Featured This Month:
Features
26 BUILD REPORT:
Shaka by Thomas Kenney
29 MANUFACTURING:
RioBotz Combot Tutorial
Summarized — Materials:
Part 2
Summarized by Kevin M. Berry
33 PARTS IS PARTS:
Coloring Titanium
Summarized by Kevin M. Berry
34 Thoughts of a New EO
by Seth Carr
Events
32 Jul/Aug 2009 Results and
Oct/Nov 2009 Upcoming
Events
33 EVENT REPORT:
Gulf Coast Robotics Sports 2
by Seth Carr
ROBOT PROFILE – Top
Ranked Robot This Month:
36 Professor Chaos by Kevin Berry
26 SERVO 10.2009
BUILD REP RT
Shaka
● by Thomas Kenney
In late 2007, I began the design and construction of my first
combat robot over three pounds:
a 30 pound featherweight. The
construction process took place
over a period of two months.
Looking back at what is left of
the bot, it looks very primitive
compared to most modern featherweights. That robot — Shaka —
finished its first competition with
a mediocre record of 1-2, with its
only win being a complete fluke
in which the opponent’s main
power switch broke down. With
all the lessons I had learned in
the construction process and the
competition, I resolved to
rebuild Shaka to improve in
every area and be competitive among featherweights
today.
The main weakness of
the first version of the
bot was its massively
undersized drive motors;
those used were the 36
mm 25:1 Banebots models. I had
originally intended to use the
larger 42 mm gear motors, but
that model went out of production two days before orders for
the bot’s parts were placed.
These were the causes of both of
Shaka’s losses, with the motors
going up in smoke in both fights.
In addition, the support structure
for the spinning disc weapon was
far too weak for its application. It
was made of two pieces of 1/8”
wall 2”x4” 6061 aluminum and
bent in horribly on the robot’s
only real hit.
The weapon itself was a
PHOTO 1. The original version of
Shaka that fought at RoboGames 2008.
