Uplift Rebuild Part 1 – Setting goals and scoping out the work needed

3rd March 2024

The Featherweight robot now known as Uplift began it’s existence way back in 2017. It’s now 2024 and for most of the last 7 years it’s looked like this – half finished and somewhat dusty and unloved:

It does however still have a lot of potential. The drive system is powerful, it handles very well and there is plenty of space and weight left to add a weapon (most events these days require an active weapon).

At the start of 2024 it also suddenly occurred to me that it would be very well suited to Bristol Bot Builders Featherweight “Sportsman” events. These don’t have high powered spinning weapons, so big destructive hits are unlikely (which is good as I can’t buy spare parts for some of the components anymore) and fights are often about driving power and manoeuvrability – which this robot does very well.

Before it’s ready for an event though, some changes need to be made. Firstly to address the problems I ran into during the initial build, and then to upgrade it’s competitiveness and meet the active weapon requirements of today’s rulesets.

With that in mind, the main pieces of work that are required are as follows:

• I need to find a way to hold the wheels onto the gearbox shafts more effectively. It currently uses set screws threaded through Nylon hubs that then clamp down onto a keyway on the shaft. This actually works fine for a quick test drive around the garden, but I can’t see it lasting long in a fight.
• The original plan was to have an electric axe for the weapon, however this turned out to be too big and heavy, and meant the armour would need to be compromised to make weight. I have some parts from another robot project that could be used to make an electric lifting arm.
• The baseplate needs to be at least doubled in thickness. It’s currently 5mm which is far too flexible and wouldn’t stand up to most of the better weapons around.

The plan is to have a working and fully ready-for-competition robot by the end of 2024. Hopefully if things go fairly smoothly though it’ll be ready before that time and possibly even enter an event during 2024. Stay tuned!