.
9:15AM
We make it to our pit area and start to unload and prepare the table for the day ahead.
Our table setup.
The battle box that we would be competing in for the day.
10:00AM
We go to safety inspection and initial weigh in. We pass safety inspection and, weigh in at 2lbs 15oz. We are good to go for the day.
Us after passing safety inspection. 😎
11:00AM
Driver meeting to review rules, regulations, and format. The format is set up so that we alternate between ant-weight (1 lbs bots) bracket, and beetleweight bracket (our division). During a match if 2 bots become immobilized at the same time by getting stuck on each other time will be paused and they will be unstuck from each other and the match will continue, there is a pit that opens on the far side of the arena partway through the match that gets announced 30 seconds before it gets opened. Double elimination bracket setup. Matches start for the day.
11:30AM
Our first match is against Sean V2. A wedge bot. We had a hard fight, but we ended up losing to them after they push us out of the ring after the pit door opens up. We are now in the losers bracket.
Sean V2
1:00PM
Due to technical difficulties from Wee Dotty-M, the other team, they were given till after lunch to repair their bot. We get in the box, and since they didn't have a wedge I quickly got underneath them and flipped them over. They then got counted out for an immobilization count. That's one win in the losers bracket!!!
1:15PM
Since we had a delayed match from before lunch played at 1:00PM, we ended up going straight into our next match at 1:15PM. We were against A new DIG. This bot has a 3" circle saw mounted to a brushless motor on the front of it and uses it to cut into other bots. We have some back and forth until I get a big hit and and flip him over. A new DIG is then counted out for immobilization count. That's 2 wins in the losers bracket!!!
1:45 PM
Our next match is against Rebecca, a giant pan robot (image unavailable on buildersDB). On the front of Rebecca is a giant aluminum scoop, that is used to deflect blows, and other bots around. I quickly noticed that whenever he accelerated forward there was a small window of when his wedged popped up off the ground, and I was able to exploit that and continually get underneath his wedge for the rest of the match. I end up removing some pieces from him and win in a knockout. That is 3 wins in the losers bracket!!! Since we won the entire losers bracket, we are now entering into semi-finals with a rematch against Sean V2.
2:00PM
Semi-finals match, we are now in a rematch against Sean V2. For the first match I left the control switch on, a switch designed for model planes to allow for slower more precise movement, but for this one I knew that I had to be as fast as I could possibly be so I drove without for the duration of the match. There was a lot of back and forth during this match and he almost pushed me into the pit again, but with the increased speed I was consistantly getting around to his sides and biting his wheels up. The match went the full 3 minutes and under judges decision it went to me!!! We are now 4-1 on the day, going into finals, to contend for first place!!!
2:30PM
Finals match is upon us. We are fighting against H5N1, a vertical bar spinner. During the match for the first part of the match he gets a lot of large hits in on me and eventually rips off my wedge. After the wedge gets ripped off I get a large hit back on him flipping him over. However, he is still able to drive slowly upside down and is not counted out. I have to go back in for another hit because I am currently losing the match and my only hope is to hit him again. I hit him again, and he gets re-righted and continues to pummel me. I eventually get to a point where my entire back plate was destroyed, and I was missing a wheel on my left side. I decide to throw in the towel and tap out so that I can salvage my motors and escs for a rebuild. Congrats to H5N1 on the win!!!
3:00PM
Everything is all said and done, we finished in 2nd place!!! Super proud of how well we did, and I'm super excited to compete at more events in the future.
Damage that we took from last fight...
Lost front wedge
Bent weapon axle
Left wheel destroyed and removed
Back plate destroyed
Mid plate cracked
Chain has a couple compromised links
All the electronics appear to be working correctly and at worst might need to be rewired. Overall this was an awesome day!!!
Due to poor design on my part, I've had to do a redesign of the weapon motor mount. I didn't have proper clearance around the weapon motor shaft and it was unable to spin up. I have since ordered some Aluminum Motor Mounts and plan on mounting them inside the chassis with this new piece that I designed.
Overall, I think this new piece should solve the issues. Potential issues with this part is it failing due to the force the motor exerts on it, however It has been designed to withstand a lot of force from the top plane inwards towards the center without having to rely too heavily on the screws that attach it to the chassis.
Pictured is a few of the pieces I had fabricated, everything else that was fabricated are just duplicates of the pieces already pictured. Top left is the drum pieces, top right are the side plates that mount the majority of the electronics, bottom left is the top plate, bottom right is the bottom plate.
I received the pieces back from TruFab on Tuesday. The parts came out beautifully all within the necessary tolerances for the other parts to press fit together with only some minor grinding. Currently doing a rough fitting of all the pieces and plan on rewiring once I see how much space I have to work with inside the bot.
When testing the weapon motor mount inside the bot, the component suffered failure in one of the mounting sockets, currently working on a redesign of the weapon motor mount and considering switching to this pre-made mount from Hobby King. However, this would require a redesign of some of the internal structures.
Side plates (left), drum pieces (top right), and the remains of the 4140 steel plate that the drum pieces were cut from (right)
I received an update email from TruFab this morning and attached was the image shown above. The side plates and drum pieces have been cut out.
It appears that what they have left is the side armor and top and bottom plates which will all be water-jet cut out of the 1/16" poly-carbonate, and the counter sinks in the side plates. Their machinist is out for the holiday so the counter sink work won't happen till either Friday or next week and the entire job is expected to be finished by mid next week. Super excited to get the parts and start the final build. There are some small adjustments that I will have to make in concerns to weight as the weight changed slightly due to the material change for the drum pieces. Possibly might have to go to 4 drum pieces instead of 5, additionally I want to design a front wedge/scoop using the Lexan to attach where the side armor will be attaching on the side plates to allow the bot to win battle for the low ground.
After doing some asking around, I ended up finding a local sponsor. Big thanks to TruFab Stainless here in Bloomington, Indiana. They have generously offered to donate their time to fabricate all parts that are needed for the robot.
I made my way up to Indianapolis the morning of 6/26/2019 to visit a couple stock metal and plastic businesses that I have been talking to. Ended up getting my 6061 Aluminum and 4140 Steel from Metal Supermarkets Indianapolis, and my 1/16" poly-carbonate sheet from Auburn Plastics & Rubber. Both of the supplier businesses had fantastic customer service and were very nice, would highly recommend either one for low volume orders of stock supplies.
After I finished picking up all of the stock I made my way back down to TruFab back in Bloomington. I got a chance to meet the staff and everyone was super friendly and taking in interest in the team, as promised I will make my way back over once I have the bot all finished to show them what's been going on. Once again, many thanks TruFab for their donation to the team.
