Small fighting robots part deux. Roflcopter. Coolest Robot at Bot Blast 2016. Highlight of my three pound career. Flail weapon. Kiwi drive. Bent sheet metal armor.
Conceived in the wee hours of the morning only three days before the Bot Blast event in Pennsylvania, Roflcopter is the perfect amalgamation of engineering design and coked up fever dreaming. Boasting an incredible three-robot-wide weapon range, this robot inflicts more fear into the hearts of its enemies than it does actual physical damage because of the pitifully low rotational inertia of its makeshift chain flail and its relatively slower weapon speed. It scales with radius squared, but in the case of small fighting robots, density of your weapon material and top weapon speed before impact probably matters a lot more. Regardless of its combat prowess, Roflcopter is definitely the most entertaining fighting robot I have made so far; a sentiment spectators seem to agree with as it won “Coolest Robot at Bot Blast 2016” by some spectacular miracle.
Roflcopter was built at the end of my Freshman summer. It was my first time working with sheet metal by bending it in a vice as well as the rotary indexer for the mill. This was also one of my first attempts at building a three Omni-wheel drive robot also called kiwi drive by some robot enthusiasts.
The armor and chassis of Rolfcopter was conceived as a single sheet of 5052 aluminum sheet metal carefully bent into shape with a mallet and a table vice. This was to save on material weight and time. A 1:1 scaled paper template was printed out from a sheet metal part that was unfolded in Solidworks and the cuts were done by hand on the band saw. All hole features were drilled by hand.
One drive motor installed. Holes in place.
With some elbow grease, sheet metal is bent into shape.
The flail weapon and some motors.
Making the huge standoff that holds the sheet metal armor to the bottom fiberglass cover.
The bottom plate I was referring to.
Finished frame with weapon.
Assembled chassis with drive train missing weapon.
At Bot Blast.
C-Clamp weapon lock in the pits. Safety first.
Robot guts. Emergency binders were added to the flaps to increase effectiveness as a wedge.
Weapon motor detached.
You can watch some fun robot spinning carnage below, plus all the other fights at Bot Blast 2016. Unfortunately, Roflcopter going full “melty” and discharging a cloud of magic blue smoke is cut from the end of this video.
After Roflcopter exploded and the shopping mall we were in filled with magic blue smoke, I was gifted with this excellent certificate of completion.
I feel like this could be used in one of those anti smoking ad campaigns. This is your motor on drugs.
