BEEESS post Motorama review (extra late edition)

Here it is! 30 pounds of fighting robot, now available in a tube! All in it went 4-2 for second place in the sportsman class, not too bad for a first bot. That being said, not everything went totally right. It took some beefy cuts from sportsman class winner Pitter Patter, and the lifter didn't perform as expected. It looks beat to hell though so I'm happy with the rugged look, almost as happy as I am that the washers and screws on the front look like eyes. Buzz buzz, gold team rules, you get the deal. Pics about inner goodness ahead

The tube! In all its color and glory, it is a 17 inch long, 5 inch ID, 0.25 wall thickness aluminum. With the holes, it weighs slightly over 6 pounds

Right side drive, showing the lack of all the screws holding it in. Putting it together was a bit of a blur, but most of the screws were in it at the beginning of the final match! The small chips in the front were from its fight with swordfish II, the big cuts up top are from the two fights with Pitter Patter.

Again, some underside shots where the paint got a bit of a break. The outriggers between the wheel and tube were laser cut from Ar400, along with the lifter arms

Oops, I seem to have swallowed a screw! Machining round things with exactly no reference geometry meant big holes to clear the poor tolerances. First on the list for revision 2 is some sweet, sweet hole guides

Here you can see what happened when Pitter Patter got its saw right up in the toast slots that house the arms. Lots of aluminum dust all up in the lifter motor.

More of the money shot, showing off the crazy amount of dust inside the bot. Next time, I'm putting some tape through the slots to cover them, at least a little bit

The wheels! 0.75 inch thick uhmw with some bike tire bolted to the sides. A key feature of the tires is the steel bead. You need snips to get through them but that means the other robots do too >:)

Do the arms count as wedges? I'm open to hear arguments, but I think the fact that they move up and down, as well as being wholly incapable of high centering anyone in the class gives them a pass. They also make excellent keep away sticks!

Not even the washers were spared the carnage!

Inside the tube are 3 modules, 2 for drive and 1 for lifting. On the right side drive there are 3 2s lifepo4 packs wired in series wrapped around the drive motor (do as I say, not as I do), a whyachi switch, and a botbitz 30a esc. The one on the other side has a 30a and 85a for the lifter. All the motors are 18v banebots 775 motors, into 16:1 P60s on drive and a overall 86:1 vex and chain drive on the lifter.

The arms are held to the shaft with normal shaft collars brazed to the Ar400. The wonderful Alex Horne welded a second set for me as well, in exchange for things that made squeaking noises. If you hear those in any Motorama videos, I'm not even a little sorry

See that red cable sheath? That holds all the wires for the left side and lifter escs, and the receiver wire for the right side. So sensibly I put the kill wire right under the arms, obviously!

Some deep cuts from Pitter Patter, maybe a third of a way into the tube. Not too bad! See also: it got through a screw!

On the ends of the slots I put some foam tape to stop the arms from crunching the gearbox too bad, those didn't last too long under the saw

More consumed screws! I started running out of washers with mere minutes to spare, they held up valiantly

The left side and lifter modules in all their glory. The bulkheads are water jet cut 3/8ths aluminum, I'm very happy with how they turned out before I learned to machine with them

Chain drive! It's all a little tight in there, 5 inch circles are smaller than they sound

Dusty! Here you can see a grade 8 threaded rod I used to keep the bulkheads from flexing the gearbox, I swear those nuts were tight when I put them in there... Also pictured is the chain guard and tensioner, both uhmw for extra slippery goodness

Did I say extra slippery? Sorry, I meant extra soft. This looks like it's one of those replace once an event kind of things

One fewer link and it wouldn't reach, one more and it is too slack! These are those kind of design things that you want to learn through other people, so learn it from me: PLAN OUT YOUR CHAINS/BELTS. Scooting the arm shaft in just a bit would have removed the need for the tensioner all together!

Every robot regardless of size or intentionust contain at least one (1) googly eye by law

Eugh.... I wish I could say I was better than this. None of the holes lined up, all of them were by hand, it was a rough few days. Next time, integrate guides into the cutting profile

Hot things are hot! Due to poor assumptions ony part and shuffler bonuses on Pitter Patters part, I melted not only the hot glue insulating the leads of the motor, but the motor itself!

It's all a little tight in this part of the bot, the left drive motor slides back between the lifter motor and the shaft. For the final match I had to replace a lifter motor and get right back out there so no heat shrink and garbage solder joints, but it still chooched until it couldn't chooch no more

Melted glue on the motor connector too, a solid 6 inches before the terminal

Artsy dusty money shot. Yes the bearings are held in with jb weld, the holes were oversized by yours truly.

This did not fare well. From the fight, I had thought the broken link was the gearbox jamming, but that was not the case! It still spins just fine. The motor on the other hand...

The motor didn't like being stalled hard. What you see lodged in there is one of the brushes. Let's see if we can get that out there, do the ol brushed to brushless conversion

Melted fan, too!

Motor and vex box, one is still good. And it's the more expensive one for once!

Simply remove all the brushes holding you back, I think the 18v banebots is about 130kv after the fact, still working great

Oops, cut off too much. It's kerfluckered.

EYE SEE YOU

Okay that was a lot if fun. Not only was it a long journey that ended with me making a fun thing, I got to meet and connect with a lot of cool people from all around. So thank you to everyone, the builders, the designers, the event organizers and supporters (the real heros here), to my friends, family, and girlfriend who supported and tolerated the late nights and early mornings, thank you to JB for throwing out your old radio controller and not asking questions when it vanished from the trash, thank you to my uncle for giving me an actual good controller. Special thanks to Jon for making your mistakes so I could learn from them, and Maureen for being patient with my weird and boring hobby, you're the real MVPs.

So that's it, I hope to see all of you at the next event, BEEESS v2 will be there if u can get the buzzers buzzing in time, I'll be at Motorama again for sure!