RoboShowdown yesterday was great fun, a more relaxed affair than the AWSes I've been to by virtue of not having anywhere near as many bots there. There were some nice whiteboards and special fights as well which were entertaining to say the least.
The day started off with the 2v2s. I was planning on entering with my brother, who was tagging along for the day, but I couldn't get the FlySky receiver working in INABIAF. LimaHotel had no teammate so I had my brother use WAI alongside Jiggy Sawdust as a team of grippers. They won 2 fights before being eliminated - good job!
The main tournament went par for the course for my record - each bot won a fight before being eliminated, as well as a 'fight' between WAI and INABIAF that I elected to take WAI forward. The first round fights were interesting in that I fought the same team in each fight - PM2 and WAI won against their respective opponents Hyper Velocity Star and Sun, while INABIAF lost against Error.3xe.
I found the time to print off some forks for Percussive Maintenance 2 before the event - they screw through the centre front plate into the 3D printed bracket. Unfortunately, they don't seem to work very well for getting under opponents (at least, without acetate). The more pressing issue is that they seem to make the gear slipping issue much worse. I've worked out why the gear slips - it seems that the servo is so powerful that when the axe comesdown and hits something, if it can't move further down, or the body of PM2 can't lift up to facilitate that, then the servo gear just forces its way past the weapon gear, which means the forks are a bad idea for this bot. What's that? Reduce the power of the servo? Nonsense! (In all seriousness, that would be the better idea, but I like how ridiculously torquey the axe is, haha!)
The new plan is to add an aluminium plough to the front, hinged in the same way as the forks, so at least I've got a low ground clearance. The idea of hinging the plough should also in theory help defend against horizontal spinners, as the plough will be able to move out of the way of the blade, reducing the energy transfer.
Working as Intended... is not working as intended. It just can't grab anything, as there is a lot of give in the jaw mechanism. So I'm going to redesign it for AWS59. I've got an idea for making the teeth backed by springs, so when I bite something, the springs will compress. That way, if the jaws have some give in them, the teeth should still be exerting force to grip the opponent. I also need to sort out a self-righting mechanism...
It's Not a Bug, It's a Feature is also going to get a minor redesign. I want to fit a KingMax servo into it, and for that, I need more space inside. I am also going to turn the front plate into an aluminium plate - more on that below.
Two particular fights stood out to me at RoboShowdown - WAI against The Tim Rackers Experience in the main tournament and a grudge match against INABIAF, which while I lost both fights, were both very entertaining. In both matches, TTRE tore of the front plate of both bots (the internals were fine though, so it did its job
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)
). What I'm thinking of doing for front plates in the future is to make them out of aluminium, and add tabs to the sides that will fold over the side plates, and this is where the plate will be screwed in. This leaves a completely flat surface on the main face, and I think it should also hold up better against big horizontal hits, as the force is not going to be directly pulling the plate away from the 3D printed bracket (and therefore easily stripping the PLA holes). Fingers crossed.
I've got a lot of work to do before AWS59, but I've got just under 2 months to prepare, so I should be fine!
P.S. - I came up with a new robot name - if I said to you "RGB Makes Everything Better", what do you think the robot will be?
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)