Society of Robots - Robot Forum
General Misc => Robot Videos => Topic started by: georgeecollins on January 31, 2011, 05:22:33 PM
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We are getting ready for Robogames this year, so I thought I would try two competitors from Combots, but this time with enough space for them to spin up their weapons. Well, one got quite damaged.
[youtube]gNNcO_4Hong[/youtube]
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Nice bots. do you plan to make otto autonomous?
how did you make them?
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Otto actually is autonomous. He uses light sensors mounted on the stalk at the bottom. It only uses the radio control to turn itself off or on for safety purposes. Otto just isn't as directed in the way it moves toward a target, so I put it close to the box to demonstrate its weapon.
Otto was built by John Frizell, who lives in England. He sent it over to the US to compete at Combots, which he couldn't come to. I have been hanging on to it so we can enter it into Robogames in April. I think John will bring another better robot as well, and there may be other competitors.
You can see a lot of details about the peanut tin of terror at:
http://www.backyardrobots.com/peanut/peanut.shtml (http://www.backyardrobots.com/peanut/peanut.shtml)
You can see the different versions, the parts, what they cost, etc. If you have any questions I would be glad to answer them.
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have you ever thgought of adding sensors to otto to make him follow an object? the sharp ir can do that but you might have to work hard to find a place to put it on the bot so that it does not get dammaged due to the nature of what the robot is ment for
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I didn't build Otto, but the problem with putting a sensor like a sharp ir is that the spinning weapon on top circles the entire robot. Any sensor mounted at the height where it would detect a robot would probably have interference from the spinning weapon.
Having a spinning weapon like that is really smart, because the robot doesn't need to aim. Any direction you come from, the robot is going to do damage.
Peanut had to put its sensors on stalks so that they wouldn't be disrupted by the spinning blade. That obviously didn't work out too well. On earlier versions I put the sonar on top and that didn't' work well. I think for my next version I will put the range sensor on the back, and have the robot turn 180 degrees when it senses a robot behind it.
It is a good suggestion though. Otto's builder is making a new robot for Robogames, so we will see the next generation of autonomous combat.
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what sort of servo(or motor) did you use for peanut tin? you could try to put weapons on several sides but they might interfere with each other.
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I used HSR-1425CR servos to power the wheels. That's using servo motors in continuous rotation mode as very simple speed controllers. I also have a sabretooth speed controller for the motor with the blade.
I think a vertical weapon would be much easier to aim with because you could put an outward facing sensor on one or both sides of the blade.
There is a great article on how to design a light weight combat robot, from the guy who made Nightmare. You can see it here:
http://www.robotmarketplace.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=75 (http://www.robotmarketplace.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=75)
I wish I had read that before I made Peanut!