Current Robots-Near Chaos Robotics (East)

New mini switch-

would you sell any?

Evan Steeves wrote:

would you sell any?

I'll have a solid answer soonish.

Mike I was browsing your youtube channel and just had to tell how much i love this video!

Its the most Awesome, Hilarious,Ingenious Idea EVER

Thanks


Had to drop the claw servo for now due to weight/space issues, but the new ant's still a lot of fun-



Kobalos has v1 of my micro switch in it, Motor City Massacre has one of the v2 prototypes in it.

Some video from DragonCon-


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ToYRbe76DM#ws


MCM was having issues with the lifter digging into the floor, making driving difficult


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xf0X3c9WoU#ws


Still managed to beat Pop Quiz with only cosmetic damage


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8siYPHTmZoM#ws


Kobalos and DDT fought 4 times before a winner was declared, this is the first match.


Motor City Massacre got knocked out in the semi-finals, Kobalos eventually lost the 4th match against DDT but won the rumble, both are still fully operational and not a single gearbox failure occured during the entire tournament. I do however need to pick up a few new lite hubs, as they're somewhat sacrificial on both ants, and Kobalos went through a ton during the DDT fights and rumble

Here's the first of Apollyon's matches at DragonCon-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGlQWSfnxOE

The rest are uploading and should slowly trickle onto youtube as they finish.

Here's the 12lb final from Dragon*Con-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uZjaJEtTMA&list=PL4A15FEDE984FB351&index=1&feature=plpp

The things Dale producesre truly impressive. Its nice to see him competing

The next build is mostly designed. At this point it's mostly putting together funding for the parts I need-



1. Dual flipper(can either lift the front wedge up, or push it down, forcing the bar that extends over the back of the robot to act as a flipping arm/righting device.
2. Powered wedge plate, because some bots will be easier to deal with using a wedge.
3. Lifting/grinding disk. Dragon*Con limits spinning weapons to 20ft/s because of the open arena, this spins at almost exactly that speed and lets me have a continual grab and lift mechanism. (in theory, anyway)
4. Powered ramming spike, the hope being to impale the opponent then use the hole as a lift point.

I'm trying to figure out a way to restore some of the clutch function to the lifter dewalt, though it will probably be ok without it as the motor will already be trying to spin in the direction it's moving until it reaches the chassis and I'll have plenty of throttle control practice time.

Parts to get-
Chassis materials(mostly aluminum, waterjet)
1 Dewalt powerdrive kit (I have two not in use right now)
1-2 spare dewalt transmissions
1 spare dewalt motor
2(+) Holmes Hobby BR-XL's
2 6s1p A123 packs(should be able to run 1 at a time, so a full spare)
4 4" battlekit wheels
lots of roller chain

Holmes Hobbies is now an official sponsor of Near Chaos Robotics. Check out their stuff.

Some of you have seen the abuse the BR-XL's have held up to, but for those that haven't the only way I've killed any of them in my 12 or 30 was in this video- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpUIkBLSxhM

If you look closely at around 26s in the video two little black boxes come out of the chassis. Those are the BR-XL's, which are then hit directly by Steel Shadow.

It's tough to get a scale of things from a cad image. Here's a printout of the 30 next to Apollyon-

Motor City Massacre has a fully functional grabbing/lifting arm now-

hows the weight? is it good?

iirc, it's at 448g

Kobalos got a bit of a ballast/armor upgrade. Two layers of 1/8" steel, inner layer is bolted to the chassis, outer is goop'd to the inner layer. Weight is 453g.



Also working on a practice arena for the ants, current plan is 2 1' pushouts with the 1/8" steel wall all around.

Arena is mechanically complete, still planning to add some paint but it's otherwise done.

4' x 4' combat area
2x 1' pushouts
1/8" thick steel walls
Side mounted casters and pallet base for easy transport
Cost: <$150

Arena is painted and ready for use.

Demo of the grabbing/lifting arm on Motor City Massacre in the new arena-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syth9R4T-g0

looks good

Don wrote:

looks good

Thanks.



Decided to turn down some 1.75" lite flites to 1.25" for Kobalos-



Low profile and about as close to perfectly concentric around the shaft as possible.

All signed up for Moto, planning to take Kobalos, Motor City Massacre, Apollyon and Moros at the moment. If I get Nyx finished in time it'll go as well.

I decided to get one of the parts I'm doing in house for Nyx made today-



It's a custom pillowblock for the weapon drive shaft. Made from scrap
6061 with a 1/2" ID bushing pressed into a hole drilled ~0.5" deep. 4
tapped 8-32 holes line up with slots in the baseplate that match the
ones for the gearbox, allowing me to adjust chain tension quickly.

Nice work. I would have considered making the pillow block and the motor mount a one-piece deal, to insure that the shaft and bearings are always lined up, but if you pull-then-fasten the motor, with the pillow block screws really loose, and then fasten the pillow block, the alignment should be OK. and with chain the center distance can be a bit short with no real problems.

rdubard wrote:

Nice work. I would have considered making the pillow block and the motor mount a one-piece deal, to insure that the shaft and bearings are always lined up, but if you pull-then-fasten the motor, with the pillow block screws really loose, and then fasten the pillow block, the alignment should be OK. and with chain the center distance can be a bit short with no real problems.

Motor mount is a stock(ish) part (Team Delta powerdrive kit) and the sprocket that will ride on the shaft is a bit bigger than the 2" height of the chassis, so that option's out. This seemed like the best alternative given the space limitations.