Page 41 - Build Your Own Combat Robot

S we said in Chapter 1, it’s good to let your imagination run wild
when you begin making plans to build a bot. However, while you can dream up all
kinds of crazy ideas for a robotic creation, keep in mind that you may not have the
time—or even the technology—to build most of them. We can’t begin to tell you
how to design the “perfect bot,” any more than we can convince you of what the
perfect car or television set is. Everybody has their own idea of what’s best. Yes,
we authors have our biases and feel comfortable with certain techniques and de-
signs that have been tested over a number of years, but a prospective bot builder
can easily arrive at a better idea than anything we’ve come up with in the past.
Read this book and others, talk with respected people and experienced combat
warriors, sketch out your ideas, and then just go for it.
Start your design process by deciding on exactly what you want your bot to do.
If you’re planning to build a machine for BattleBots, you’re going to have to take
an approach quite different from the one used for making small autonomous ma-
chines designed to run a maze or blow out a candle in the popular Trinity College
Robot Firefighting Contest. A bot designed to act as a servant in your home may
be every bit as heavy and complex as a warrior bot, but it doesn’t need to be able to
survive the blows of a weapon of another machine or travel nearly as fast.
Experience has shown that electronics and computing power are not the limit-
ing factors in bot construction; it’s the mechanics, sensors, and related software
development that choke a project to a stop. “How do I physically build the thing?
What type of sensors can I use? How do I write the code and what language should
I use?” are the questions that flood experienced builders’ minds.
Of course, if you’re building a BattleBots-style (radio control) machine, you
probably won’t need any software, and the “sensors” are your own eyes as you guide
it across the floor of the battle arena. Physical and mechanical design are most crit-
ical in these large bots. They require more sophisticated machining techniques
than most bots because they must endure an environment that is far more hostile than
the average home.

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