Build Your Own Combat Robot

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Chapter 14: Real-Life Robots: Lessons from Veteran Builders 319 should be sufficient for our robot’s motors. The internal resistance of the motors was measured and the calculated stall current draw would be about 110 amps. I estimated that the normal running current would be about half of the stall current (just a guess); so the Victor 883 should work, as long as I didn’t push the stall current rating. I ordered three of the Victor 883’s from IFI Robotics. (I needed only two of them, but I ordered a third for a spare in case I burned one out.) Instead of having one set of batteries power both motors, we decided to have a set of batteries to power each motor. We used three 6-volt 7.2Ahr Panasonic sealed lead acid batteries to power each motor. We chose these batteries because they fit inside a 4-inch cavity requirement of our robot. They were not selected based on their capacity. Because these batteries would be used up in each match, and they were not the fast-charging type, we also purchased three battery chargers—and a total of 24 batteries for the contest. We planned on swapping out six batteries at a time between matches and recharging the batteries later. (Special note here: what ever you do, don’t let your spouse find out that you spent $98 for priority shipping, and you ended up not needing the batteries the next day.) For the radio, I went against what all the experts say. I used a regular FM radio control system. I was able to get a ground legal 75-MHz, four-channel radio from Tower Hobbies (www.towerhobbies.com—a great place to get R/C equipment) for $140. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money for a 72-MHz PCM radio, since that was outside our budget. For servo mixing, I built a custom microcontroller-based mixing system that had a built-in failsafe feature. I didn’t think I would see too much radio interference, and the mixing circuit would protect the robot with its internal failsafe feature. I also ordered two additional sets of frequency crystals in case of a radio-frequency conflict at the event. Step 5: Layout and Modeling The rules from the contest said that the robot must fit inside a 48-by-48–inch box. This placed a maximum geometry constraint for the robot. We decided that we wanted the robot to fit inside a 36-by-36–inch box. We laid out how the motors, gears, and wheels would look on a piece of wood (see Figure 14-9). Since the length of the motors and gearboxes was 11 inches, we couldn’t directly attach them to the wheel axles. We decided to use a two-motor approach to drive all four wheels. Because one of the goals was to make the robot a rapid maintenance design, I designed the robot to be symmetrical about the center of the robot. This way, one part could be used in four different locations in the robot. After the plywood board layout was completed, the first set of aluminum structural parts were cut out with an abrasive waterjet. A set of 1-inch-thick aluminum standoffs were cut for the pillow blocks so that the center line of the wheel axles would be at the same height of the motor mount axles. The base plate was made out of a 1/4-inch-thick piece of 1100 series aluminum. (Whatever you do, don’t use 1100 series aluminum in your robots. This is one of the softest forms of aluminum you can get. I used it because I already had a big sheet of it, and I didn’t want to spend any more money on the robot.) Figure 14-10 shows the next step of the fabrication process.
320 Build Your Own Combat Robot FIGURE 14-9 Laying out the components on a plywood board to get a visual feel of how all the parts fit together. FIGURE 14-10 Aluminum base frame with wheels and bearings mounted, and the motor mounts showing where they will be placed. At this point, we were about four weeks into the project. With our regular jobs, we could work only for a few hours a night and on weekends. (During this time, my wife became the “Robot Widow.” The only time she saw me was when I came home and went to bed and when I woke up and went to work.) We were using a pseudo-design and build-as-you-go approach with this robot. I used AutoCAD to
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Build Your Own Combat Robot Pete Mi
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For more information about this boo
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Contents For more information about
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Current Ratings, 129 How It All Wor
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Object Detector, 290 Sensor Integra
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Acknowledgments We would like to th
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Introduction Some kids spend their
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About the Authors xv About the Auth
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2 ELCOME to the world of combat rob
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22 S we said in Chapter 1, it’s g
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42 OVING is what many might call a
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chapter Motor Selection and Perform
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Chapter 4: Motor Selection and Perf
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FIGURE 4-1 Typical motor performanc
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Determining the Motor Constants Cha
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FIGURE 4-2 Heat generated in an ele
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FIGURE 4-4 Motor power changes by d
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Chapter 4: Motor Selection and Perf
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FIGURE 4-7 24-volt, 185 rpm, 896 in
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the robot. If the engine is used to
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80 LECTRICALLY powered competition
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104 NE of the most important consid
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128 F batteries are the source of p
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chapter Remotely Controlling Your R
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FIGURE 8-1 Wiring and rotational po
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FIGURE 8-2 Futaba’s top of-the-li
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Chapter 8: Remotely Controlling You
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FIGURE 8-4 Typical radio frequency
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FIGURE 8-5 Motor with three capacit
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Innovation First Isaac Robot Contro
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FIGURE 8-6 Block diagram of Isaac o
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chapter 9 Robot Material and Constr
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Metals Aluminum Chapter 9: Robot Ma
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Stainless Steel Chapter 9: Robot Ma
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Titanium used to solder small brass
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Chapter 9: Robot Material and Const
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Welding, Joining, and Fastening We
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place, or some liquid may have ente
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vibration and bounce around the ins
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204 ECAUSE robot combat has evolved
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240 HE robots described in the book
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chapter 12 Robot Brains Copyright 2
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FIGURE 12-1 From top left to bottom
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Chapter 12: Robot Brains 263 space
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FIGURE 12-2 The BoeBot from Paralla
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Handy Board BotBoard Chapter 12: Ro
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sources of robot parts, 35 top ten
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INTERNATIONAL CONTACT INFORMATION A
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