Featured This Month:
Features
28 BUILD REPORT:
Combat Robot: $1.25
a Pound by Tim Wolter
32 PARTS IS PARTS:
Power Switches
by Chad New
Events
30 May/Jun 2008 Results and
Aug/Sep 2008 Upcoming
Events
30 EVENT REPORT:
Mall of America Rotunda
Rumble by Aaron Nielsen
ROBOT PROFILE – Top
Ranked Robot This Month:
33 Touro by Kevin Berry
28 SERVO 08.2008
BUILD REP RT
Combat Robot: $1.25 a Pound
● by Tim Wolter
For many builders, combat
robotics is about pushing the
engineering envelope. You know,
how many extra volts can we
hammer through the system
before it flames out? But since I
primarily work with student
robotics programs, I have taken
this concept in a different
direction. Given the pressure on
school budgets these days, I have
become adept at “pushing the
economic envelope.” That is, how
tiny a budget, how minimal the
shop access, how few work
hours can still translate into an
SUMO: A robot built on the cheap.
effective fighting machine?
Ladies and gents, I think we
have an answer. With our latest
build, I believe we have attained
close to Absolute Zero on
resources, and still cooked up a
30 pounder that went 2-2 in its
debut competition.
I have been teaching a
middle school level robotics
program for years, where we
build one and three pound
combat machines. It’s an after-school program, so when I
proposed doing a bigger build I
knew we would only have a total
of about 15 work
hours. Also, the Tech
Ed teacher who
hoped to help me had
other commitments,
so there would
effectively be no
access to the school
shop. Fortunately, I
had a great volunteer
assistant, and a
talented bunch of
kids sign up; all
