robot because this is what you wire
your batteries, motors, and radio
receiver to so that the robot goes
where you tell it with your remote
control.
To armor the robot, I chose
polycarbonate which is a clear plastic
that is literally bullet proof in some
thicknesses. I used 1/8 inch thick
pieces for the top and back armor,
and 1/4 inch thick for the front (I
figured this would see more action).
I used cardboard to make a template
of the armor and then traced that
onto the plastic to cut it out with my
band saw (see Figure 14).
To build the grabbing and lifting
arm, I used mild steel and aluminum
(since my local Home Depot was out
of un-obtanium). The lifting arm has
two pitchfork tongs that drag on the
ground to scoop under other robots.
The grabbing arm has a spike on the
end made from three little triangles
of steel to grip other robots so they
can be picked up off the ground and
held in the air. On each front corner
of the robot, there is also a spike
made from titanium; these can be
used as ramming weapons but their
main purpose is as outriggers to
keep Hot Stuff from face planting
when it picks up another 60 pound
robot. You can see the finished
robot minus the top armor panels in
Figure 15.
FIGURE 17
a nice blue spark a few times a
second to light the gas.
Figure 17 (taken by Michael
Mauldin of Team Toad) shows Hot
Stuff competing at the Combots
Cup in the 60 pound weight
class against Frosty the SnowBot.
Hot Stuff had some close fights but
was able to get several robots up in
the air and shoot lots of fire! After
all was said and done, Hot Stuff
went undefeated and took first
place! SV
MANUFACTURING:
Pattern R uting of
Plastic Parts
Iproduce limited production runs of some of my combat robot
designs and these often require
fairly complex flat plastic parts
(Figure 1). The easy way to do
these parts is to have them watercut
by a company like Team Whyachi
( www.teamwhyachi.com), but if
you need parts quickly and your
FIGURE 1
● by Pete Smith
time is cheap, then with a little
careful design you can route the
same parts using just a router and a
pattern.
The first thing to do is make
an aluminum pattern of the part.
A friend machined mine on his
CNC mill, but it can also be done by
hand or be watercut. If you have an
FIGURE 2
existing part, then it could be also
used as a pattern. The smallest,
easily available pattern bit is 1/2”
in diameter, so the smallest internal
radius on the parts must be 1/4”
or greater. All other required
FIGURE 3
SERVO 03.2010 29
