New To Robotics
 

I signed up for this electronics course to fill one of my spares a couple of weeks ago, and we're going to be doing this battlebots project - just sumo and racing and basic stuff, but they aren't wireless. I was wondering what prices would be like to make them wireless? I have Googled stuff and unfortunately everything is blocked (that I found anyway).

I want to make one that would spin, yet go forward at the same time, and just part suggestions, I was thinking about gutting a drill and using that motor for the spinning part, and use a potentiometer (spelling - again, I'm new to electronics) and such. Any sort of help in the area would be great. Thanks.

Re: New To Robotics
 

Well, if you look around you can get a VEX kit for $150 at radioshack.

I'm not sure of the legality of that for your class, but a VEX kit could be adapted for that and it provides a decent amount of inputs and outpus for that price. It is also pretty easy to program.

Re: New To Robotics
 

About drills: There's a great whitepaper by Joe P called Nothing but DeWalts:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/download/1589

It was written for FRC, but you can get an idea of some of the steps involved and pricing of using drill motors and fitting them to your robot. :)

Re: New To Robotics
 

What does FRC mean?

Oh and I skimmed thru that article and to me its just :eek:

Re: New To Robotics
 

First Robotics Competition. The FRC teams are the ones that build the large bots seen here: http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/

Re: New To Robotics
 

Check out my last post. I skimmed thru that and I didn't understand it at all.

Oh and a few other questions:

Everything is done thru wiring, but that wouldn't be considered "programming" it - or no?

If you do all the work yourself, would you still be called that?

Oh and on my prof I just put the name of my bot for the team. I woke up at like 3:30 one morning thinking of designs and it stuck with me.

Re: New To Robotics
 

Well... that's not quite what you're wanting to do. Basically, their taking the transmission (the gearing and such as that) off the Dewalt and fitting it to one of the motors that already come with the FRC robot kit.

I think you'll be taking the housing off the motor and transmission on the drill and using both to power your battlebot thing. You can see the pricing of the drill there in the whitepaper though as well as how to assemble the drill using other motors, how to fit it for a chain, and some other random things.

Re: New To Robotics
 

This forum is meant to be about FIRST, not random battlebots. So while alot of the info will apply, certainly not all of it will.

Re: New To Robotics
 

There are no kits or anything. We make everything from scratch. We're required to wire it and all we get are the parts, and we can buy them ourselves too. The bot has to be within 20 cm x 20 cm by 20 cm or 8" x 8" x 8" for the imperial users.

(2.54 cm = 1 inch)

Edit: And I added more to my post again before...

I didn't really know where to put this chris so I apologize.

Re: New To Robotics
 

Wow, small size. What is the purpose of the bot? Destroy everything?

Re: New To Robotics
 

Okay I'll be a bit more specific...

The bot is for an in-class competition. There's no other schools / places competing, its just to show what we learned and stuff throughout the course. There's nothing extra at all.

The bots just supposed to compete in sumo, controlling, an obsticle course (2 of the 3 minimum) and almost everyone is putting a weapon in it, and I want mine to spin. Only one person is working on each bot, thats why they're so small, and it's a one-semester project too. Everything is done by hand, there's no computers involved at all.

Re: New To Robotics
 

That actually sounds like alot of fun. An RC car can be bought for not too much. Then you just need to fix the weapon on top/front/side whatever.

Re: New To Robotics
 

Yeah I suppose that, a few people are taking apart remote control cars like you said.

Just mount the drill and tweak it a bit, but we can't use the actual car itself, we can really only use parts.

Re: New To Robotics
 

I don't want to think RC cars have much torque? Make something with a bit of power and some weight, you'll own the sumo and control competitions.

Re: New To Robotics
 

I basically want to have more spin on the bot than have it moving. So like, move it to a standard speed in the sumo, but have it spin a hella lot faster than its moving.