I've been into robot combat since the original robot wars series but I was young back then and didn't know where to begin with trying to build my own but now the new series is back and I found the AWS videos on youtube I decided I wanted to finally give building my own robot a go. I've been lurking around this forum and reddit trying to find stuff out while my account was being approved so I know the basics about Rory's kit being the way to go for beginners and polycarbonate being the holy grail for people who don't have the tools to 3d print or work with metal. I also read through Shakey's build diary and picked up on that one servo that he said he used in all his flippers but I still have some questions that I wanna ask before I buy any bits and turn this question thread into a build diary.
as you probably guessed from me mentioning a servo I'm planning on building a flipper ant as my first robot but wait! before you roll your eyes in shock about a newbie building a two wheel drive servo flipper as their first antweight hear me out. Because this is no ordinary flipper, it's a DOUBLE FLIPPER. I basically had the idea of what if a front hinged flipper went all the way round the robot and had a scoop on it so that when driven in reverse it acted as a rear hinged flipper. And from there I thought about the robots with those two weapons that I found the coolest/were the most successful and I ended up with the drawings you see below. Basically the front of Chaos 2 on the back of firestorm/Cassius 2.(I added some squiggles meant to look like motors and circuit boards but I don't actually know what would fit where) I have no idea if it would work but I like the idea and from watching some of the AWS videos there's quite a lot of 2WD wedges with flippers and I wanna be different.
anyway I've got most of it sorted out I just need help with a few things:
1.I don't know what transmitter to get although I know that Rory's kit's receiver won't work with a certain kind of transmitter?
2.I don't know what kind of battery to get beyond LiPo's being powerful and light
3.how big should my bot be? I know about the 4" cube but should I aim to take up all the space? or atleast the flat areas? or do I want the robot to be as small as possible?
4.How should I attach the flipper to the servo? directly? I read something about having a rod between the servo and the flipper wasting power and gears being the way to go? or would that not work in my design?
That's about it for now but I'm sure I'm forgetting something. I'll pop my drawings of what I had in mind for my bot below so you may see what I'm going on about. the bit near the wheels is what I imagine chaos 2's flipper blade would have looked like nowadays, kinda wrapped around the rear/front of the bot to protect the wheels from any marauding spinners. I thought that maybe if it was only a small bit bent in a couple places I could use metal for that bit and polycarb most everywhere else but I don't know what kind of metal to use or in what thickness.
Thanks again for reading this hideous wall of text and for any advice you may have.
My name's Harry by the way, I forget whether I entered that for my account.
![Image](http://i.imgur.com/p47zVel.jpg)
![Image](http://i.imgur.com/5F9LCZJ.jpg)