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WulfBane's RAV-1 Middle Weight Battle Bot "WulfBane's RAV-1" is my first attempt at a fighting robot, though it is my second design. The robot is targeted to compete in the Battle Bot Middle Weight class (59 - 115 lbs wheeled). The acronym "RAV-1" stands for "Robotic Assault Vehicle, mark 1". This design is taking the place of the L-SAC idea, which has been renamed the "M-LAC" and I will attempt to do it at a later date. Design: The body consists of a 14 gauge steel fabricated body measuring 16" x 20" x 6.5". Attached are two main 10" drive wheels powered by NPC-60522 wheel chair motors. Attached to the Aft section will be a long arm holding the "Bane Axe". The top will either be the 14 gauge steel lid that I got with the body or, should weight become an issue, a 1/2" Lexan top. Attack Tactic: Attacks will consist of ramming into the opponent w/ the forward mounted spikes or aft mounted axe in a spearing attack and rotating in place to get the "Bane Axe" swinging to impact the other bot. Updates: April 21, 2002 - No, that isn't a typo. I've neglected to put any updates in over a year. I have since progressed to the third incarnation of "WulfBane". But before we get to that, I need to finish off the story of the RAV-1 incarnation of WulfBane. Well, a few weeks before going up to Battle Bots Season 3.0 in May 2001, I took WulfBane down to a recycling center, plopped it on the scale, and found out that the bot only weighed 92lbs!!! Since I had plenty of weight to spare and I also realized I needed more weight behind the drive wheels as they were occasionally slipping, I threw a weighted wedge to the back. Official weight ended up being 105lbs, 10lbs shy of the max allowed. Of course, I knew going into the event that the motors I was using were too slow to produce an effective "thwack-bot". First fight was against Murray Finegold's Zombie. It was defiantly a bit of a strange feeling having this be the first robot I face because I was right next to him in the pits the two days prior. I even told Grant Imahara (of Deadblow fame) that I wanted to see how well the robot would do when he was cruising the pits and checking out the new robots. Even though I kept telling Murray that WulfBane was a rather slow moving 'thwack-bot', he replaced his sawblade arm with a reinforced metal plate that he designed to use against spinners and high KE bots. Well, right off the bat, both of our bots collide, but only WulfBane is still able to move. During the collision, both of his drive train spindles sheared. For the rest of the fight, I just kept spinning around (the axe was about an inch too high, so it was actually going over Zombie and I was hitting him with the 2" shaft holding the axe) and pushing the dead bot around until the victory by KO was awarded at 52 seconds!!! Second fight was against Henry Hillman Jr's Bouncing Betty. This fight was much tougher. One of the main reasons was because Bouncing Betty was able to exploit WulfBane's weaknesses. Namely, because WulfBane was so slow, they had no fear of my weapon and were able to get under the front of WulfBane (which had about 2" of clearance to make it easy). Then, they just raised there actuator arm and the wedge added at the last minute would hit the ground, causing my drive wheels to just spin freely in the air. But the real kicker was, just before the end of the 2 minute match, my kill switch some how got jarred and the robot was shut off. I even did the right thing of telling my ref that I thought I was dead, but he said that the match was almost over anyways and the match ended with WulfBane loosing on a 33-12 judges decision. Ah well. Back to the drawing board with a meaner WulfBane RAV-2... April 8, 2001 - The last few weeks has seen progress on the RAV-1 progress in leaps and bounds. In fact, its leapt to the point where it is DONE! Well, a few things can still be done to it, but as is, it is a completely functional combat robot. I got the hubs and wheels from my sponsor NPC Inc. that match up with the motors I purchased from them. They look much nicer then the old wheels and hubs and fit better too. (What do you expect, these hubs were literally made for my motors.) Of course, I did have to do some modifications. The 1/2" motor mounting rod stuck out a bit too far. However, I did find some thinner 1/2" nuts and they are replacing the full size 1/2" nuts and lock washers that were on before. Also, my contact with NPC Inc. is providing me with modified hubs for the NPC-64038, which are basically 1/2" thick aluminum disks matched for the same wheels, to act as wheel spacers. The kill switch from Team Delta is installed and a small access door has been cut and put on a hinge with a snap latch to hold it closed but provide a quick easy way to open it back up. The lid has also been put together on a hinge that snaps to full open and closed. Little flap latches were added to the sides and have loops that cullet pins and bolts can be inserted into to secure the lid. With the bot finished, I printed out some copies of my APSF logo onto adhesive backed paper, cut them out, and slapped them on. Took some pictures and used it to create the logo for the back of my RAV-1 T-Shirts that I have available through the APSF store. Of course, it isn't truly finished because it still needed painting. Well, the last thing that I did today was take the robot completely apart again, tape over the holes from the inside, and took it out front and gave the RAV-1 it's solid coat of paint. Since the primary signature color for my "WulfBane" character are shades of silver and gray, 'metallic finish aluminum' color paint was used. On a humorous note, I made the RAV-1 earn its way a bit. Prior to taking the robot apart, I used it to help drive my laundry down to the laundry room in my apartment complex. The night before, I also set my trash on it to make WulfBane take out the trash. Who says that a killer robot can't help around the house? March 25, 2001 - Well, last weekend I put in little picture frame hanging things inside the robot to attach Velcro straps that will hold the batteries in place. Also cut the hole for the axe's shaft to be mounted through. Performed two more test drives. First, I did a 'payload test' where I sat down on the robot and attempted to drive to see if it could handle the weight. IT DID!! Then, without changing or charging the batteries, I did an endurance test. Was hoping to get at least 3 min out of them considering that they had already gone through other tests. I was able to get them to drive the robot around for at least 7 min (in addition to the time of the previous tests) without much slow down! That makes the tests a very outstanding 3 for 3. And this weekend, I finished up mounting the axe! That thing scares me! With the robot sitting on it's 'butt end', the top of those points are about 4'-6" off the ground. Those points just look like they are waiting for a chance to poke my eyes out (I ALWAYS wear my goggles when working around the axe). For that reason, I've already started making the sheath for the axe. It consists of 1/2" PVC pipe w/ 1/4" slots cut to go around the edge of the blades and cover that with a leather sheath to make it look nice. Got the PVC cut but the leather part of the sheath still needs to be finished. And just for good measures, my robot decided to do some damage before I could finish the sheath. Brought the RAV-1 in to start some of the leather work. I went up to get a soda before starting work and hear a loud CRASH! I rush back and see that the RAV-1 fell over and the tip of one of the blades managed to catch my CD tower and get some of my CD cases rather good. Fortunately, many of the CDs weren't in their cases and no damage occurred to the CDs themselves. March 12, 2001 - While not many updates have been performed on the site, the RAV-1 has progressed very far. First, the 14 gauge steel body has been fabricated from a local fabrication shop has been made and obtained. Secondly, the RDFR23 speed controller has arrived from Vantec. Thirdly, a local machine shop has manufactured some hubs to connect the 10" hand truck wheels to the NPC-60522 shafts. And last, but not least, I've mounted the motors & wheels and wired the RAV-1 together and conducted the first test drive of the RAV-1. The RAV-1 worked on the first try and the test was a success. Jan. 28, 2001 - This weekend, I picked up an axe from The Renaissance Store in town (they happened to be having a 25% off sale that day) and entitled it the "Bane Axe". While I haven't mounted it yet, I do have the pipe that is going to house the axe and will be what gets mounted. Also, I think I might try to not only get the hubs for the wheels done at a metal fab place, but possibly a new body as well. Current Status - retired The old body and drive motors are continuing on into the RAV-2 version, but the main weapon, the "Bane Axe" is going up on the shelf. Progress Photos
The following companies used to obtain the parts
for the RAV-1. NPC Inc. - Source of wheelchair drive motors and second set of wheels. Highly recommended! [sponsor] 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. 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. Quick Custom Metals - Local metal fabrication shop. Western Drawn Products - Machined one of the sets of hubs. Home Depot - Primary hardware store that various nuts, bolts, castors, and other misc. parts came from. Other local hardware stores were also used for other misc. parts. News/Updates: April 8, 2001 - Significant updates detailed above. |
