Charlie Andrews

For the main group project of second year, students were tasked with designing and building a fighting robot. These would be set against each other at the end of the semester, in a similar style to the television programme, Robot Wars.

 

There are many different ways to design a robot, but there is a clear simplest option. This was to have an electric motor on each side of the robot, each connected to a wheel. This system eliminates the need for a steering system, because with an H bridge, it is possible to control the speed of the wheel on each side, thus allowing operators to steer their robot. Most groups of course chose this option. There was limited design time, limited workshop time and limited resources. Why not choose this option to guarantee a good grade?

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In our first group meeting, we decided that we wanted to be ambitious and wow the opposition. We went through ideas such as a chainsaw on two wheels. We liked the idea of an internal combustion engine, and in the end settled on a petrol strimmer engine as our main drive motor. 

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The decision to do this eventually brought up many complications:

- The engine runs at 8000 rmp and we needed 2750 rmp to make the robot travel the desired velocity of 10 m/s, thus a gearing system needed to be added

- Using just one engine meant designing a steering system, which means more electronics

- Using a strimmer engine meant no reverse so an auxiliary electric motor had to be added inline.

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In the end, all of these problems, as well as not being able to dedicate more time and personal funds to the project due to other course commitments, lead to the failure of the project. The gearing system was built for £10, where a proper gearbox would have been more effective. the bike gears we used did not weld well, and the loose chains used on the drive train did not help. There were too many things that could go wrong - and they did.

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I learnt a valuable lesson from this project - ambition must be realistic. The group should have set our goals to be more achievable within the time frame and budget. I learnt much about design, and saw how other groups succeeded where we had failed. I believe if we had more time and money to invest in to this project, we could have been far more successful.