Concept for a combat robot I designed.

This was a design I came up with for a now-defunct Battlebots Club that used to be at RPI. It ultimately failed due to lack of funding and participation, but it went on long enough for us to brainstorm up bot ideas. Most of the work you see here was done over a week during winter break of 2009.

The Bar Spinner Design

Almost all the damage done in combat robotics is through the massive transfer of kinetic energy from one robot to another. The easiest way to accomplish this is to collide a large, fast moving mass with an enemy robot. To that end, we have decided to develop a full body spinner / bar spinner hybrid design. The weapon implementation will be similar to that of Son of Whyachi.

However, it will be different in that the hammers on the end of our bars will extend around a portion of the circumference of our bot and actually be in contact with the sides of the bot through roller bearings or something similar. This, combined with the large surface area of each hammer, will help distribute the force of any impact to the entirety of the robots frame. We are hoping to power the weapon with the phenomenal 4.5 horsepower S28-400 MagMotor. For redundancy and mechanical simplicity, we have chosen to independently drive the four wheels of the robot. Each wheel system will consist of 2.5" CIM motors, AndyMark Toughbox Nano gearboxes, custom pillow blocks, bearings, and other assorted hardware.