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Progress Reports / Team haciM

« on: February 26, 2018, 11:14:30 pm »

 After seeing battle bots return to tv I started looking up bots on the internet. My interest was growing in building something, but at the time me and my wife had sold our house so that meant no garage. Last december we moved into a garage apartment so I got my mill out of storage and put some digital readouts on it, now I was set ro build! I saw some motorama videos and figured a featherweight would be would build. My original plan was a shell spinner with cheap drill gearboxes an ev warrior and a kobalt 24v power tool battery. I soon ruled out the shell spinner as I didn't think I could package everything in the space, have it sturdy, and make weight. I decided a bar spinner would be the easiest thing to make. My original plan was to have it similar to the british bot NST. Looking at more bots i noticed the drill gearboxes probably wouldn't be great in modern combat so I got some bane bots gearboxes and 24v motors. I also did some more research into batteries and learned that the cells in the kobalt probably wouldn't fare well with the potential current draw. At some point in here I got a little hf lathe to make the hub and shaft. A 5" piece of round stock in a 7x10 lathe was interesting, but the end result was great. The design kept shrinking down to keep the weight in check. I was originally going to make the bar out of aluminum, but I decide to try and make one in cad. It probably took me about 5 hours to design it as I had no experience with cad before. The weekend before leaving I shaved about 13oz so I could add the titanium armor on the back. During the entire build there was never a drawing but I put alot of thought into making everything as beefy as I could and make it fit. It was a very fun project.
 Motorama was a blast! Everyone was very nice and helpful. I was very nervous not knowing what was going to hold up and what would fail after spending so much time building it. Zac, Earl, and Alex all helped me out and gave me advise, very cool! BEAM blew away all of my expectaions! I can't wait to see all of the videos so I can remember what happened in all of the fights.
 I am already thinking of things that need to be changed and improved. Hopefully everything will work out so I can build a sportsman as well! Thanks for reading and if you have any questions feel free to ask.

-Micah