[bigbangrobotics] Big Bang Robotics 2005 Wrapup
- From: Jay Johnson <tallyjay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Free List <bigbangrobotics@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2005 18:33:59 -0700 (PDT)
2005 Season Report
It seems impossible that September is already upon us,
but 2005 is indeed flying by. This was a short season
for our team, with great events in Daytona Beach
("BattleBeach" www.battlebeach.com) and New Orleans
("Robotic Revolution" www.secr.org; their server is
down due to hurricane damage). We had some great
matches and most importantly feel confident we finally
identified the component that had been causing
intermittent loss of control in our drive train during
the last couple of seasons.
We have been using an on-board electronic mixer to
give us the ability to easily drive while inverted.
This one electronic board (an IMX-1, the size of a
credit card) was apparently intermittently locking up
and freezing all input to the drive train, possibly
due to electronic interference or noise within the
robot itself. With this component removed from the
robot we have finally eliminated the problem.
PREPARING FOR 2006
The 2005 season also firmly convinced us that HMN is
due for an extreme makeover. HMN continues to be a
solid robot and is fun to drive and entertaining to
watch, but the advances in armoring materials and
increases in weapon power the sport has seen over the
last two years require a serious engineering response
to return HMN to his glory days. With the assistance
of our sponsors Fenner Drives and Rapid Response
Products we are building a new generation of HMN. We
are replacing the aluminum channel chassis with a
welded chrom-moly 4130 steel frame, upping the voltage
and RPM on the weapon system significantly and
replacing the aluminum weapon disks with a gargantuan
solid titanium bar. When the 2006 season cranks up we
expect to be back in top form ? stay tuned for more
details!
Jay and Valerie
www.bigbangrobotics.com
********************
THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS!
It takes more than a great idea to compete in robotic
sports and we are fortunate to have the support of a
great company: Fenner Drives. They?ve supplied new
Trantorque GT units for Heavy Metal Noise and we
continue to be impressed with their entire line of
power transmission products: www.fennerdrives.com
Thanks also to Rapid Response Products, a Fenner
Partner. They have sent us a generous shipment of
custom pulleys and belts:
www.rapidresponseproducts.com
********************
ANTI-SPAM MESSAGE: We hope you enjoy our occasional
updates but if you wish to be removed from this
mailing list, just send an email to
bigbangrobotics-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx and put
"unsubscribe" (without the quotes) in the Subject line
of the email. Thanks!
Other related posts:
- » [bigbangrobotics] Big Bang Robotics 2005 Wrapup
