Just When You Think Everything In Robotic Combat Has Been Tried Before…

October 6, 2023 by Jenny List 15 Comments

Since the first combat robots emerged around three decades ago, it seems as though every conceivable configuration has been tried at some point or other. Whether it’s a two-wheeled wedgebot, a walker, a four-wheeled flip-bot, or whatever, someone’s already been there. But how about a self-righting taco with a novel two-wheel drive system? It’s called Taco Tuesday, its team lead [Carter Hurd] has sent us the video below the break, and it’s worth a second look because the technique might find a place outside the arena.

So what exactly is novel about this bot? It has a single big fat wheel near the front in a longitudinal direction, and a larger slimmer one at the back in a transverse direction. The former wheel propels it around the arena while the latter wheel acts as a rear-wheel steering system, allowing it to pivot round and face an attacker very quickly indeed.

It’s this maneuverability which we think could find an application in other machines, though the same problem they have of sideways friction on that rear wheel would need to be overcome.

The video follows the bot through a BattleBots competition in Las Vegas, and shows us some of the damage they receive in combat. The drive system needs a bit more refinement, but this outing certainly proves it has plenty of potential.

Some of us here at Hackaday have a bit of a soft spot for fighting robots.

Continue reading “Just When You Think Everything In Robotic Combat Has Been Tried Before…” →

An image of Kitten Mittens and its 3lb counterpart

Why Make A Combat Robot That Walks?

October 1, 2021 by Jim Heaney 13 Comments

If you watch it on TV or see clips on YouTube, you’ll notice that most combat robots have wheels, which would make sense. They are simple, work well, and if designed right they can take a bit of a beating. So why did [Luke] design his 12-pound bot with no wheels, or any locomotion system for that matter? You can find out more about this peculiar bot in his build report with more than 130 images.

[Luke’s] bot, called Kitten Mittens, is a gyro walker combat robot. This means that instead of traditional tank treads or wheels to move about, [Luke] navigates by angling his bot’s weapon and using the angular momentum to lift up one side of the bot to “walk” forward. Watch the video after the break to see it in action. While this does leave Kitten Mittens much slower and less agile than competitors, it gives one massive leg up; weight. Kitten Mittens fights in the 12-pound combat robotics weight class, but most leagues have weight bonuses for bots that have no wheels or use otherwise nontraditional locomotion. Where [Luke] competes, the Norwalk Havoc Robot League, this means that his bot can be up to 6 pounds heavier than the other competitors!

A 3D-printed prototype of Kitten Mittens' weapon — A printed prototype of the weapon, showing off the integrated hub motor.

So how did [Luke] take advantage of that extra 6 pounds? The biggest thing was the weapon. It is made of 3/4-inch S7 tool steel and has a custom hub motor integrated into the center, bringing its rotating weight to 5.5 pounds. In addition to thickness, the added weight allowance permitted a larger spinning diameter so that Kitten Mittens could hit opponents before they hit him.

[Luke] is not new to the world of combat robotics, and knew it would take more than just a big weapon to win. Part of the extra weight budget was also used to beef up his armor and internal structure of the bot, so that hits from opponents would just bounce him around the cage harmlessly. This even included custom bent titanium guards surrounding the weapon, to help in self-righting.

When it first debuted in February of 2021, Kitten Mittens was a smashing success! It went 4-0 in the 12lb weight class at NHRL, winning the $1,000 prize and earning its spots in the annual finals, where [Luke] will compete against other finalists from the rest of the season for a chance to win the $12,000 first-place prize.

Bots that walk, shuffle, or crawl are becoming more of a trend lately in all weight classes. Even Overhaul, a 250-pound bot, has been given a new set of feet to shuffle around on. You can read more about this interesting concept here.

Continue reading “Why Make A Combat Robot That Walks?” →

Overhauling A Battle Bot

August 6, 2021 by Mike Szczys No comments

Where do old battle bots go to die? Well the great parts-bin in the ~~sky~~ corner of the workshop, where they await disassembly and use in other projects. But once in a while, if a battle bot is really lucky, they get pulled out again and put back into working order. So is the story [Charles] is telling about Overhaul 1, a hulk of a robot who was last see in fighting shape during the 2015 season of the show.

Having been succeeded by newer designs (Overhaul 2 and Overhaul 3), it’s a surprise to see some work being poured into these old bones. It didn’t escape the parts bin unscathed, having lost it’s wheels to another design called sadbot. What’s in place now are “shuffle drive pods”, a cam-based system that kind of crawls the robot along. They’re fun to watch in action in the video after the break, just make sure to turn your volume way down first. It’s no wonder [Charles] plans to replace them with newly-designed wheel modules.

In the heat of a match these things take a lot of damage, and the frame of Overhaul 1 was still twisted and mangled. A hydraulic tire jack is the tool of choice as the damage was caused externally and needed to be pushed out from the inside. As a testament to how these things are built, any old jack just won’t do and a 20-ton unit was acquired for the purpose. A set of prongs on the front (called pontoons) was also bent inward and required a chain and a come-along to pull them out.

The nice thing about revisiting projects years later is that technology tends to move forward. We can imagine that the design work [Charles] has in progress for a new set of wheel modules is much easier, and the parts (motors, drivers, batteries, etc) of a much higher quality than when first built over half a decade ago. This is the first installment in the overhaul of Overhaul series, which we’ll be keeping an eye on.

Need to sate your appetite for how to build indestructible robots? Check out how the indestructible wheels for the “Copperhead” bot are fabricated!

Continue reading “Overhauling A Battle Bot” →

Raspberry Pi Zero Takes The Wheel In Miniature Fighting Robot

June 12, 2021 by Tom Nardi 17 Comments

Looking to capitalize on his familiarity with the Raspberry Pi, [Sebastian Zen Tatum] decided to put the diminutive Pi Zero at the heart of his “antweight” fighting robot, $hmoney. While it sounds like there were a few bumps in the road early on, the tuxedoed bot took home awards from the recent Houston Mayhem 2021 competition, proving the year of Linux on the battle bot is truly upon us.

Compared to using traditional hobby-grade RC hardware, [Sebastian] says using the Pi represented a considerable cost savings. With Python and evdev, he was able to take input from a commercial Bluetooth game controller and translate it into commands for the GPIO-connected motor controllers. For younger competitors especially, this more familiar interface can be seen as an advantage over the classic RC transmitter.

A L298N board handles the two N20 gear motors that provide locomotion, while a Tarot TL300G ESC is responsible for spinning up the brushless motor attached to the “bow tie” spinner in the front. Add in a Turnigy 500mAh 3S battery pack, and you’ve got a compact and straightforward electronics package to nestle into the robot’s 3D printed chassis.

In a Reddit thread about $hmoney, [Sebastian] goes over some of the lessons his team has learned from competing with their one pound Linux bot. An overly ambitious armor design cost them big at an event in Oklahoma, but a tweaked chassis ended up making them much more competitive.

There was also a disappointing loss that the team believes was due to somebody in the audience attempting to pair their phone with the bot’s Pi Zero during the heat of battle, knocking out controls and leaving them dead in the water. Hopefully some improved software can patch that vulnerability before their next bout, especially since everyone that reads Hackaday now knows about it…

While battles between these small-scale bots might not have the same fire and fury of the televised matches, they’re an excellent way to get the next generation of hackers and engineers excited about building their own hardware. We wish [Sebastian] and $hmoney the best of luck, and look forward to hearing more of their war stories in the future.

See The Damage 250-Pound Combat Robots Get

March 9, 2020 by Donald Papp 14 Comments

Combat robots have been a thing for a while, but we don’t normally get a close look at the end results of the sort of damage they can both take and deal out. [Raymond Ma] spent time helping out with season four of BattleBots and wrote about the experience, as well as showed several pictures of the kind of damage 250-pound robots can inflict upon each other. We’ve embedded a few of them here, but we encourage you to read [Raymond]’s writeup and see the rest for yourself.

The filming for a season of BattleBots is done in a relatively short amount of time, which means the pacing and repair work tends to be more fast and furious than slow and thoughtful. [Raymond] says that it isn’t uncommon for bots, near the end of filming, to be held together with last-minute welds, wrong-sized parts, and sets of firmly-crossed fingers. This isn’t because the bots themselves are poorly designed or made; it’s because they can get absolutely wrecked by the forces at play.

Continue reading “See The Damage 250-Pound Combat Robots Get” →

Battlebots To The Skies!

May 1, 2019 by Bryan Cockfield 10 Comments

If you’re too young to remember Battlebots on the television, there are two things that you should know. First is that there are plenty of highlights of this epic robot battle royale on YouTube, and the second is that now there’s an even better version with drones instead of robots merely confined to land. It’s called DroneClash 2019, and it looks like it was amazing.

Not only were the robots set up in a box and asked to battle each other, they first had to navigate down a corridor with anti-drone measures. The drones have to make it through and into a battle royale in the final room. If this wasn’t good enough, the event was opened by a prince of the Netherlands and is put on by a university.

This is an annual event to push the state of the art in drone and anti-drone tech, but we’d be happy to see it optioned for a TV show. If it doesn’t, you might be satisfied with a giant human-driven robot competition from a while back, or maybe just head down the rabbit hole of old Battlebots clips.

Continue reading “Battlebots To The Skies!” →

Maker Faire NY: Where Robots Come Out To Play

September 25, 2018 by Tom Nardi 2 Comments

There was an unbelievable amount of stuff on display at the 2018 World Maker Faire in New York. Seriously, an unreal amount of fantastically cool creations from all corners of the hacker and maker world: from purely artistic creations to the sort of cutting edge hardware that won’t even be on the rest of the world’s radar for a year or so, and everything in between. If you’ve got a creative bone in your body, this is the place for you.

But if there was one type of creation that stood out amongst all others, a general “theme” of Maker Faire if you will, it was robotics. Little robots, big robots, flying robots, battling robots, even musical robots. Robots to delight children of all ages, and robots to stalk the darkest corners of their nightmares. There were robots for all occasions. Probably not overly surprising for an event that has a big red robot as its mascot, but still.

There were far too many robots to cover them all, but the following is a collection of a few of the more interesting robotic creations we saw on display at the event. If you’re the creator of one of the robots we didn’t get a chance to get up close and personal with in our whirlwind tour through the Flushing Meadows Corona Park, we only ask that you please don’t send it here to exact your revenge. We’re very sorry. (Just kidding, if you have a robot to show off drop a link in the comments!)

Continue reading “Maker Faire NY: Where Robots Come Out To Play” →