Mech Warfare 2014 State of the Union (Pssst. I'm back!)

[DresnerRobotics]

Hey guys,

So after a bit of a hiatus due to medical/family/work related stuff, I am back in action. You'll see me around the forums a lot more and I'm firing up the old Mech Warfare war-machine once again. We're still on for summer in Chicago for our next event. Loooooots of rule updates will be rolled out for discussion this spring- have some interesting ideas for making Bipeds more desirable (outside of just the challenge of building one that's competitive).

Things I'd like status reports on:

What's the outcome of the community/experimental FSR alternatives?

Universal 3D printed/lasercut gun plans?

Gun control drivers? I know a few people were poking around ideas for this.

What time/month works best for our veterans? I'm shooting for early June as the go-date for our next competition.

Artistic-type people!~ Anyone capable of coming to Chicago a few days early prior to this upcoming summer event to help detail/paint/pretty up our arena?

Current issues:

Seriously need a hand with our new WordPress site. It's been down on maintenance and I simply haven't had time to dig in and learn WordPress well enough to make a functional site. May just redirect to the wikia for the time being.

Arena transportation/upkeep. Unfortunately this Arena still costs about $150 a month to store in California. We've got to get it out to Chicago, or find a new permanent home for it in California and figure out funding to build another one. I can build a new arena much cheaper than our first attempt, so this is on the table.


BTW- Giger is making a comeback this year.

[Deimos]

What's the outcome of the community/experimental FSR alternatives?

I got some pcbs that should arrive fairly soon. Check here for details: http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/sh...-Target-Panels

Universal 3D printed/lasercut gun plans?

Jwatte has a nice set up, check it out here: http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/sh...-design-thread

What time/month works best for our veterans? I'm shooting for early June as the go-date for our next competition.

Early june is finals week for me :/. The third week of June is summer break though! (so basically any time after June 13th)

Artistic-type people!~ Anyone capable of coming to Chicago a few days early prior to this upcoming summer event to help detail/paint/pretty up our arena?

If scheduled during summer (after June 13th) I could do this. I'm no professional but I've done my fair share of miniatures.

Welcome back btw!

[byi]

Hi Andrew. Good to see you back.

I am planning on experimenting with my own gun design as soon as my 3D printer arrives. I'll post progress on that next month if possible.

I am trying to get momentum to bring a team from my university this year, so spring would be way easier than summer. even if that falls through, summer would be hard for me. Just thought I'd mention since you asked...

Also, can't wait to see the new giger.

[ArduTank]

WB Tyberius!

I may not be a veteran, but early June is very possible for me once I get HS Walker going (The whole biped perks sounds good, since he's currently a biped)

I might also be able to help with Wordpress when not at school (maybe during free time at school), even though I'd have to learn it too. I really don't have much to do other than tinker on HS Walker.

[jwatte]

Jwatte has a nice set up, check it out here: http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/sh...-design-thread

FWIW, I got those parts back from Shapeways, and they seem to fit well! The main draw-back of my approach is that you need gearbox ($12+shipping) and Crosman barrel ($17+prime/shipping) and the Shapeways parts ($40 or so?) and a few inches of 1.5" tubing ($3 or so) so it's not super cheap. But it seems robust in testing so far!

Controllers: I just got boards back from OSHPark for a dual-MOSFET with an AVR chip, all surface mount. I'm also getting a stencil this time -- last time I reflow soldered, I got too many solder bridges. The board has dual DXL-style three-pin TTL/power hook-ups; ideally I can speak the DXL protocol. If not, they will just be used for a "fire" signal. The reason I have two MOSFETs is I want to drive both the feeder motor and the gearbox motor.
There's also an auxiliary board for mounting a TCRT-1000 for slide position sensing for semi-auto action.

I don't know how many of these I could personally build, but assuming I have a working stencil and board and some spare parts, there are people who can do that for us :-)

The back-up plan is a Pololu power h-bridge-- needs more pins, and not serial, and no slide position sensor, but off-the-shelf.

[ArduTank]

Hey, is there room in your design to be able to fit barrels with bigger OD's???

[jwatte]

is there room in your design to be able to fit barrels with bigger OD's???

The design is specific to the bucking, hop-up and barrel of the Crosman.
You can load the files into 3ds Max or Inventor or SolidWorks or Blender and re-work them to fit another design, but that's actual work :-)
If I were to change it, it would be to adapt to the $13 crosman spring-powered handgun, to save a few dollars.

[ArduTank]

Just wondering, because I have a pair of handmade lathed barrels in front of me with an approx. 1/2" OD.

[DresnerRobotics]

So- this kinda sucks but I'm making the call.

For the sake of simplicity and my sanity, I'm going to leave the current arena/buildings in California. We need to find it a semi-permanent home. Anyone in the community that wants to store/use it, all I ask is that it be used for robotics/education and not sold/broken down for scrap. It's a fairly expensive and large arena, even broken down. Occupies about 4x8x4 feet. Buildings are about a 2.5ft cube.

This means I'll be building us a 2nd arena out in Chicago. I'm going for a slightly different approach- going to build it 16x16x4', with a supported clear lexan ceiling. I think it'll give our spectators a better view of the action, and gives us a bit more flexibility for sizing the length/width bigger. Eventually I'd like us to move up to a 24x24' footprint. I'm guessing a 2nd arena will be in the ballpark of $3000-4000 USD, which we'll have to figure out funding for. Definitely not going Kickstarter route. I'll likely just cover this out of pocket.

[CogswellCogs]

>> I'm going to leave the current arena/buildings in California

That's a shame. You guys did a great job with that city.

I'm looking forward to seeing "New Mechopolis", however. I still have my sign for it