I nagged on this forum a lot and figured i may as well post a pic of the final product…
The competition was today and this robot blew away the competition, that is until the chassis failed critically… stupid acrylic…
I know there are a lot of people who really like acrylic (mainly because it is cheap I suppose), but I personally would never build a robot using it. Delrin is a far superior plastic to use - it machines nicer, it has a much higher melting point (which helps with the machining), and it is enormously less brittle than acrylic.
I found a local supplier in Brampton (near Toronto) who sells sheets of Delrin, cut to whatever size you want. I typically buy a couple large pieces (2’ x 2’) in both 1/4" and 1/8" thickness.
But I like your robot - its a nice use of a nice tread kit… Do you have any video?
it was cheap, not my first choice. but it was all i could find. I could have shopped around more though.
The acrylic was pretty nice to work with and held up fine, but i plan to use 1/8th inch steel for two reasons:
-the robot was not heavy enough and i can make it beefier.
-the torque from the screwdriver motors is what snapped the base so it has
to be very strong!
There is a short clip of it battling the robot that won the competition on youtube, so you can get an idea how it should have done…
here it is:
I would advise you to look at using aluminum instead of steel. Go with 1/4" aluminum if you need lots of heft, and 1/8" or even 1/16" for your tread support pieces.
Don’t forget polycarbonate. It cuts easier than acrylic but is not brittle. Nice bot by the way. I wanted to build a tracked vehicle for sumo. You beat me to it. Keep up the good work! 8)
hey you found me^. i added some pics of the build to the link above including a test run on a water bed. if your sumo cant run on a water bed what good is it anyway???
How’d you get the drill motors to attach to the tracks? Did you put a 6mm shaft into the drill head and attach a univeral hub to connect it to the sprockets?