Team Picus build diary

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joey_picus
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Re: Team Picus build diary

Post by joey_picus »

PRE-AWS 42 UPDATE
Unfortunately, after the last post, I got very little done robot-wise - my summer was ultimately consumed by dissertation work, moving back to the UK, showing Tracy around the UK, and at one point being in very real danger of spending most of the rest of my life trapped in Rotherham with no means of escape. Unfortunately for all concerned, I broke free, and in the last couple of weeks have been able to get some robots improved and ready for the AWS in Burntwood (after the traditional 'sign servo driven robot up and promptly break servos' fiasco). Here's what everyone can expect, presented in the medium of awkward text and phone camera pictures that, for no readily apparent reason, appear to have been taken in 1993:

The Hurting
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The robot fundamentally remains the same as it was, most of the changes being to fix things that broke in Brighton or since (new rear armour mounting bracket, new armour, removing rust (!) from the blade). The most obvious difference is the rather better than I expected it to turn out carbon fibre veneer on the aluminium shell, which has added some much needed strength. It has added weight too, but with a couple of weight savings (battery packaging and potentially taking that big capacitor off the speed controller) it should be okay.

Arcus (pocket edition)
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In the three years I've had Arcus, I have often been asked (usually after "did you make those yourself?" (I wish) and "why does it lose traction when it's clawed something?" (um...)) why it's not been entered into AWS events, and the answer is simple: due to incompetence in design, it didn't fit into the cube despite looking very small and weighing about 125g. However, this year, I saw sense and have hopefully made it fit, by way of trimming about 10mm from the chassis and removing the side wings, a new smaller reciever, and a new, tougher bodyshell (consisting of my first ever attempt at plastic welding, which I am perhaps a bit too smug about!). Functionally, though, it remains exactly the same, and somehow weighs five grams less than it did so it may gain a lot of armour between now and the 26th...

I'll do a website update when time and Pokémon allows, but until then I hope this provides something interesting!
Joey McConnell-Farber - Team Picus Telerobotics - http://picus.org.uk/ - @joey_picus
"These dreams go on when I close my eyes...every second of the night, I live another life"
haz
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Re: Team Picus build diary

Post by haz »

I'm slightly in love with Pocket Arcus
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