Ever wonder what’s under the hood with a competitive battle robot like this one? It’s usually a big secret as teams don’t care to give their competition any help. But [AlexHrn] decided not only to give us a peek, but also shows us his step-by-step build process for Phoenix, the 30 pound flipping battle robot.
[Alex] has already seen quite a bit of success with a different robot, but he couldn’t quite beat another competitor whose bot included a flipping arm which threw its competition across the ring. So [Alex] decided to join in on the technique with this build. The arm itself uses air pressure to exert a large force very quickly. Inside, a paintball gun tank powers the pneumatic ram. It looks like this tank is charged up before the competition and only gets about 12 shots before it’s depleted. You can see the power in the quick clip after the break.
For locomotion the unit uses a couple of cordless drill motors. These have a fairly high RPM and work well when powered by batteries.
I’d shield my bot’s electronics from EMP, and short out a supercap or something to disable the opponent’s bot. Possibly put a spark gap on an arm to slide under the other bot for pinpoint zapping.
That’s just my theory, I have no electronics experience to know if it would even work.
The Faraday cage effect would likely mitigate this.
EMPs aren’t allowed in contests.
I really don’t get peoples fascination with the “lets put an EMP in it”. Did you even stop to think what would happen in this “battle”?
Robot 1 sets off EMP, Robot 2 Stops, wow that was cool to watch…… so much more interesting than watching them throw each other around the arena tear off wheels and armour.
Maybe you could have a robot that shoots brine at competitors robots. Arm your robot to IP68 and send some EMPs though the saltwater.
Instead of brine, use nitric acid.
GOP
Have one of those 12v air compressors on board, slow but steady.
Wizz=GOP
” It’s usually a big secret as teams don’t care to give their competition any help.”
Not true in the slightest, everyone shares and helps each other out, extending that from initial design all the way to lending spare parts and repair help in the pits. The violent competition stays where it should, IN the arena! Not out. :P Although there is a little trashtalk, naturally ;)
” It’s usually a big secret as teams don’t care to give their competition any help.”
Definitely not true. Most people like showing off their build more than anything.