I've finally taken the plunge and have started doing something I've wanted to do/dreamed about since I was about 10. I'm building a combat robot. I'm a long ways away from the heavy weight, 250lb class that you see on TV, but there are a number of organizations in the North East that run a 3lb class called "beetle weight".
Being my first build, I've decided to not deal with the added complexities of a spinning weapon and instead go with a flipper bot. Despite building RC trucks for the last twenty years, there are electrical components I'm not well enough versed in when it comes to robot combat, so I'll be taking it slow. I'll be building a bot inspired by my childhood favorite, BioHazard.
I'm debating calling it BeetleHazard as a nod to the original. It wont be to scale as far as dimensions go, but it will be in spirit.
I needed a lot of new equipment, parts, and tools to make this happen. I've spent the last four weeks putting together spreadsheets of costs and inventories of everything I needed, and then I went on a shopping spree. I was on PTO all last week and I took this week as well. It's given me a lot of time to really dig in. I've been having a blast. You might remember that new work area I built a few months back, well, it's working splendid for this new endeavor. I did sell off a few of my favorite trucks to fund a lot of the up-front stuff I needed
I picked up the table saw new, but I found the band saw on FB marketplace for $100! That was the steal of the day.
I needed a new remote that was capable of monitoring and displaying telemetry in real time, as well as allow custom mixing of basically every button and switch on it. I've never had anything this advanced and I'm completely in the dark with such a piece of tech. A lot of airplane and heli guys use it.
A few of the components I will be using came in and I just started laying them out on grid paper. Came up with a basic layout and dimensions.
Then I started self-teaching myself a real CAD tool. I've been using an opensource piece of CAD software online called TinkerCAD, but that's got a lot of limitations and I needed something with some real horsepower and control. I'm been working with Fusion 360. There's a bit of a learning curve, but I'm picking it up kind of quickly, I think.
The final bot's chassis and armor will be made out of 1/8" and 1/4" HPDE. It's the stuff they make cutting boards out of, and it's got a crazy strength to weight ratio. It's not cheap, so I'll be waiting until I'm ready to do final assembly before I start cutting into that stuff. I've been 3D printing out prototype pieces representing what I hope to be the final-ish dimensions.
There's still a lot to work out. My main goal right now is to get a rolling chassis going in which all the electronics related to the drive are working as I need them too. I'll then start designing the arm assembly based on what room I have left. I'm having a hard time determining interior space in the CAD tool because I don't know how to account for the wiring. I can add objects to represent the space taken up by the motors, ESCs, receivers, batteries, etc.. but I have no idea how to factor in wires.
That's all I got for now. My next big investment is going to be an 18"x12"x3" CNC routing machine, but that's a ways off. Maybe next year (2022). There will be 7 competitions in 2021, pending Covid. It's very unlikely I'll have time to get something ready to fight by February, but I'm hoping to make April.