Tips!
- Never support your weapon shaft with one bearing or bushing. If you do a direct drive weapon to a motor, be sure to put something on the other side of the weapon to secure it.
- Weigh every part before and after to make sure you will stay in the weight limit.
- Try to use carbon fiber. Even though it is expensive, it is very light and strong! If you can not get it, use good designs that can be light and strong even with plastic.
- Invertible? Design your 'bot in a way that it can run upside down or get back on its wheels/legs via a servo with an arm on it, a weapon bouncing off the ground or hitting a wall, or some curved piece(s) that roll the robot back on its wheels/legs.
- Try to keep wheels protected! A lost wheel or two could end the match for you! If not protected, make your robot fast and maneuverable so it can avoid the other robots weapon.
- Do not use solder, glue, or Velcro to attach parts to your robots. These are very weak. Use screws, nuts and bolts, or interlocking parts instead.
- Scavenge! a broken vcr or dvd player can have lots of good shafts, belts, gears, pulleys, and other parts. Some dvd players and cd players have very powerful brushless motors that just need some rewiring and a brushless esc.
- Wheels are a big part in pushing power and weight. Foam wheels have a TON of traction and are some of the lightest wheels you can buy. Get them at the Robot Marketplace
- Make a cad(computer aided design) or a really detailed drawing before you start your robot. Google Sketchup is free and quick, but it is more suited for architecture. Get Autodesk, E machine shop, or my favorite, Solidworks.
- Putting all the components into a robot chassis is hard, especially if you already have it fully built. Try imagining it as Tetris.
- Make sure your antenna is not blocked by something metal. Metal can block rf waves and give glitches. Even carbon fiber can block rf signals so plan your antenna placement carefully! Motors and Batteries can also give off interference so try to keep the antenna away from those also. While this seams like a problem, most robots dont suffer this. The radio systems were made to have long ranges and low glitch problems. Still, a glitch can make or break a robot for you.
- Servo motors can be hacked into very good robot drive motors. Even though they are slow there is a way to make them faster.
- Take an led, 220 ohm resistor, and a spare connector for your receiver. Wire up the led resistor and the connector and plug it into your receiver. Make sure to put some heat shrink over the resistor and wiring. Drill a small hole in the chassis just big enough to let the led peek through. You now have a power indicator!
- Buy Robot Arena Two from amazon.com or anywhere you can find it. It's a great way to practice different robot designs and have fun with them before you start designing your real robot. Also get the dsl2.0 patch here. It has better ways of designing robots, And more realistic parts, sounds, and armour.
- Make a website! People will want to see how you did something to make their own bot. You can also post embedded youtube links for movies instead of wasting any space in the website memory.
- Try to use as little wire as possible. This will save money, space, and weight. It will also make less interference with the radio system and transmit power more efficiently. Your robot will also look neat and tidy.
- Buy in bulk, especially with materials like wire and sheets of plastic and metal. This will save time and money.
- Try to use ball bearings as much on your weapon system! Some weapons vibrate and spin so fast that they wear a plastic bushing away quite quickly.
- Don't use a toy radio system. While these may work in simple wedge robots they will not stand up to a more competitive robots needs. Some competitions outlaw cheap toy systems and only allow hobby radios. My four channel stick system only cost 50 dollars, so it a good investment for your robots.
- Use a electric screwdriver or cordless drill for most of your screw work. It works much faster and saves wrists!
- Use good connectors and switches. The good ones will be light, small, and are able to push a lot of current through.
- Make a simple robot first. It doesn't have to have an active weapon on it, just some armour and all the neccesary electronics. It may not look cool, but it will teach you how to build a simple robot so you will not fail on your next robot.
- Use lithium Batteries. Lithium is the most powerful battery chemistry for its size and weight. Apogee, or lithium magnesium, is the safest, but not the cheapest. Lithium Polymer is the most powerful and the second cheapest. Lithium ion is still really powerful, but not as powerful as the other two, but it is the cheapest. Make sure you have the right type of charger and read all the safety notes before buying. You can get these batteries at the Robot Marketplace, Apogee, and AtomicMods.