Peter Waller Nano Adventures

[peterwaller]

Sorry Hogi I missed your post.
I don't think it will go through much armour because the robots have such low weights they will tend to be pushed away.
This will apply to 1 billionth as well.
Had a quick play with Rory's paperclip crankshafts and although tthe seem very good I can't get them in the 50 mm with the double motorgearbox units.
Having a look at 3D printed cranks now.

[Rapidrory]

Yeah, I've had to drop down to dual cams and the 2nd gen motors to get it in width.. even so it only just fits...

[Remote-Controlled Dave]

The cube limit is the thing that puts me off nanos. Where I think it helps in the ant and fleaweight class to limit anything becoming too sizeable, and to fire creativity, the nano one is so small that I think we lose a lot of that, causing all the nanos to look pretty similar to each other. Having struggled to get my sponge robot going because the parts were so fiddly (I posted a video of it on Facebook but not here), I cant imagine how frustrated I'd get trying to get something to fit in a 2" cube. Neither of my current attempts at nanos fit in the cube.
Not to say it shouldn't be, I know its part of the challenge, but it does seem to put the kaibosch on some fun ideas.

[Rapidrory]

We did debate upping the limit when originally working out the rules, but tbh I haven't actually found it too much of a problem until now; some of my nanos practically rattle round the cube. I think the main reason all my Nanos look similar is that they all use milk bottle as armour; they're all completely different shapes and configurations otherwise (vertical spinner, undercutter, forked lifter, and 4wd flipper).
It's always been the weight I've struggled with, as trying to get good weapons and drive in under 25g can prove tricky... but I've almost got enough to make my own Lemmings team now, so it's probably a good thing that something's holding me back :L

[Hogi]

i think my nanoweight should just about fit in the cube but it isn't likely to be very good at actually fighting other competitive nanos. it seems to be rather good as a cluster partner though provided the lipo cell holds out for the whole three minutes ( i chose armour over a weapon for this purpose. )

[Remote-Controlled Dave]

I guess there is an element of them being so small that any differences between them are small, making them look relatively similar when theyre not... :-/

[peterwaller]

I know what you mean about the cube limit Dave I can't quite decide if it is a good thing or not.
When the Nanoweight class was reborn I thought it should have been 37.5 gms and 2.5 inches but I am now warming to the 25gms and 50mm.
Some times I think it is limiting and then other times I think it means putting more thought into the design.
For instance if the paperclip crankshafts went into the cube I would have just copied that and now I am having to tax my brain to think of another way.
One of the main points of Nano's as far as I am concerened is that they are pushing the boundries of what is possible as Ants and then Fleas did when they started.
I hate to think where we go from here when Nano's become easy.

[Remote-Controlled Dave]

That's definitely true. I was watching AWS 10 the other day ( !! ) and marvelling about how little you could get into the weight limit.

[Rapidrory]

Nano's have evolved hugely in just 6 months despite the size limit; None of my original Nanos are running any more as they just wouldn't be competitive these days. I think Pete's spinner currently set's the state of the art; Both Alex and I have got hold of some of those white plastic gears to help cram more into the space. I'm very much looking forward to what develops in the coming months.

[peterwaller]

As I mentioned earlier the paperclip 3 way cam shown below was to wide.

I have now made some 3D printed cams which are much narrower but have gone to two way cams to get bigger feet.

With two shuffle plates you can bend one in and the other out to give a much larger foot area like in my old version of mutant.