Team Mutually Assured Destruction

[InfernalTank]

Hello, folks!

I'm Nate, and I'm from the United States. It's a pleasure to join this forum and have the opportunity to talk with the builders in the UK ant/flea/nano scene.

After talking with Rory and Shakey a lot, I decided to make a UK antweight (or fairyweight in the US, for those who do not know). Introducing, Denise:

http://www.buildersdb.com/botdetails.asp?botid=10324

Denise is a play off the successful 150g US bot called "Demise". In a facebook chat, Shakey(?) misspelled it as "Denise" and I thought it was funny. The name stuck afterwards.

Specs:

Body: 2.5 mm Polycarbonate for the body, 1.5 for the top and wheelguards (added after its first event)
Motor Mounts: url=Fingertech Bearing Blocks
Motor/ESC/Receiver combo: NanoTwo
Wheels and hubs: 1.5 in/38 mm Lectra Lites with Fingertech Lite Hubs


At Motorama 2015, Denise went 1-1 in a round robin tournament. It lost because it lost a wheel to Demise, but it went the full 2 minutes and the only damage was to the hub, which was easily replaced. It beat a modified Shockbots kit called Bia on a judges' decision, despite having drive issues (I forgot to adjust the trim).

Hopefully building Denise with easily available parts will inspire people in the Northeastern United States to build more fairyweight/UK antweight bots.

[Shakey]

I was quite pleased with how it turned out and can't wait to see what upgrades are planned

[InfernalTank]

All I've been thinking about recently are (UK) antweight designs. Aside from Denise 2, (which I will go into detail about in this post), I've thought of two other ideas for future 150g bots.

1. A horizontal undercutter originally similar to Dark Blade, but thanks to advice from Rory and Shakey, I'm leaning more towards something like Anticyclone
2. A vertical spinner similar to Why Wait

For Denise 2, I have several design goals (besides the obvious goals of working properly and being invertible)

1. 4 wheel drive (4wd Nanotwo ESC/receiver combo with 4 3d printed wheels from Shakey and standard micro motor mounts)
2. Wheelguards (most likely 1.6mm Lexan)
3. A flush enough wedge (the wedge on the original Denise was messed up due to my imperfect bending, which meant that it had a hard time getting underneath the other bots)
4. Durability (especially since I'm going to be fighting in an arena without push-outs)

On the topic of durability, here's the damage to the Lexan courtesy of Demise:




The wedge will most likely stay at 2.4mm Lexan unless I am able to make weight for something thicker. At the moment, my material ideas are as follows:

1. 2mm base with 1.5mm top, sides and back, and 2.4mm wedge
2. All 2mm body and 2.4mm wedge
3. 1.5mm body and >2.4mm wedge

I would appreciate any advice on my current ideas.

[InfernalTank]

Doing something completely different now.



A friend of mine, Thomas Kenney, offered to sell me the wedge from his 150g bot Mango Farmer.



A UHMW frame, with a polycarbonate top and bottom. Like Mango Farmer, the motors will be glued in to place. The bot is about 112g right now.