Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Pre-Pennbots Update

So several things have happened in the past few months or so since I last posted. First of all, all the parts for Nocturne came in, but once we wired the thing up...
Nocturne pre-catastrophic failure.

First things first, we had a weapon test. The bar spun up fine, but the pulley (which had been drilled out wider than it was supposed to) snapped almost instantly under the force and left us without a weapon and needing a larger pulley and belt to get it running at top condition.

Also, after realizing why I should never trust cheap mixers from RobotMarketPlace (hint: they're cheap), we tried to get the motors running with dual stick. We screwed up something wiring wise (Thinking something to do with BECs, but we don't know) and both TinyESCs we were running got fried. I made a decision to not have that happen again and go with Vex controllers for next time around, but without motor controllers, a belt or pulley around in time for Pennbots we had to pull our new beetle out. A major shame, as the beetleweight competition looks like it has some major competitors this time around.

FireArrow went together without a single hitch (well maybe one). We didn't have weight to make the thing self-right with our new steel wedge, and we also didn't have weight for any form of wheel guards, but we were able to do some nice chassis milling, and also have some motor protection/self-righting mechanism in back:
Dat booty

That's 4130 steel, a lot stronger than the aluminum we were using earlier, and a lot heavier too. After learning that FireArrow couldn't self-right no matter what material wedge we used my dad crafted this bar as a very nice solution. Wheelies a little now but that can't be helped.

And now, the finished photo (minus paint):
Ta daaaaa!

Not sure if we'll have time to paint it in the upcoming days, but FireArrow is all set for Saturday. Hope a few more ants show up, if not it'll be fairly boring. But hey, at least my beetle envy will get me through the day :P


See you guys at Pennbots!

No comments:

Post a Comment