The quest for sheer laziness!

I knew for a while that the Franklin Institute event was coming up, but after the PN regional I kinda fell into that lazy slump that I always do before robot events.. So now here we are a week out from the event, and I’m NOW just starting to build for it. The original plan was to have a 12lb, 30lb, and my 1lb bots ready for the event, but like most of my plans, was overshot by a friggin mile. So here’s my progress so far… ONE ROBOT

The 12lb bot is based off my really old 1lb robot Conceptual Chaos, aptly named SUPER Conceptual Chaos. Best part about this robot is the amount of stuff I am reusing. Total, I think I’ve spent $15 on actual materials from McMaster and that’s about it. Yes, it’s only a pushy bot, but the “Concept” is that it’s a big wheeled robot with a tiny wedge/plow. It’s at least not a box with a wedge.

To start off, this is the actual chassis. There really isn’t much to it. It’s probably 4″x7“. I’ve gone with steel just cause it’s faster to make a chassis, and there’s no machining to be done (aka mill). I found what steel I had left, and found that the only 3/8″ tubing I had was on a similar older 12lber of mine. (For those on the bot forums, it was Pitchfork) So that got hacked apart.

Here’s a mock-up of the whole chassis assembly. Kiddie car GBs with some slightly older motors I bought from All Electronics eeons ago.

I ran into a snafu when putting the “bearing blocks” in place. I had some tack welds on the inside of the chassis that I couldn’t remove, so parts had to be hacked out but it ended up fitting in. I still had a ton of thread inserts to use, so the bearing blocks got them to help keep the screws connected well.

Motor mounts installed.

Tires and ALF hubs installed, still need to do the outsides tomorrow.

Here’s what’s left to put on.. 1/2″ bar of 6061 Alu (I probably will pocket it a little..) and a scrap piece of 1/8″ Ti that wasn’t used on a never finished 120lb bot from 3 years ago. Actually, funny side note, the whole plate that the piece was off of was from Jackrabbit (ya know, that speedy thing that fought at Battlebots?)

Okay okay, back on track.. I’ll try to bend the sides tomorrow with a torch and a ton of prayers, but I doubt it will work. I’ll put a little block of aluminum behind the wedge to keep others at bay too. Everything checks out to around 12lbs, so I should be okay!