The video was well done. Is this 100% your own design? Did you design and have the brackets made?
As far as the sliding feet, why doesn’t anyone ever glue a thin piece of rubber on the bottom of the feet? Can’t a 1mm thick, piece of rubber sheet, be cut to glue on the bottom soles?
Thanks!
Rob Farrell and I (Chris Farrell) have worked together on both robots.
Yes, I designed both of these robots on a CAD program (with input from Rob) and we fabricated all of the brackets ourselves. We use .05" aircraft aluminum (5052). We cut it with a scroll saw, drill holes using a drill press and then use a sheet metal brake to bend the brackets. We have a sanding tool to smooth down the parts as well.
We tried gluing thin pieces of material to the bottom of the feet, but there is not a lot of surface area, and because the feet are aluminum, the glue did not stick well. After 2-3 minutes of use it tended to come off. We decided that since many Japanese robots did not seem to use this that the solution laid within the moves themselves.
-Hive
I understand the point is to lower the CG, but I didn’t think it was legal to have it move full time with the shins parallel to the floor. If the low stance is indeed legal, then I don’t see why everyone is not doing it… I guess you guys know better than me though.
You guys definitely did a great job with the bots. Good luck at the Games! 
I sure wish I could afford to build a couple $4000+ robots… 
I am not positive that having the shins parallel to the floor during the whole competition is legal which is why we have the mid stance as well. This will be our first time competing in RoboGames, but it is our belief that the competition is held for educational purposes more than anything else (well, that and having a great time).
If the judges allow us to use the stance (which we believe they will) then we will use it. If they don’t, then obviously we won’t. Either way, we are trying to get a lot out of the experience and hopefully encourage and inspire others to join robotics as well.
Despite the price being steep, the bots are for educational purposes more than just combat. We plan on placing Gumstix (or similar processor) into the robots after RoboGames and continue the project for many years.
I’m glad you enjoyed the video
-Hive
I would love to see wht your bot would look like with my aluminum head that I had machined mounted on it. 
Rubber Soals: Actually I think if you would have used 3mm thick rubber and screwed it on the bot (and sink the screw head in 2mm) it would have worked quite nicely. 4-5 screws would have kept the rubber on the foot very well and may prevent the slipping as you suggested. I have done this before (for a different application which involved slippery aluminum on a surface) and it worked very well.
Just my 0.02 
So how did you guys do at RoboGames? Did they let you use the low stance? Did you get any video of the matches? Give us the scoop!
Yes, we were allowed to use the low stance, but we did not do so during the entire match.
You can find RoboGames YouTube videos at youtube.com/FarrellRobotics and higher resolution videos at FarrellRobotics.com -we also have other information about RoboGames there.
At the end of RoboGames we did a “RoboRumble” and a video of that can be found here: youtube.com/watch?v=GmS6GbRqbAM
Enjoy!
-Hive
Did you compete it individual fighting matches or just the rumble? I didn’t see any.
Yes, my robot (Oro) also competed in the “Biped race” and “Wrestling” events. The standings can be found on the RoboGames page at our website
Videos of the first three heavy-weight wrestling matches can also be found on YouTube, but the higher resolution videos are found on my website - the first matches took place on saturday for reference.
-Hive
So you won the Wrestling competition? Awesome. That’s kind of a big deal. It must be killing you to be so modest about the results… 
Not everything is about winning a competition. More importantly, I met a bunch of other roboticists, which I can now work more with - share ideas, parts, etc. Meeting Matt Bauer, Lem Fuggit (and the Robots-Dreams Team), Jin Sato and Tony Ohms (as well as many others) was a great experience. Hopefully some new ideas will stem from the brief time we were together (and through further communication) and all of our robots will vastly improve.
-Hive
Well I didn’t everything is about winning a competion, but its nice to come home with $400.00 and possibly a few scholarships.
Nah, one gets a medal for winning and recognition - no money or scholarship stuff It’s all about building the community and learning from others - a great experience indeed.
Hive, are you competing in RoboGames again this year?
I’ve raced R/C cars for about 15 years prior to getting into Robotics, I was never good enough to get sponsored, nor did I ever consider getting into it as a career. Still, I’ve put more time (and $$$ 
) into it then any other hobby. You can’t put a price on fun!
Did these bots originate from the Cycloid?
My apologies for the long delay time - I have been extremely busy as of late (robots can be very time consuming), so haven’t had the chance to check the forums.
@A-Bot, yes, Rob and I will be at RoboGames again this year - it’s looking like a great turnout (I believe most everyone from last year, as well as five Korean robots will be joining us - I’m really hoping Jin Sato will make it too). There will be several new events as well: Soccer (semi-autonomous, for the Humanoids participating in wrestling etc. - 3 bot teams), Golf (although, I don’t exactly how this will work… but fun!) and hopefully we will be bringing back the RoboRumble.
@tom_chang79, agreed! Money should never be put up on a pedistol when it can be spent on something one loves and can thoroughly enjoy.
As fo our design - many robots were observed while I made the CAD design for these robots. I had no access to other designs (as far as the CAD files, or brackets other than standard side-servo brackets and U-brackets) - so these robots can be considered original. Granted, we did try to discover what worked best in other robots, and optimize those features in our own bots. At the time, we had both played with RN-1’s, and had seen KHR bots, MANOI and the Bioloids… so we tried to work off those as much as possible while also attempting to get a very human feel to our bots.
If you get Robot magazine, we have an article (around page 50?) that shows a sneak peek of the bots we will be bringing to RoboGames.
@ Hivemind
I am starting my own robotics project that i will post later on today, when i have picture posting access. I would also like to create custom brackets I heard you say you used a scroll say to cut them? what troubles have you encountered? what types of scroll saw do you recommend to make a good cut? Do you sand the edges to clean up the round parts? Any other tool pertaing to accurate and clean cutting that you just cant live without? I am very curious because once my design phase has finalized I am going straight into production.
Raga
Ragafoo,
Thanks! Actually, at this point, all of our brackets are made in a small CNC machine. We design them using inventor, then we use the CNC to mill them out. The only thing still done by hand is the bending (you definitely want a sheet metal brake!) - one can get those from China for $250 (reasonably decent, certainly good enough for what we were doing). Also, all of our parts are now .08" - so that makes it tricky if you have small bends. I recommend starting with nothing greater that .05" - depending on your size, if it is pretty small you can live with .04".
But making our own brackets worked really well. We have a DeWalt DW788 scroll saw, it does the trick for us while remaining reasonably priced. Sometimes we have some issues with the blades (ie: small ones break because we use Aircraft aluminum 5052).
Other tricks… well we used to print out the CAD designs on paper, spray glue them to the aluminum and go from there. One can use mineral spirits to get them off after the bend so you don’t have to deal with the glue.
As for sanding, yep, we have a sanding tool - which is great for large edges - and we use files for small parts. Sometimes the edges/corners can be sharp, a pass or two over with a file does the trick.
If you want any mroe tips with design/creation of brackets, certainly pm me, or email me.
-Chris
