APSF Robotics
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WulfBane's RAV-2 Middle Weight Battle Bot And now begins the life of "WulfBane RAV-2". 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 at 36V. The top is the 14 gauge steel lid that I got with the body. The weapon system consists of an array of 8" saw blades mounted to the front of the bot spinning at approximately 3000 RPM's. Attack Tactic: Attacks will consist of delivering the saw blade array to the opponent. If all else fails, pushing them around also works. Upgrades from the previous version: The body and drive train remained the same from the RAV-1 incarnation of WulfBane, but the "Bane Axe", the aft wedge, and the old push-pull kill switch were ditched. The kill switch was replaced by a large switch using a 1/4" allen key. The ESC was upgraded from an RDFR 23 to an RDFR 36e so the robot can now be run at 36V to provide more speed and power. Finally, an array of 8" saw blades mounted to the front of the robot replaced the RAV-1 signature weapon, the "Bane Axe". Updates: April 21, 2002 - Well, this bot was retired before this page was made, so I'll just quickly chronicle the bots life (with more details to be filled in later). Well, after realizing the flaws in the RAV-1 design and seeing what other bots have, I decided that an active weapon on the from of WulfBane was in order. I was considering a rolling drum, but IKS came along and I was able to pick up a stack of 8" saw blades instead. I also was able to get my RDFR 36e repaired by Vantec, so I was also able to upgrade to 36V of power! After I was able to upgrade to 36V, but before the saw blades arrived, Ed Robinson (Team Blaze) decided to hold his first ever "Las Vegas Street Fight" over Labor Day weekend of 2001. Turn out was small, so the 'fight' was a 3-way MW rumble with a 36V 'pushy-box' version of WulfBane (which I referred to as the RAV-1.9), Greg Hjelstrom's Chameleon, and John Hoffman's Scheduled For Destruction. Early into the fight, I saw Chameleon's weapon spinning and I figured "what the heck" and went right at it to see what would happen and maybe provide some good action. Well, the hit bent the weapon arm (same thing happened to him at Battle Bots 3.0). They also weren't running on a full battery charge, so they dropped out after a while. Scheduled For Destruction put up a good fight, with both bots almost evenly matched when it came to head-to-head pushing matches, with WulfBane usually a hare stronger. After John saw his motors smoking, the rumble was ended and WulfBane was declared the winner of the first ever Las Vegas Street Fight. YEAH!!! I did learn in the fight though, that my batteries were able to slide forward, so a barrier consisting of angled aluminum was put in place to stop that. I also saw how well WulfBane runs at 36V as a 'pushy-box'. Of course, I still wanted to put on the saw blade array. But in the first fight at Bot Bash 2001, this proved a fatal ambition as the weight from the saw blades put the center of gravity too far forward and I lost drive traction with this real wheel drive bot. Another thing to point out about Bot Bash 2001 was that I let a friend drive WulfBane while I was mainly concentrating on Blue Vixen. After the 9-0 loss to Two-Fisted in the winners bracket, the saw blade array was removed and WulfBane reverted back to the pushy-box form he was in for the Vegas Street Fight. After defeating Something Wicked via KO and All-Weather Tire Bot in a 5-4 decision, WulfBane had his three 7lb SLA's EJECTED by Garm, who went on to be the Bot Bash 2001 "Super Heavy Weight" runner up (for various reasons, the Bot Bash 2001 weight class names were two steps higher then the Battle Bot names). Basically, the way I was able to determine that it occurred was that as Garm's high KE disk was spinning, the teeth scrapped along the front of WulfBane. As they scraped (the last scraping tooth running dead center on the front), the front of WulfBane was lifted up. Finally, a tooth came around and was able to hit UNDER WulfBane's lifted front. The shock caused some of the Zip Tie holders to fail and the batteries when flying (one landed as far as 6' from the robot). It took me a couple seconds to realize what happened in that fraction of a second and when I realized it, I obviously had to throw in the towel for the match. As it was my second loss, it was also the end for WulfBane at Bot Bash 2001, who placed 6th in the field of 10 robots with the 2-2 record. As a 'salvage operation' to take WulfBane up to Battle Bots 4.0 that occurred a month later, I simply cut the 'Garmed' portion of WulfBane off and put a lexan & steel front panel over the gap. However, I didn't get to run with it as my truck broke down on the way to the event and I was never able to make it up there. Back to the drawing board AGAIN with a refined WulfBane RAV-3... Current Status - retired After having the front end destroyed by Garm, the mark-2 incarnation of WulfBane is now retired for bigger and better things. Time for the RAV-3 Progress Photos
The following companies used to obtain the parts
for the RAV-2. 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. |
