4 chameleon bots will hit the road in 2009

It looks as though we will be campaigning 4 bots this season.

2 beefed up rattlers from last year and 2 new Ti bots

All bots will be chameleons and sport either powered wedges or single blade funky design high rpm drums.

Look for us at the Museum of Science in September.

I look forward to seeing the entire fleet together! how is the new drum working out? My friend Alan said he saw somebody at Simmons on Saturday looking for some aluminum tubing to make a 25k drum.. and I don't think I know of anybody around Miami that is!

Guilty as charged

The rattler drums will be made from thick wall tubing, while the Ti bots will be made from solid.

So we were picking up material to make them all plus some spares.

The new Ti bot drums will be pretty nice.

wow.. that's amazing. solid aluminum?? yikes..

Will Bales wrote:

wow.. that's amazing. solid aluminum?? yikes..

Only because we want 1 piece drums and they didn't have 1" wall alu 6061

fair enough.. and you're still under weight?

Will Bales wrote:

fair enough.. and you're still under weight?

by the skin of our teeth, Yes....so far

haha that's the way to do it! Welcome to the club!!

Will Bales wrote:

haha that's the way to do it! Welcome to the club!!

Last year, both bots were within 1/2 oz of 15 lbs...this year we expect the same

rjw wrote:

Will Bales wrote:

haha that's the way to do it! Welcome to the club!!

Last year, both bots were within 1/2 oz of 15 lbs...this year we expect the same

HAHAHA!! NOOBS!! I am always under by at least 3.5 lbs. LMAO.

Sean Rubin wrote:

rjw wrote:

Will Bales wrote:

haha that's the way to do it! Welcome to the club!!

Last year, both bots were within 1/2 oz of 15 lbs...this year we expect the same

HAHAHA!! NOOBS!! I am always under by at least 3.5 lbs. LMAO.

Why would you want to be so far under???

rjw wrote:

Sean Rubin wrote:

rjw wrote:

Will Bales wrote:

haha that's the way to do it! Welcome to the club!!

Last year, both bots were within 1/2 oz of 15 lbs...this year we expect the same

HAHAHA!! NOOBS!! I am always under by at least 3.5 lbs. LMAO.

Why would you want to be so far under???

Having no active weapons seems to help with staying underweight...

haha every time that Sean has gotten a robot together, it's several pounds underweight.. and he never adds any.. it's not super intelligent..

with some robots, if you removed the active weapon, the bot would weigh 3 lbs....lol

I'm just wondering...

From your school I have only seen you post on any forum (This, RFL). Where are your students? It seems like basically you alone have built these bots. I just want to make sure that if your school is going to enter in highschool events that the bots are as close to 100% student made as possible.

ooo man here we go

Cody Harris wrote:

ooo man here we go

What do you mean?

Whats your oppinion on students designing pieces and having them made? If a school doesnt have the resources such as a mill, such an instance a piece isnt 100% student made

Thats why I said as much as possible. Outsourcing is fine as it's student designed and something that isnt possible otherwise. I think that advisors are there to make sure the kids dont kill themselves and to teach skills like solidworks, welding, machining. Advisors being involved in any skill required activity on the robot is a no-no. ie teacher tweaking the cad before its sent off to whyachi. I say its good to let kids make mistakes. That's how they learn. Advisors tweaking the cads or machining parts is undermining the whole point of educational robotics.

The best part about it is that nobody from mlec has replied to this.

Ok...I'll reply

If you have PROOF of anything that you think is going on, then let's hear it

Otherwise....???

Ok, no problem. I'm not one to make accusations with no support.

1. You sound pretty defensive.

2. Tons of your own posts!

Here's a post where you consider adding a beater to the robot. I dont know about you, but that's the kind of decision the team should make. RFL forum post 6196.1


" I am looking to add a beater to Sting's interchangable weapon system. Current weapons are drum (staggered blade) and powered wedge. (3 lbs. bot)

Here are a couple of single blade beaters that I came up with. 1 is conventional and the other is with staggered blades, in keeping with my other wierd stuff

Any and all opinions are welcome...keep in mind that weight is a HUGE factor

btw: the drum is aslo getting a redo

Thanks

Richard

Ready to rumble combat robots

Advisor to MLEC BotsIQ team "


Here's proof that you reworked the robot's motors and you imply that you are doing weight calculations.

" 6160.17 in reply to 6160.13

I spent a lot of time re-working the 24mm bb gearboxes and haven't had any problems with them....although there's not much left from the originals.

Also, I won't use any of the ratios with a 5 multiplier in either the 24 or 36mm boxes.

Currently, the 24s have Ti shafts (longer) and the motors spin at 4 times the speed of the bb motors and have much more torque as well.

I am in the process of dumping the alu housings in favor of a 6061 alu tie-rodded housing that i designed. everything including the motors will be tie-rodded together, and I'll save around 15 to 20 grams of weight per box.

The new boxes will be much shorter as well.

I also need the weight for things such as nut bars in the drum and higher capacity battery pack(s).

Powering up the drum and a full speed charge forward can need bursts up to 60 amps or better. "

Here's proof that you are the main design influence ( I started this stuff a few months back ) instead of your students. Also proof that you were doing solidworks testing on parts ie, tweaking the cads.

" 6196.11 in reply to 6196.9

I started this stuff a few months back and was getting advice from the Solidworks forum, related to a 15 lbs. drumbot (named TTATT) with 3 different length blades on the drum.

In the end, depending on which version of SW you have, you get different results.

Also, the only way to correct any imbalance is to do it manually.

Long story short, I did balance several staggered blade drums in Solidworks, made them and they needed NO balancing up to 40k rpm's.

One had a vibration (harmonic) at a certain speed that went away once the r's went up.

I've checked this beater dynamically and my version of SW shows almost no reaction forces at all.

So..I guess I'll just make one and see how it works.....if it does have a vibration, I already know what to do to balance the cutting edges to the non-cutting edges, so no big deal, just a bit more machining time.

With the doubts cast, it should be an interesting experiment, if nothing else.

The big question is how well it will work, if it does spin, vibration free..

stay tuned.........

and thanks to everyone so far for their input

Richard"

Here's more proof where you plainly say you made the mods to your banebot motors.

"6160.46 in reply to 6160.45

I've only made the ones that we are using, so can't help at the moment.

I believe that the 5 mutiplier brass gears are a bit smaller and therefore weaker.

Also, the QC on the 5 or 6 24mm g-boxes that I got was pretty bad. The pins on the gear carriers were mostly NOT running true, so binding was a BIG problem. It got worse when I shortened the ring gears and eliminated the small screws holding the ring to the end housings.

Bottom line...not impressed..although I did get them to be acceptable. "

Here's proof that you've been doing machining that your students could have been doing.

" 6196.18 in reply to 6196.17

Thanks !!

I'm cutting it down a bit (taper) to lose a bit more weight and blunt the cuting edge a bit as well....

As far as freedom of rotation goes, if I have the weight, I'll use 4 bearings, otherwise it might have to be 2 bearings and 2 bushings.....???

I've also been testing the bearings that I have.....out of 3 tested, 2 spin to over 50k without binding and 1 binds at around 39k ??? QC problems, I guess..... "

3. None of your students are on (or regularly on) any of the forums.

4. It's just kinda obvious. You're always asking around for advice for this and that. I just don't like that you're asking the questions instead of the students. You can build the most awesome robots you want, just go play with the grownups in the RFL. BBIQ events are EDUCATIONAL . Education via students.

Some of the posts I brought over may be about your beetle's but there;s also a post saying that the beetles are just R&D for the big ones. I just got tired of looking up posts as I think I've proven my point.

Advisors are there for these things -

Safety
Teach skills
Administrative duties

Thats it.

I believe that everything that you wrote is related to MY 3 pound bot...which is NOT an educational bot.

Sting is a 3 lbs rfl ready bot, 24mm bb boxes are in it, etc.

So.... now what...?

What about the rest of my concerns?

None of your students are around?

Defensive attitude?

You saying that the beetles are just R&D for the 15lbers?

Normally advisors dont post up pics about the robots. The students are so excited by it that they post it.

No students around makes it just fishy. You have to accept that position from my point of view.

Look, I hope that you're right and I'm wrong.

The goal is to teach kids. I for one would have hated it (and learned nothing) if my advisor did all the heavy lifting for me.

Please give me some proof that disproves me.