I've been building Ants for about 1 1/2 years now, in that time I've made a lot of different robots - some successful, some unsuccessful. My main robots are: PiG, a robot with hemispherical wheels and a big saw,
XR220, based on Wheely Big Cheese with a mechanical servo-powered flipper,
ValiAnt, a concept at the moment for a robot with a powerful rubber band operated multi- purpose weapon.
I have also built the Arm, which is a stationary arena obstacle similar to a mini version of the sentinel.
XR220 is to be retired soon and will be replaced by a similar robot using a pneumatic flipper instead of the mechanical one. Air pressure may be maintained by an on-board compressor if I can fit it in. Initial calculations show that the flipper will be able to lift just over 8 kilos.
PiG is now due for a major rebuild with an even more powerful saw motor. One option I am considering is using a radio controlled 30 gram petrol engine to power the saw via a belt drive, and replacing the two scalpel blades bolted to a servo disk with a special saw made from a bar of stainless steel. Look out Anticyclone! :)
Depending on how successful XR220's pneumatic replacement turns out to be, I may re-design ValiAnt using pneumatics instead of rubber bands. It will give more power but less weapon duration, at approximately 10 full-power shots per fight.
There is also talk of a new 1kg weight limit version of Ant type robots. See my page on these
© Hairy Steve May 2K+1