killercarrot

RW6 Fight report Well after we got back from Qualifiers we went straight to a school fete. and gave a tyre flipping demo, drove around a bit and generally entertained the crowd. The fete was for new Team members Richard and Ben Killners school, and by coincidence was also the school that Guy of Barberous's sister teaches at. Barberous were supposed to show, but didn't becuase they were repairing damage from the qualifiers. As we unloaded from the fete, Neil charlwood rang to say we had a discretionary place, Adam was delighted. We were placed in heat L, a tough one with 2 very tough robots, Bigger Brother and Behomoth. Our first fight was against Bigger Bro, Riptillion and Major Tom. Iwas pleased with the way carrot worked, we managed a running flip that rolled Major Tom around the arena, and evn had Bigger bro over and pinned at one point, but I felt bad about pinning them as they had put us back on our feet so to speak. We experienced problems when we were inverted, as th...

16/8/02- Birth of a monster. Here he is, built in a week, though still in need of "refining", much of the build is "Duck taped" in place so I can do some test runs, but The basics are in place. 12kg's of brutality. Power comes from 2 power devil 18v cordless drill motord that I bought in 1999 to build our first robot wars entry... back before I realised they weren't big enough. The speed controllers are from KC1, a pair of ncc 35 24's, again purchase in 1999 before I realised they weren't big enough. Having said that the 35's have powered KC1, and 2 , so they work ok. Wheels are screwed onto the drill gearbox outlet and R clipped in place. The flipper is a Festo 40x100, that was in KC1, but broke, when we smashed the lifting arm. It should have a tip lift of 128kg at 10bar, which results in the ability to lift about 20kgs at the tip through a height of 60cm. The system is powered by illegal sodastream technology that was in KC1, with s...

RW Qualifiers 2002 - Life's hard when your 9. We went to the RW qualifiers and what happened? We lost to a team that did no damage to us whatsoever. The man said we might get a discretionary place, but I don't think so somehow. We got there and had to wait for ages in queue, while while we waited for all the other cars to unload. Then we got weighed. We registered and did our transmitter check and sat down and waited. We didn't do much apart from reading books and going to the loo and eating. Then we found we'd been shifted so we had to wait another load of hours. Then when we were about to go on we had to go in with another bunch of robots, Night raider and Derek2, Derek 2 won, and it's was bloomin unfair too!

RW Qualifiers 2002 - Retraction Yes! Yes! And Yes! Again!   You know in my previous piece I said we might get a discetionary place? Well we have! We're all happy, but Dom (see "meet the team") was a bit grumpy at first because he wasn't going. But now we're all happy and :-)) Well We had some good fights, I can't say much more than that, but the main thing was ,it was fair. We had a laugh and it was fun... I can't say much more than that for now!

5-7-02 All over Well, that's RW over for another year. I feel relieved, but I can imagine how dissapointing the process must be if you have a spinner or something that can only be used at RW. Anyway, we drove up to Leicester to stay at my Sisters on Wednesday night, (thanks Lisa), and then strolled up the remaining 27 miles after a leisurely breakfast and laze about. the place is a bit of a warren, and very poorly signed inside, it's very much guess the route in... aha a queue of cars in an abandoned airforce base... must be Robot Wars. In fact we pulled up behind Si, Guy and Chris, fellow stout Southerners of team Barberous. We then spent half an hour walking up and down a line of robots peeking at this and that. Once we had a space for unloading, there was the usual rush to get everything out, so we could stand around for hours... bizarre. The scales were weighing under by some 3 kg I reckon... then inside, Photo, Tx check with Val, Drop of a cylinder with fireman Pet...

29-6-02-The Final Countdown.... Ok, it's all done, bar the last minute fiddles that we always only notice need fiddling with in the minutes before a fight. KC2 evo, is all there, and has a fighting weight of 97kg if the bathroom scales are to be believed, and on Monday, I'll be putting the robot in the calf weigher down the farm to check. The revised layout reminds me of Thermidor, and were both orange, except he's got a good flipper. This is definately the last revision to KillerCarrot, and once we've been battered at the qualifiers, and limped through this years technogames, it's going to be time for a new start. Anyway, spec stays much the same, 2 Littons @24volts through 16.75:1 gearboxes, giving about 7mph, at the 10" Kart rears. Power comes from a pair of 4QD NCC70 speedies mixed in the new Quazar-design prototype interface board, weapon is an SMC 100x125 ram running at 10bar through an O2 cutting regulator and a pair of 3 port solenoids, quick exh...

21-6-02- Something Nasty in the woodshed Well here's the results of our grinder fest... we removed about 15kgs of unsightly fat,(steel and lexan), and then welded back in about 3kgs of extra bracing, wheelie bars and support struts. this should mean that the flipper now has something to flip against instead of merely lifting the front end. You can also see the delightful conditions which I usually work in... ie a 4 ft wide leanto. The snails are very fond of this carrot! Here's the revised face of KC2, the flipper is basically U and Box section 2.5 mm steel that I blagged from some engine stands that were being lobbed from the college workshops. The surface is covered in a dual layer of 3mm lexan, which won't stop the axes, but does give a nice shiney canvas for my artistry. The new interface has been relocated. Pete Hollaway phoned to say he'd looked at the site and noticed that I had the interface in a box with the speed controllers. Apparently this makes a nice...

26-5-02  The Angle Grinder diet Well here we are the bare frame of KC2 from the front, or what was the front. Weight had to be shed in abundance, and sadly I had to loose the big spike (that fared so well, putting holes in Lightning, Mulsanne Monster, Panic attack, and so many others). I should have simply ditched the chequer plate ally armour, but I can't afford to keep replacing axed motors and speed controllers, so the armour stays and I loose a weapon. Next step is to get out the plasma cutter and slice off any other unnecessary bits, and grind excess stuff away. A couple of members need to welded into the front and the frame is going to have all the rust wire brushed off, and a coat of rust convertor, then a thin coat of hammerite. I also need to fix up a couple of outriggers to provide a leverage point for the flipper. So much work, so little time. I'm picking up the steel tommorow lunchtime, castor wheels arriving from screwfix tommorow (and a nice new trolley t...

20-5-02 Rebuild for the Wars This is the new Speed control set up. The entire system is now housed in these die cast boxes, and links to the real world via 3 anderson connectors , and 2 RC leads to the Rx. The new interface sits centrally in the case mounted on rubber diablo mounts to damp out vibration. The 4QD speed controllers are mounted directly to the lids with brass screws and heat sink compound. I have plans to add a fan/ filter set up, but to quite honest the ncc70's don't get hot enough. (Need bigger controllers, or more volts at the very least) The same connectors that ran to the DCI, now connect the speedies to the new board, one for the left motor, one for the right. The pink and black wire take power directly from the battery, (so no need for Rx batteries), and convert it to a useable Rx voltage. The other two connectors run to the Rx. There are 5 input connectors, 2 drive channels and 3 weapons. And this is what that tiny 4"x4" board replac...

15/5/2002 : Well we have 2 new antweights now. DC2 and DC3 are modifications on the original theme. DC2 is a design in aluminium, usually this would not be allowed in antweight circles, but as the entire body is structural ly part of the flipper and doesn't act as armour, it's ok. DC2 has 2 tiny drive servos, HS 50's, a larger hs81mg pushing down the flipper, and another smaller servo as the latch. When armed the flipper can be driven under opposing bots and chuck them in the air. At Modelworld 2002 it faired well, only getting stopped in the end by Buzzant cutting through all the exposed wiring. It won a fair few fights, but I have yet to repair it, spending too much time on Heavyweights. DC3 as seen in the above shot has extra large can end wheels, with super grippy arrow puller material stuck on. These wheels were swapped for wheels from Dom's duplo as they gave much more push, in fact in the revised set up DC3 proved unbeatable at modelworld 2002, shoving all comer...

20/4/02 Sussex Robot Rumble This was an Excellent day out. 2 shows to a thousand excited children. We had bouts of 4 in a ring, and suprisingly drew both of ours with Gooroo. The best fun was to be had later in the grand melee though... 10 robots in a ring the size of a postage stamp! And we survived, only loosing our aerial! In fact only Axe Awe ceased to function by the end, and lay upside down in the ring. I really must get round to fitting our big regulator! We now have our prototype control board built by the Dominator 2 boys, and it's fitted and working well. Report ASAP! These shots show the afternoons grand finale... Clearest from the second shot, thats Killer Carrot 2, Tornado, Bulldog Breed, Dantomkia, Axe Awe, Hells Teeth, Gooroo, and Humphrey, not forgetting Comengetorix and Bigger Brother... Phew what a ring full. We took full power axe blows from Axe Awe, which dented our 6mm ally plate armour, but didn't go through! Just need to make sure were under...

6/4/02- Broken again I took KC1 to work, to test out whether the relocation of the batteries made any difference to the steering, which has always been "sensitive", and indeed it is much more controllable. The weight is now neatly balanced over the front wheels, and there is now very little pendulum effect. The remaining problems stem from the appallingly slack drive chains, the slow servos, and the cheap pots which they drive. I have been promised an experimental control interface from the Dominator team, but it still hasn't turned up. The second reason for taking to work was to test the flipper. I tested it in the workshops, and knew it wasn't going to be too powerful, as it's only a diddly little 40mm ram. After flipping a dustpan around I tried to get a bit more power out of it by winding up the power from the regulator to 12 bar... Big Mistake, as I blew the ram in 2. Not so much of a problem though now as the new regulations prevent the use of sod...