Uplift Rebuild Part 9 – a few finishing touches

11th August 2024

The event in Bristol is just a week away at this point, so it’s time to get around to all those small odd jobs I’ve been putting off for the last six months of robot building.

First up, as I have some weight allowance to spare, is an extra bearing block that will support the end of the lifter gearbox shaft. In theory this will stop the lifter mechanism from flexing as much during use and better protect the bearings in the gearbox.

There was just about room to squeeze a bearing block in next to the main supports for the lifter, so I made a simple block out of 20mm thick HDPE and pressed a 1/2″ needle roller bearing into it. I was running short of the thicker HDPE at this point so I really only had one shot at getting this right.

Fortunately, it turned out fine:

A needle roller bearing possibly isn’t the optimal choice for this application, but it was the cheapest/lightest/fastest optional available to me at the time.

Here it is in situ, supporting the end of the gearbox shaft nicely:

This was a ‘nice to have’ – not strictly necessary for the lifter to function but I feel much better that I had time to make it, as it really does make the whole lifting mechanism more rigid and better supported.

With that taken care of, I then 3D printed a little box to contain the R/C receiver and wiring which simply bolts into the baseplate. The box has its own HDPE lid which the arial pokes out of. This box is lined with the same foam as the battery box to try and absorb some of the shocks the robot will experience in the arena:

After some more testing (including the all important self-righter test) Uplift was functionally complete. A couple of days before the event I applied some vinyl decorations, consisting of some red theming and name decals:

Considering I’d never used vinyl before and had a very limited timeframe in which to apply it before the robot got packed up for the event, I think it turned out okay. I’d also got some big stickers with the team name and logo on it so I stuck one of those on the lid too – borderline professional!

You can read our Event Report to find out how Uplift got on in Bristol!