Fantastic robots, it's a shame the first few had some bad luck. I really appreciate this kind of event report which goes into a bit of detail about the robot and then how it did in the competition.
Thanks! Less so bad luck and more poor preparation I think. It's a good base to improve on though - lots of ideas floating around to make them perform better
Thank you! I don't think it would have been much of a match in hindsight but I'd have been interested to see what would have happened going weapon to weapon with carbide.
@@HarryMakesThings tht bot was riptide's predessecor. You should at least try to compete with it more. Team eruption said themselves that they feared ur spinner.
Yeah it is a great hobby. I have been building these little ones since I was about 10 or 11 years old, bigger things along the way but I will always keep my hand in with the ants!
@@HarryMakesThings There seems to be a real shortage of British ant weight content out there which is a shame and as someone who makes weekly-ish videos myself id be more than happy with that video quality
Great video dude! Love the teardown of the bots. Wish we’d seen them go further in the comp. Hopefully we’ll get to see more of ReLoader in future comps too!
I would recommend you to use acetone on the ABS prints to make them stronger. Just brush it on, or you could go fancy and use a pot on low heat and make acetone vapour that will seep into the cracks and really glue the layers together. You can just lower it down with some metal wire.
Neat trick! Many moons ago when I first got to grips with ABS printing I tried using a rice cooker to give parts a vapour bath on the cheap. That was back when the stuff I was making had to be prettier and smoother rather than strong but I can see the link now. I get pretty lucky with my ABS on the whole to be fair. I am currently having a look at blends and ABS based materials that might be a little bit stronger.
Shakma reminds me of the very first VDD robot from 2002 Only footage I’ve seen of it is from Robojoust and it takes the gold but also sliced a hole into the wall
I'm absolutely thinking about this. I have never built anything remotely close to a moving not and I just saw your video. Is there a chance you can share the CAD files ? (I've never used any CAD program in my life haha)
@@oschvr Well the best way is to learn by doing it! There is a lot of online support and video tutorials for most CAD packages. I currently use Solidworks under a makers licence which is £10/month. Fusion 360 is free for hobby use and although their are limitations it's very capable and user friendly for beginners. These I won't share as they're mostly spinner chassis and I want to limit the amount of eyes and fingers lost on my watch from people who aren't familiar with the setup or safe testing of these things. I have uploaded some prior designs to my thingiverse page and there are lots of chassis available to download as an STL just by searching for "antweight robot" I also recommend reaching out and joining in the FB communities for combat robotics and antweight classes as they are a great resource to problem solve and gain inspiration.
Good eye! Yes and no I think is the answer. I would not have had the same fracture points (though these weren't too bad as I could patch them and keep running) but depending how I oriented it it could have been more catastrophic (i.e. the front fell off syndrome) I also balance ease of print, removal of supports and how i want it to fail. I think next time just changing material to a nylon or a TPU would take all the failure points away. I'm also looking at using a dead shaft to lock the bulkheads together better and make it more resilient.
Thanks for the suggestion! Looks pretty pricey - about £40 a kilo which puts it into 3 reels of ABS, two of TPU or even taulman 910 levels. Might be a bit much for me. Do you suffer any brittle failures at all?
I know it's a bit old, just wondering by ABS? I never had good layer adhesion with ABS/ASA. At least nothing compared to what I get with PLA, and the impact resistance is way lower than Nylon as well.
@@WernerBeroux honestly? I had a zortrax which is an ABS machine and the layer adhesion is immaculate and it's just hit print get part. I use a lot of nylon for my beetles and 'proper' robots. I prefer ABS to PLA as I find it a lot softer and less prone to brittle fracture.
@@HarryMakesThings I mean it prints and I even removed the fan which seem to make it a little better, but it's still miles away from PLA+ / PETG / TPU. That's why I'm surprise that for bots it's recommended. I know TPU is often forbidden.
@WernerBeroux one of the printers I have is a purpose built ABS Machine and while dated is a great asset for just hitting print. I also find the closer to 'pure' ABS the filament is the better. Polycarbonate/ABS blends are fairly often sold as filament which I find really brittle. This stuff is quite nice and soft and tends to take impact well. I'd take this over PLA-ST though I am a vocal champion of that material being the best off the shelf material that any printer can handle. Yes TPU is often excellent. I like to use it for armour more than chassis personally. To my knowledge it's only banned in specific plastic only classes. Open combat is always fine. In the UK at least it's only limited to the BBB plastic class for spinning weapons as they have a definite edge which isn't in the spirit of that particular competition. If I was making a competitive 150g tomorrow I'd probably use either an ABS or nylon chassis with a mixture of TPU and titanium armor.
Are you willing to share information about the bearings for your shuffler mechanism? It looks like a lot of fun, but I have no idea what kind of bearings to look for.
You might notice a small increase in traffic as this video is on Hack a Day this morning 👍 Your designs are really well engineered and refined. Thank you so much for sharing the details and analysis with us. It's inspiring and intimidating to see this level of skill in even the Ant Weight division 😨 You've obviously been doing this a long time ? One technical point, your videos all seem to be about HALF the TH-cam standard audio level 😕
Ah I didn't realise this one was poor too, I realised the ReLoader one was quiet after a few comments and maxed everything out on this one to try and combat it - not sure what else I can do but I'll have to have a play if I decide to make more. Yes, I got sent the hackaday article a few days ago - very cool and out of the blue! Views on this page and my blog have gone up with some trickle down to my FB page (which is where all the detailed pictures and musings are chucked up on) I think people write 150g (and 75g!) robots off way too easily due to their toy sized nature. I have seen more incredible and impressive engineering come out at this level than any other. Yes it's cute and lacks the bone shaking crashes and wallet aching damage of the 250lb monsters but you need a certain skill and determination to pull off some of the wildest shit with only grams to play with - and fitting into the 4" cube rule in the UK! I have been doing robots in one form or another for about 12 years now and have been building them semi properly (CAD, printing, machining) for maybe 8 years now. I have my style for sure, it may not be super traditional or very competitive but I get to make things I enjoy and that makes it worth it.
@@HarryMakesThings I don't know what OS you're running, but if it's Linux or Windoze you might want to check the mic level properties. [NOT the mixer controls & levels] Linux has a habit of defaulting Mic input levels to 56% in Pulse Audio pavucontrol lol Windoze I don't know as I haven't used it since 2003. But I assume it's a similar story. I helped another TH-camr with the exact same problem a few days ago. Thank you for making such a detailed response 🙂
Hey! I do not know if there is a robot combat competition in Denmark unfortunately. There are many competitions in Germany and the Netherlands - I think that is the closest established competitions to you. However with the age of online communities it is easier to find likeminded individuals and potentially set up your own robot club. Searching on social media for Combat robotics, antweights or beetleweights is probably a good way to get started with that. For parts guides and information I recommend looking up the English group "Bristol Bot Builders" as they are very friendly and open to giving advice and help. Best of luck!
You don't put too much pressure on it or drag it along skin - think of it like a knife, you can pick it up by the blade if you're careful. Only when you force it or move it will it hurt you.
This videos are always a delight and a inspiration!
Thank you so much for the kind words
Fantastic robots, it's a shame the first few had some bad luck. I really appreciate this kind of event report which goes into a bit of detail about the robot and then how it did in the competition.
Thanks! Less so bad luck and more poor preparation I think. It's a good base to improve on though - lots of ideas floating around to make them perform better
Fantastic breakdown of your builds. Soo cool !
hobgoblin actually has quite a lot of potential. If it didnt suffer so many mobility issue in robot wars, it might have been a match for even carbide.
Thank you! I don't think it would have been much of a match in hindsight but I'd have been interested to see what would have happened going weapon to weapon with carbide.
@@HarryMakesThings tht bot was riptide's predessecor. You should at least try to compete with it more. Team eruption said themselves that they feared ur spinner.
Please turn the volume up
Cool 😎 I had no idea these ant weight ones existed. Nicely executed! Thanks for sharing and good luck in future competitions 👍🏼
Yeah it is a great hobby. I have been building these little ones since I was about 10 or 11 years old, bigger things along the way but I will always keep my hand in with the ants!
I really enjoyed this thank you for taking the time to make it
Cheers! I'm (perhaps only slightly) better at making robots than videos so I am glad it is watchable.
@@HarryMakesThings There seems to be a real shortage of British ant weight content out there which is a shame and as someone who makes weekly-ish videos myself id be more than happy with that video quality
Your builds are very clean. Nice work!
Really enjoyed this video, great to see both the internals of your robots and how they held up in combat
Underrated
Great video dude! Love the teardown of the bots. Wish we’d seen them go further in the comp. Hopefully we’ll get to see more of ReLoader in future comps too!
I would recommend you to use acetone on the ABS prints to make them stronger. Just brush it on, or you could go fancy and use a pot on low heat and make acetone vapour that will seep into the cracks and really glue the layers together. You can just lower it down with some metal wire.
Neat trick! Many moons ago when I first got to grips with ABS printing I tried using a rice cooker to give parts a vapour bath on the cheap. That was back when the stuff I was making had to be prettier and smoother rather than strong but I can see the link now. I get pretty lucky with my ABS on the whole to be fair. I am currently having a look at blends and ABS based materials that might be a little bit stronger.
Do they really become stronger after an acetone treatment? I think CNC kitchen tried it and found that the opposite is true.
great video sir
Nice collection of robots :-)
Shakma reminds me of the very first VDD robot from 2002
Only footage I’ve seen of it is from Robojoust and it takes the gold but also sliced a hole into the wall
Is it bad that I want to clone Hobgoblet?
Well it's not exactly an original shape itself - go nuts!
@@HarryMakesThings was the bot still your design or was it a kit/online plans you found?
@@matthewlaxon828 I designed it in CAD myself
I'm absolutely thinking about this. I have never built anything remotely close to a moving not and I just saw your video. Is there a chance you can share the CAD files ? (I've never used any CAD program in my life haha)
@@oschvr Well the best way is to learn by doing it! There is a lot of online support and video tutorials for most CAD packages. I currently use Solidworks under a makers licence which is £10/month. Fusion 360 is free for hobby use and although their are limitations it's very capable and user friendly for beginners.
These I won't share as they're mostly spinner chassis and I want to limit the amount of eyes and fingers lost on my watch from people who aren't familiar with the setup or safe testing of these things. I have uploaded some prior designs to my thingiverse page and there are lots of chassis available to download as an STL just by searching for "antweight robot"
I also recommend reaching out and joining in the FB communities for combat robotics and antweight classes as they are a great resource to problem solve and gain inspiration.
Great work! Thanks for sharing
Thank you, much appreciated!
Sucks that you didn’t do the best but hobgoblet was awesome, I absolutely love the egg beater
Hi! I notice that hobgoblet split along it's layer lines, would it have been more durable if it were printed in the other orientation?
Good eye! Yes and no I think is the answer. I would not have had the same fracture points (though these weren't too bad as I could patch them and keep running) but depending how I oriented it it could have been more catastrophic (i.e. the front fell off syndrome)
I also balance ease of print, removal of supports and how i want it to fail. I think next time just changing material to a nylon or a TPU would take all the failure points away. I'm also looking at using a dead shaft to lock the bulkheads together better and make it more resilient.
For Hobgoblet how thick are your weapon rails? And how is the other weapon side mounted in the chassis?
@@l8dawn Hi, the frame rails were 5mm and the beater has a shaft which rides on a flanged bearing pressed into the bulkhead
Great clear explanation. I love the walker, it's a shame it didn't do a bit better.
Try polymaker polymax Pla. Very tough we use it on our 1lb bots.
Thanks for the suggestion! Looks pretty pricey - about £40 a kilo which puts it into 3 reels of ABS, two of TPU or even taulman 910 levels. Might be a bit much for me. Do you suffer any brittle failures at all?
I know it's a bit old, just wondering by ABS? I never had good layer adhesion with ABS/ASA. At least nothing compared to what I get with PLA, and the impact resistance is way lower than Nylon as well.
@@WernerBeroux honestly? I had a zortrax which is an ABS machine and the layer adhesion is immaculate and it's just hit print get part. I use a lot of nylon for my beetles and 'proper' robots. I prefer ABS to PLA as I find it a lot softer and less prone to brittle fracture.
@@HarryMakesThings I mean it prints and I even removed the fan which seem to make it a little better, but it's still miles away from PLA+ / PETG / TPU. That's why I'm surprise that for bots it's recommended. I know TPU is often forbidden.
@WernerBeroux one of the printers I have is a purpose built ABS Machine and while dated is a great asset for just hitting print. I also find the closer to 'pure' ABS the filament is the better. Polycarbonate/ABS blends are fairly often sold as filament which I find really brittle. This stuff is quite nice and soft and tends to take impact well. I'd take this over PLA-ST though I am a vocal champion of that material being the best off the shelf material that any printer can handle.
Yes TPU is often excellent. I like to use it for armour more than chassis personally. To my knowledge it's only banned in specific plastic only classes. Open combat is always fine. In the UK at least it's only limited to the BBB plastic class for spinning weapons as they have a definite edge which isn't in the spirit of that particular competition.
If I was making a competitive 150g tomorrow I'd probably use either an ABS or nylon chassis with a mixture of TPU and titanium armor.
Sad Ken’s a dead cert!
Harry the bastard gave me 3p for my house!
Are you willing to share information about the bearings for your shuffler mechanism? It looks like a lot of fun, but I have no idea what kind of bearings to look for.
@@instasquid sure, they're 8mm bore 12mm OD and 4mm wide
@@HarryMakesThings Amazing. Thank you! It's good to have some starting parameters.
I noticed some lego wheels!
You might notice a small increase in traffic as this video is on Hack a Day this morning 👍
Your designs are really well engineered and refined. Thank you so much for sharing the details and analysis with us. It's inspiring and intimidating to see this level of skill in even the Ant Weight division 😨
You've obviously been doing this a long time ?
One technical point, your videos all seem to be about HALF the TH-cam standard audio level 😕
Ah I didn't realise this one was poor too, I realised the ReLoader one was quiet after a few comments and maxed everything out on this one to try and combat it - not sure what else I can do but I'll have to have a play if I decide to make more. Yes, I got sent the hackaday article a few days ago - very cool and out of the blue! Views on this page and my blog have gone up with some trickle down to my FB page (which is where all the detailed pictures and musings are chucked up on)
I think people write 150g (and 75g!) robots off way too easily due to their toy sized nature. I have seen more incredible and impressive engineering come out at this level than any other. Yes it's cute and lacks the bone shaking crashes and wallet aching damage of the 250lb monsters but you need a certain skill and determination to pull off some of the wildest shit with only grams to play with - and fitting into the 4" cube rule in the UK!
I have been doing robots in one form or another for about 12 years now and have been building them semi properly (CAD, printing, machining) for maybe 8 years now. I have my style for sure, it may not be super traditional or very competitive but I get to make things I enjoy and that makes it worth it.
@@HarryMakesThings I don't know what OS you're running, but if it's Linux or Windoze you might want to check the mic level properties. [NOT the mixer controls & levels]
Linux has a habit of defaulting Mic input levels to 56% in Pulse Audio pavucontrol lol
Windoze I don't know as I haven't used it since 2003. But I assume it's a similar story.
I helped another TH-camr with the exact same problem a few days ago.
Thank you for making such a detailed response 🙂
Does something like this, exist in Denmark ? Don't know what to search for.
Hey! I do not know if there is a robot combat competition in Denmark unfortunately. There are many competitions in Germany and the Netherlands - I think that is the closest established competitions to you. However with the age of online communities it is easier to find likeminded individuals and potentially set up your own robot club. Searching on social media for Combat robotics, antweights or beetleweights is probably a good way to get started with that. For parts guides and information I recommend looking up the English group "Bristol Bot Builders" as they are very friendly and open to giving advice and help. Best of luck!
Can you let me know the weight category of these bots?
Antweight - 150 grams
Try to focus on sound more in the future cause it is not that well.
Nice robots and vid btw!
That arena would favor pushing / wedge bots. Not a fan of the pit design personally, much more fun watching them actually fight.
how did you not cut yor self wen you tuhc the blade
You don't put too much pressure on it or drag it along skin - think of it like a knife, you can pick it up by the blade if you're careful. Only when you force it or move it will it hurt you.
please increase the volume in your future videos, really quiet.
nice bots tho
4:38 heeeeeeyyyy i know that bot!