APSF Robotics
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Aconite 120lb Bot Bash robot "Is that WulfBane? No. It is Aconite!" Due to various issues regarding licensing and exclusive agreements, it turns out that WulfBane is unable to enter Bot Bash 2002. Instead, I am going to make a new 120lb class robot. It will be a slightly new design, but will be based quite a bit on WulfBane. In fact, the name "Aconite" comes from a flower that is also called "wolfsbane". Design: The main frame will be welded 1" sq steel tube. Attached are two main 10" drive wheels powered by NPC-T64 wheel chair motors at 36V. Body armor panels are yet to be determined.. The front two protruding wedges will act as something that the "Bash Ball" can get scooped into. A claw controlled by a linear actuator will give additional 'ball control' abilities. A plate can be used in the place of the claw to act as a lifting plate or a clamping jaw. Attack Tactic: Similar to the RAV-3 incarnation of WulfBane, Aconite will be mainly a pushy "bash box" style robot. The actuator will only be used as an extra bonus feature, but will not be a driving aspect of my attacks. Upgrades from the previous version: Well, technically, Aconite is a new robot. However, it is based on the basic "RAV" design configurations that evolved through the iterations of WulfBane. Updates: Well, the PLAN was to weld up a new frame and new brand new motors, actuator, and body for Aconite, but when my work schedule caused my robot fabrication schedule to slip, I switched to "plan B". Plan B consisted of taking the RAV-3 body of WulfBane, replace the 60522 motors that had been used on the various incarnations of WulfBane for a year and a half (and countless hours of combat and practice driving sessons) and upgrade to the pair of NPC-80522 motors that I purchased. Additional changes included switching to a 1/8" aluminum lid, welding up some "soccer rails" similar to the weapon support brackets I made on WulfBane 2, and repainting the body yellow with a green underbelly and green accents (one species of the flower Aconite is sulfur yellow).
Current Status - put on the sidelines. The RAV-3 body has been recalled to be used with WulfBane once again. However, Aconite may still be called back into duty. Fight History Bot Bash 2k2 - This was the event that I built Aconite for. An interesting aspect was that all of the 'fights' were 2-on-2 teams with the members of the team randomized every round. This led to all of the fights effectively being a series of mini-rumbles. And with Aconite being entered in the largest weight class they had and the arena being only about 24' x 44', all of the fights I was involved in seemed to turn into 480 lbs of mechanical chaos. However, due to the event's format, I don't really recall who all was involved in all of my fights. However, I can tell you how I did in the different events. For Kill Ball, the event that I figured would be the most interesting, the soccer rails did what they were intended for, control the ball. Well, they did that as long as they were on the bot. In Aconite's very first match, my own team mate for the round Worm Incinerator had an accidental hit that ripped one of the rails clean off and left me with mainly the ability to slap the ball around though I could still guide the ball to some success as well. Later, in the second to last match, the OTHER rail was pulled off through all of the collisions. And while none of the 120lb robots were able to actually score a goal, the rails did serve their purpose and even helped me win a 5-4 decision even though my team mate was pushed over the edge of the arena and I was alone in a 2-on-1 situation, I kept the ball over near the opponents goal and came close to scoring many times. And the final Kill Ball round was great for me in that I was able to be teamed up with Donald Hutson (of Diesector and Tazbot fame) and his new MW Karcass with the match ending with BOTH of our opponents being pushed out of the arena. Kill Ball results: 3-1 to earn 8 points. Due to things at Bot Bash 2k2 taking longer then expected and other delays that occurred, only one round of Golem was played and Aconite was given a bye for that round. This also ended the first day of Bot Bash 2k2. Golem results: 0-0 to earn 2 points. I didn't realize until the second day that due to some of the shortcuts I took when I installed Aconite's 80522's, I didn't have the motors supported well enough, causing the motor mount shaft to bend and one of the bearings to pop loose. This meant that the left drive wheel was flexing around a good deal, but there was no way I could fix it since it would require a new shaft to be installed and it is a time consuming process. So I continued with this weakness and fortunatly, it didn't seem to play much of a role. The front side rails also were no longer attached to the bot, but since I planned to remove them for the other rounds anyways, it was no-harm, no-foul and actually meant it was one less thing to do to the bot. Now was time for the "Annihilation" round. While the previous two rounds were primarily focused on performing a task that didn't require direct combat with the opponents, Annihilation was PURE combat. So far, a few of the robots in the 120lb class had been pushed over the edge of the arena (the 5" tall rail doesn't do much when you have 10" wheels that can just drive over them) but Aconite had yet to join the "Over the Edge club" (I did take a 4' fall to the ground through one of the pits before the floors where installed when Good Morning Arizona was doing some promotion stuff the Thursday before Bot Bash). And with the last Kill Ball round ending with both of the opponents out of the arena which made us the winners by default, ALL of the Annihilation 120lb fights ended with both of the bots for one team either over the edge or down in the pits. Unfortunately, my luck didn't hold out when I first went over the edge when MY OWN team mate caused me to go over when we were both trying to take care of the one remaining opponent (the other had already been removed from the arena). Then, in the final Annihilation round, I was teamed up with Donald Hutson again, but he was starting to have radio glitches. About midway through the fight, Aconite got pushed over the edge and with Karcass's radio problems, he wasn't able to eliminate the weaker robot of the other team before the double team was able to finally get Karcass to not only go out of the arena, but to fall on top of Aconite!!! Annihilation results: 2-2 to earn 8 points. Overall final results: With a total of 5 wins, 3 losses, and 18 points, Aconite was able to rack up enough points to tie for 2nd place overall with Karcuss. This was the best I had ever done in any major event and was a blast, especially to get complements on my driving and how well I did overall from Donald, who is often voted "Best Driver" at Battle Bot events. Also, by the end of the tournament, ALL 6 robots in the 120lb class became members of the "Over the Edge" club.
Las Vegas Street Fight/Robojoust IV - Ed Robinson held his 4th street fight in November originally intended as a bit of a "Pity Party" with Battle Bots 6.0 being canceled. But with all the notoriety that the event had been getting and with plenty of people with robots and no place to fight, this street fight was bigger then all of those before it combined. Since WulfBane was the winner of the first two and had an upsetting way to go at the third one, I felt compelled to go again. The first fight was against "Timmy", a 2 wheeled bot with a pneumatic flipper arm, but they had a leak in the system, so it was purely a pushing match. Their drive train consisted of T64 motors, so they were close to WulfBane's speed & power and led to a good deal of "waltzing" around, but I was often able to get at their side and gain the upper hand. Well, that was until they had a good shot at my left side. Yes, the same left side that had the loose motor. Besides having a loose motor, the left wheel also had my receiver switch hidden behind it. A combination of their hit pushing my wheel into the rx switch and me spinning the wheel in an attempt to get out of the situation, my rx switch was turned off and Aconite just sat there motionless. Grr!!! Oh well I thought. My next fight was against Jim Smentowski (of Team Nightmare fame) and his robot "Grasshopper" (which was formerly the first version of Locust, his portion of the SHW multi-bot The Swarm). For the most part, this fight was going even more in Aconite's favor then the Timmy fight, but fate decided to rear it ugly head and a good hit from the RIGHT side caused my left wheel to bend in enough to shut the rx off again. A few good hits against the wall for good measure and Jim said he was done beating up on me. Overall: So, Aconite went from my best ever result to my worst ever result with a 0-2 final result. No need to feel bad for me since I had repaired and added extra armor to my spare RC10-B3 based robot fadder "Monkey Chow". I managed to win one fight and during my second loss, "some crazed guy" grabbed a big hammer and smashed the bot/car when it was lying upside down and unable to do anything. (Of course, this was partly a planned thing to have happen to "Monkey Chow" and I had told the "crazed guy" of the plan to do this later on anyways) Progress Photos
The following companies used to obtain the parts
for Aconite. NPC Inc. - Source of wheelchair drive motors and second set of wheels. Highly recommended! Vantec Inc. - RDFR speed controllers. While they tend to have a bit of a lag time on the orders, the speed controllers work quite nicely. Team Delta - Kill switch. Tons of Robotic related info and products available. Motion Systems - Linear Acutator. Battle Packs - NiCd battery packs. Wide selection of battery voltage and current capacities as well as offering custom built pack options. Futaba Corp. - Manufacturer of radio transmitter and receiver. Tower Hobbies - Used to obtain various RC equipment. Hobby Town, USA - Nation wide hobby store chain. Additional RC equipment and batteries.
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