The Alexander: July Status

Home > Robots > Alexander > July
July

LET'S ROCK!
- Aliens
"Slave to the Robot"
I'm done. Well, nearly done. All the machining is complete and I'm just finishing up the encoding and decoding control interfaces to the RC gear. It's easy stuff, operations I've been going over in my mind for the past three months.

The pneumatic punch is complete. I'll bet you'll like the way it looks, too.

Oh, and did I mention that the Alexander blasted through the middleweight boundary a few months ago? Some of you correctly challenged my weight claims in previous E-mails. You were, of course, correct: there is no way I could pack all this stuff in 100 lbs. We're running light at around 143 right now, but I'm sure we'll find more pointy appendages to slap on between now and the event. I felt it best to continue the deception in the interest of not alerting any heavyweight competitors (sorry Greg).

When I get back from the event, I'll have an additional special update showing the 1.5 week development and construction process of our double-secret lightweight entry Ominous Brick of Havoc.

Many of you are wondering what the heck is going on with the event. In short, there is a lot of background, most of which I'm not privy to. We're hoping for the best!

Well, this is it until after the event. Wish me luck - from what I've seen in the past, the heavies are a real tough crowd. The Alexander is either coming home holding his shield, or on it.

Pictures

	The base of the pneumatic punch is a length of aluminum U-channel. The raised sides provide stiffness to prevent collapse when the 120 lb. punch hits an immovable object. Here I'm cutting some lightening holes in the non-structural portion at rear.
	Here I am jigging up the guard rails for the punch. That cool element to the rear is the mounting bracket for the CO2 cylinder.
	Sighting down the length of the completed punch. The CO2 tank is not installed.
	The air punch assembly mounts to the black spar that also provides structural support to the top of the frame. The Aluminum gear attaches to the swivel bearing and started its life off as an XL 0.2" pitch synchronous drive pulley. I adapted it to support a flat belt drive, essentially the same XL belt turned inside out with its surface roughed up a bit. This gives me a low friction coupling to the spin motor. If the punch gets slammed to the side now it won't jam the plastic gears of the motor, breaking them.
	The completed punch mounted on the spin mechanics. Note the high-tech length of shock cord that retracts the tip after firing. It only subtracts 6 lb. of force from the action and simplified the onboard electronics significantly, as well as eliminating the need for a second electric air valve.
	With a 200 degree coverage arc this baby will be a major discourager to rearward attacks.
	Here I am machining out a battery box for a higher capacity battery to run the Edger's actuators. (Man it's great to be in heavyweights - like coming over to the dark side of the Force.) The only material I enjoy working with more than aluminum is Nylon.
	I don't mind carrying the extra weight, as long as it reduced my CM distance to the floor. The gear from the turntable didn't so out comes the unnecessary material.
	Looking down the body of the Ax with all the armor removed. Here I've just started to bus the wires to the various subsystems. That higher capacity battery is mounted dead square between the two speed reducers.
	A Dallas Semiconductor digital resistor replaces two pots in the RC transmitter. The control-side PIC processor encodes the command sequences in 4-bit resistive values over two channels. Here I am wiring in a DB9 to connect those two channels to the outside world. A null-plug can be installed to return the transmitter to standard operation.

Top Ten things I'm looking forward to after Robot Wars:

10.	Not stopping to pick up scrap metal along the road
9.	Being able to eat lunch at Stuart Anderson's instead of Taco Bell
8.	Not having to remember to comb aluminum swarf out of my hair before going to bed
7.	Beer with dinner
6.	Beer with breakfast
5.	Lower electricity bills
4.	Mountain biking. And, I'll have the bandwidth to make my own 7075 parts!
3.	No looming deadlines
2.	Not having every conversation with everyone eventually turn to Robot Wars or the Alexander
1.	Working on my "Iron Man" skeletal augmentation armor

Here are a pile of pictures I took this morning of the completed Alexander.
They are in no particular order, but manage to show off most of the design.
See you at the event!

"Just hold still"

On to August