team hectic

[Remote-Controlled Dave]

Good work dude

[Hogi]

thanks guys! i'm really looking forward to the AWS! can't wait! oh well, still have to wait 13 days 18 hours, 39 minutes and 11 seconds not that i'm counting of course.
can't wait to see what robots you guys have built this time.

[Hogi]

well, after a very successful AWS becoming fleaweight champion and 2nd ranking antweight, it's time to start prepairations of my team for antweight open.

my to do list:

-repair hogi after quite a few nasty beatings at the AWS.

-completely rebuild transit ant after a rather pitiful performance.

-find a permanent tyre solution for thunder strike.

lose weight from thunder strike after it came in a bit heavy at the AWS.

[Hogi]

decided to rebuild transit ant today because the original chasis got pretty much completely destroyed at anttweight open and all the makeshift repairs were starting to disintegrate. i wanted to redo it anyway as it was basically a lighter, less effective clone robot of hogi. so, i got to work...

i went for inner mounted wheels this time. ( fed up of getting the tyres shredded by spinnerd ). that worked out quite well. i also made my own motor mounts which is a first for me as i usually buy the pololu ones. as for the wheels, this model is going to run a pair of wide plastic hubs that Peter very kindly gave me at antweight open with rubber bands as tyres. here are some pictures, please excuse the abominable quality

[AntRoboteer]

I really wouldn't use rubber bands if I were you! You may remember the first time I competed with my original robots; they used rubber band tyres and it was like driving on an ice rink out there! I had no grip whatsoever!

I would recommend you go down to your local Poundland or similar and pick up some sticky rubber gloves. The ones I get are yellow, 2 pairs (or 4 gloves) for a pound. With each glove, I could cover about 15 of those wheels which is great value. They are very sticky and grippy and I cannot recommend them enough. Just make sure they are a really cheap brand as they are often stickier than Marigold gloves which I tried with no success.

Good luck with the new Transit Ant; can't se what was wrong with the old one myself! If you can make something that good or even better again, you'll have the competition in the bag, or at least any fights concerning me!

[Hogi]

thanks antroboteer, i'm heading down to poundland next weekend anyway so i'll deffinitely pick some up.

[Hogi]

i don't think this is bad for a day's work. just needs the motors securing properly, the switch mounting and then a few other little finishing touches and then it'll be ready to compete. i did get some rubber gloves to use as tyres. they seem to be relatively grippy.

[AntRoboteer]

Sounds great. I'm glad to be of assistance! Which colour were they by the way?

EDIT: Ah yes, the picture has appeared; you seem to have the same yellow ones that I have! Very nice!

[Hogi]

today's work report.

i've spent some more time working on walker mechanisms and i think i've found one that might work. i built two mechanisms and installed them on transit ant's previous chasis. no electronics inside at least not for now but it might get a run one day.

in other news, the rubber glove material seems to make quite a decent tyre so i've added some tp TS as well.

[AntRoboteer]

They look great! I love the walker mechanism - so innovative.