Antweight Arena - Team ARC - Your input is needed!

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cmalton
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Antweight Arena - Team ARC - Your input is needed!

Post by cmalton »

So..... accidents happen....

For those of you who don't know me - I've been doing the XR live tour with that boxy featherweight with the drum we can't use yet, there's a heavyweight in the pipeline (slow progress there), and now this.....

Long story short - I've kinda been roped into the world of Antweights - This can be blamed, entirely, on my close connections with Southampton Uni, but nonetheless I seem to be stuck with it now.

Unfortunately, for me, this is shaping up to need a couple of my own (not too destructive) antweights and an arena ready for September/October time (not completely impossible - but just a bit short notice!). Something more destructive can follow. Now - I am eternally grateful to Shakey who has spent literally hours listening to my ramblings and helping me with just about everything, but now I need to ask more than one person.

The design certainly isn't fully finished yet but.....

Image

That's the idea anyway. Essentially outer 6mm polycarb box, 1.5m x 1.5m x 1m. Inner arena is basically a bit like the Glasgow arena in shape, but on antweight scale - 1m x 1m fighting platform, two sides are level with the arena floor, the other two have a 50mm ledge you have to get machines over. Lid is 3 parts, fixed middle and two parts that can be flapped open to get machines in/out of the arena. I'm still in discussions about the floor, but... it won't be metal because I understand that doesn't mix with ants too well.

I'm new to this game - you all know far more than me, so please, be gentle (I know you will be until I put a machine in an arena....) and tell me what I've done wrong. Is this an arena you'd want to battle in? If not, why not? What do you want to see different on it?
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GeorgeR
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Re: Antweight Arena - Team ARC - Your input is needed!

Post by GeorgeR »

Firstly, welcome to antweights, it's good to have more people entering and even better that your building your own arena.

Your design looks like a good start but there are a couple of changes I'd advise.
1. Doors in the side for getting bots in/out, once the arena is up on a table it will be a hassle to reach down in to get the bots.
2. I think 6mm may be overkill for the sides, I think 4mm is more common? Somebody else should be able to confirm.
3. Make the fighting area larger, it makes for better fights. There's plenty of space and the fighting area can be right up against the edge of the box.

If you look at the aws 51, aws 52, and ant freeze 4 videos on YouTube you can see 3 of the arenas that currently exist for antweights which might be a help.
Team Zero - AWS 58 Champion!
Zero - rambot - - Axiom - axebot - - Valkyrie - drum spinner
Blueprint - rambot - - Vampire - horizontal spinner - - Particle - ???
RBMK - quad spinner gyro walker - - Duality - dual spinner gyro walker
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peterwaller
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Re: Antweight Arena - Team ARC - Your input is needed!

Post by peterwaller »

As George says the bigger the fighting area the better so most arenas go right up to the Polycarb on at least two sides and in some cases like mine on all 4 sides with just corner drop offs see below:
Image
Good access to the arena is important and that would be difficult with just access through the lid so some type of side entry would be better.
On mine the whole cover is hinged from one end which gives good access but is heavy to lift and needs a supprt to hold it in the open position between rounds.
Image
cmalton
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Re: Antweight Arena - Team ARC - Your input is needed!

Post by cmalton »

Thank you for your replies thus far.

I'll, err, get back in Inventor.... Adjusted design to follow.

Just as well the machine shop aren't going to do anything on this until August.

Once the arena is built it goes without saying that it'll be available for the community if they would like to run an event using it. I may consider a small event myself depending on whether I can get a venue.

One of the key features I'm after is that the actual arena is able to be replaced easily if we ever want to change the design.

Thank you all for your feedback so far. Keep it coming.

Chris
cmalton
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Re: Antweight Arena - Team ARC - Your input is needed!

Post by cmalton »

Image

OK, so... one of the side panels (near side) is currently hinged up in this model, but I think I've addressed the things mentioned above without making too many other changes (other than how the core frame gets assembled).

Let's hear the criticisms please!
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BeligerAnt
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Re: Antweight Arena - Team ARC - Your input is needed!

Post by BeligerAnt »

Hi Chris, and wlecome to antweights!

I like the idea of being able to change the arena within the box. The original idea with antweights was that anyone could make an arena and challenge all-comers. With the advent of high power weapons a battle box became a necessity and thus the cost of building an arena increased dramatically. If you had a box with a removable arena and published the fixing points and size limits for the arena then people could build a bigger variety of arenas without all having to spend a fortune on polycarb.

As to the design, you will need an opening door on two opposite sides of the arena, reaching through from one side is not practical. (Perhaps you already realised this!)

I like the multi-height side walls, I don't think anyone has done that (to that extent) before. However, if you have "not too destructive" robots you may need a much bigger percentage of free drop-off around the arena. There have been many debates on here about the pro's and con's of drop-off percentage, but suffice to say if you don't have very destructive spinners the most likely win is by pushing the opponent out of the arena. Most servo-powered flippers struggle to get an opponent over a wall of even 50mm.

If you make the side walls of the arena removable you can experiment with different designs.

My own preference is for an arena with space for a drop-off on all sides as it gives more flexibility in design, but it does mean a bigger box or smaller fighting area.

The only "hard limits" are:
You need at least 150mm between the edge of the arena and the box wall for a pit, otherwise robots don't reliably fall into it.
The arena needs to be at least 750mm square, but bigger is definitely better.
The battle box needs to be at least 4mm polycarbonate. Thicker or 2 layers would be better where the arena goes right up to the box wall.
The box needs to be at least 300mm tall, around 600mm is better.
Gary, Team BeligerAnt
cmalton
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Re: Antweight Arena - Team ARC - Your input is needed!

Post by cmalton »

Hi Gary,

First off: Thank you! - Your response is invaluable.

Both sides do open - just the CAD only shows the near side opened.

I like your thinking - hadn't really thought about that concept of "You bring me an arena base, I'll bring you a roof". I've also got plans for several bits of interchangeable polycarbonate inner walls, thus making the great debate about drop-off something that's addressable.

I think, as with all these things, it's a case of "built it and see what happens" isn't it?

At least if I only have to replace a few bits of internal 4mm or 6mm polycarb to fix the arena design it's not going to be insanely expensive to fix any mistakes!

As it currently stands:
- Moat: 250mm +/- 6mm (a bit on the large side, but required due to single-panel construction of the base and it needing to fit in my Ford Galaxy).
- Arena floor is: 1500mm x 1000mm - quite large!
- Outer shell is 6mm polycarb, double thickness where the arena meets the box.
- It's rather taller than that..... Might reduce the height - but was designed to be around 1m tall.....

It's a bit of a monster creation - but then I want to be able to safely affix a small camera + arena lighting inside it at ceiling level and not get it trashed by flying ants......

It's massively, massively over-engineered and over-specced - that's how I do things.

Thanks once again.

Regards,

Chris
cmalton
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Re: Antweight Arena - Team ARC - Your input is needed!

Post by cmalton »

To add to my previous post:

The gap in the arena walls is actually 238mm wide - which I'd hope is big enough without being too big.

I've reduced the low wall heights to be only 30mm as a first run - giving hopefully more scope for flipping stuff out.

What I was trying to avoid with the wall heights is spinners throwing themselves out of the arena!

I will produce the drawings for the mounting points shortly. One thing to note is that the vast majority of things at ARC run on M8 bolts - and this arena is no exception.

Again - any feedback welcomed. I've got the bits on order for the first antweight or two - although because I like a challenge, I'm designing my own speed controllers because.... well.... otherwise it's just too easy!
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BeligerAnt
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Re: Antweight Arena - Team ARC - Your input is needed!

Post by BeligerAnt »

Nothing wrong with M8 bolts! (Although you can't fit many in an antweight :P )

If you can, I'd suggest using wing nuts or some other tool-less fixings to make assembly and packing up easier. Nothing worse than having a crowd of willing volunteers but only one screwdriver! Captive nuts are also a good idea, loose ones have a habit of running away :)

If a 1m height is convenient I wouldn't worry about making it smaller. A lower height is usually chosen due to storage/transport/material cost but if you are happy with 1m no-one will complain.

With regard to the mounting points and base you need a complete base and mounting points somewhat inside of your current arena surface otherwise the only arena that will fit is one the same size as yours, which would rather defeat the object. I expect you already worked this out :)
Gary, Team BeligerAnt
cmalton
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Re: Antweight Arena - Team ARC - Your input is needed!

Post by cmalton »

Hi Gary,

Thanks for the reply. 1.5m x 1m is convenient from a polycarb panel size perspective (assuming I ever get my Ford Galaxy back from the garage that have just admitted defeat over a gearbox issue of their own making).

I think I get where you're coming from - I provide a base with a set of mounting holes in which have a documented pattern. That pattern allows anyone to design to any of the "standard sizes" I've created.

Assuming that's what you meant, I imagine the standard hole patterns will be: 0.5m 3x3 grid, 0.75m 3x3 grid, 1m 3x3 grid, 1.5m 3x3 grid. This gives 4 mounting points in each direction radiating out from the center of the arena.

I'll also need "padding floors" to pad over the holes if using the inner sizes. but that's OK, if I get this right, they're easy enough to do in such a way that it's entirely modular.

It helps I have a friendly machine shop on board who are basically sponsoring it.....

Valid point ref volunteers and pack down - M8 wing bolts it is then - will soon make pulling an arena apart easy.

The job is heading to the machine shop on Friday (although they've already had a preliminary CAD), although I'm in no massive rush for it to get done as the storage space it's going in isn't going to be ready until end of August and they're packed to the roof with work anyway and this isn't top of the list (although I love working with them because they'll move mountains to do things when deadlines creep up).

Thank you all for your assistance thus far. Watch this space for the next developments.
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