Robot Report - A new bot to go along with a new website (and a new name for the substack)
Sour Cream is our new 1-lb. plastic combat robot. Woodorking.com is my new outlet for my woodworking adjacent activities, and we made room in the shop for a new CNC.
Ya, there is a lot to cover in this post.
If you’re only wanting info on my new website.
Sour Cream
Razi and I normally compete in the 3-lb. weight class with our robots. NHRL is the league closest to us and 3-lb. bots are the smallest that compete there. So it felt like the best place for us to get our foot in the door. With NHRL’s incredible success and popularity, they switched to a lottery system for entry. While this sucks, it’s the only viable solution for a league that is growing as fast as NHRL is. Because of this, Razi and I decided we needed to start competing in other events whenever possible.
A couple of months ago, an event just outside of Boston was announced hosting 3-lb. bots and 1-lb.plastic ants (more on that in a second). There were 18 or so slots for 3-lb. bots and even though I started the registration the second it opened, I made a mistake and hesitated in the process. We wound up #2 on the waitlist just minutes after registration opened.
A friend of ours, Julian suggested this might be a sign to build a Plastic Ant. So we snagged a registration spot and used it as the reason we finally built one.
1-lb. Plastic Ants?
Often times robot weight classes are referenced as weird names. I think outside of the US it’s commonplace. I can’t even remember all of the names.
1 lb. = Ant weight
3 lb. = Beetle weight
12 lb. = Hobby weight
30 lb. = Featherweight
250 lb. = Heavyweight
A 1-lb. plastic ant is what it sounds like. A 1-lb. bot made entirely out of plastic. You’re allowed motors and electronics, and you’re allowed screws, but the combat parts need to be plastic. In terms of making an expensive hobby approachable, you’re not going to get any better than PlAnts (PLastic ANTS). Not only is it a more affordable option for building, but since there aren’t any metal weapons you’re far less likely to break expensive motors and electronics in a match.
We likely break at least $100 worth of parts in a normal beetle-weight tournament.
Even though we are huge fans of the idea of PlAnts, we have never even watched a tournament. We knew one thing. Just because PlAnts look more like toys than other weight classes, doesn’t mean the competitors would treat it any differently. They come to win.
The inspiration - Wicked Wedge
When Razi and I started talking about designs we kept coming back to a beetle-weight robot we love—Wicked Wedge. It is a flipper, but pushes its competitor up and away. As opposed to the normal chaos that flipper bots normally cause, throwing the opponent up in the air with little control, Remi, the builder/driver can place a competitor against the wall in a devious way.
The first opponent in this video is… us with Bean Supreme. He did just that. It was frustrating!
Wicked Wedge’s mechanism intrigued me as much as it frustrated me. I couldn’t figure out how it worked. I reached out to Remi and he very graciously sent me a CAD file showing me exactly how everything worked.
This is all just indicative of how open and helpful the combat robotics community is. It’s just wonderful.
The design, pivot, and build.
Razi and I set aside a weekend to design our PlAnt which we dubbed Sour Cream. Our other robots have been bean-inspired names, so Sour Cream seemed to work for a smaller bot.
The night before, Razi and I were talking before bed and he started describing a different bot. Nothing he was saying made sense. He was adamant that the mechanism could be simpler. The next morning, we sat down in front of the computer. I was planning on making a smaller version of Wicked Wedge. He was not.
We agreed that the most important element was the inverted flipper that pushed bots backward. Razi explained to me that it was still possible with a simple hinged bot that flipped down as opposed to up. He was right. It pained me, but he was right.
Worry not dear reader, I am not a horrible controlling father. If an 11-year-old has an idea and wants to forge their own path, I’m never going to stand in their way. Razi gets veto power, but we do treat it as a team and he does need to prove to me that it’s a good idea. He almost always does.
Within an hour or two we had a CAD model of Sour Cream.
We designed the flipper to move both up and down, giving Razi options while driving. Again, Julian came to the rescue and pointed out that we needed outriggers to keep the rear end on the ground during flipping. Oops… quick fix.
As is common in our workflow, I was left to find a way to make it all work and design in places for the electronics. A few days later Razi argued that we needed chamfers. I did not want to do it. He won, we chamfered all the things and beefed up the side protection.
The build for PlAnts is pretty straightforward. After it’s designed you just… print it. The rules only allow PLA or PLA+ filament—nothing flexible. We printed the bot and more than a few variations trying to get tolerances just right. Overall we were very happy at this point.
MassDestruction
The event took place at the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation. It was a fantastic place to visit if you ever get the chance and an incredible venue for the event. The day was a mixed bag. Overall wonderful, but ended in confusion and frustration.
It’s cliche to say, but the people at combat robotics events are “our people” and we’ve become quite close with many. Even getting knocked out of an event after two losses will still mean hanging out with friends for the day—time well spent.
We normally travel to robot events with boxes and boxes of tools and parts. I like to travel with a small hardware store and take great pleasure in having something on hand when a fellow competitor needs a part or a tool. Since we were fighting PlAnts we wound up only bringing two small boxes and some snacks. We did find ourselves a tool or two short but it was nice traveling light. We’ll dial in the PlAnt kit next time.
Razi quickly found out that Sour Cream is by far the hardest bot we have to drive. Our 3-lb. bots are four-wheel drive and handle a bit better than Sour Cream’s two-wheel drive. Add in the fact that the weapon flips up and down—and that situationally one is preferred over the other—there is a lot more to driving Sour Cream even though it’s smaller and simpler.
Watching the video of the first three fights, they’re not worth reposting here. Razi went 2-1. One of the wins was a toss-up that could have gone the other way. The two wins were enough to get us into the tournament of 8.
Our first-round opponent was Photosynthesis, a robot built and driven by Tim Hebert—a legend at NHRL. His 3-lb. bot Chubby Unicorn is a perennial favorite and I expected no less from Photosynthesis. The fight was intense. Razi had control for the first 40 seconds, and then Tim took control for 15-20 seconds. Around the 1:00 mark, Photosynthesis got flipped over and couldn’t move for about 45 seconds. A countdown started twice, and from our end of things, it was obvious that if we went in and hit him he could be knocked back into the match. The discussions we were hearing from the driver’s side of the glass made it clear that we should just let sleeping dogs lie. At one point though, I heard someone yell “Hit them”. It came from the head judge who was also running the event.
This foreshadowed the judge’s decision coming our way.
Right at the very end, Photosynthesis was able to spin up the weapon and self-right themselves. Still, we were confident that we controlled the majority of the fight. It wasn’t going the be the most honorable of wins in our book, but the goal was to win.
The judge’s decision came in… for… Photosynthesis.
Watching back, I still think we should have gotten the win. But it was made clear that the event runners wanted action, and when the judge yelled out to hit them, you should probably give them the action they wanted. The consensus in the pits was that the decision made little sense to most around. Razi took it well, possibly better than I did. We talked to the event runner after some prodding from a friend and his explanation didn’t clear anything up. But here is what I came away with; you need to learn the judging criteria and subtleties of each event. What I deem a win doesn’t make it a win. What our fellow competitors deem a win doesn’t make it a win. The judges decide, and that’s that.
At NHRL it likely would have gone to us. We weren’t at NHRL.
Tim to the rescue
After a little cool-down period, Tim came over to talk to Razi and give him a trophy part. It’s common for opponents to gift broken parts to each other after a match. I didn’t hear the conversation, but I watched the cloud over Razi dissipate and he cheered up. Shortly after, we took apart Sour Cream and Razi brought the broken lifter over to Tim as a trophy. Tim asked him to sign it and my heart melted.
I mean it, robot people are the best people.
The ride home was spent listening to a Star Wars book, venting, and starting to plan for a 3-lb. version of Sour Cream. We really enjoy control bots, and we’d like to build another new bot for the 2025 NHRL season.
Woodorking
I started a website/YouTube channel to share some of the dorkier stuff I do in my workshop that doesn't fit in with the "Finer" place I normally share woodworking stuff.
I'm calling it Woodorking and it's horrible for SEO but I don't give a damn. It's woodworking dorkiness and it fits. I commonly mistype 'woodworking' as 'woodorking'. One day I bought the URL after David Lyell pointed out how great of a name the mistake was. I had no idea why, but I bought it. I was amazed it was available and I took it.
The more I thought about it the more obvious it seemed. I have needed a place to share weird woodworking stuff where I wire up electronics, make wacky tools, 3D print vises (and piñatas), and share my Fusion 360 processes.
Right now I have three videos live and fourth going live tomorrow. I’ll embed the fourth as a bonus for those of you who have been following along AND reading this far!
DIY temperature controller for lightbulb kilns, side bending, and more!
Ep 3 - A Simple Cabinet - Part 2
FYI - Razi is the thumbnail czar. He gets way into it and what the hell do I care.
This changes nothing else I already do. This is just a place to fit the stuff I have always been doing but couldn't really share.
I’m trying not to worry about numbers, but of course, I’d like it to grow to a reasonable point. So in keeping with that, a like, a subscribe, and a share or two would be very appreciated—even if you couldn’t care less about the content—it helps the algorithm, which helps other people see it, and it would help a brother out.
Will Woodorking replace this substack?
No. I don’t think it will. This is still a fun place to blog. I think the two will go hand in hand. I’m changing the name of this substack to match the new site. I was never into “Make things and sort them out later” or whatever it is/was. It was a placeholder (i.e. sort them out later) and I forgot to come up with something better. I’ll likely cross-post some things from time to time. You’re still in the right place if you’re here for wacky builds and robot stuff.
So ya… a lot is going on right now. We even got a CNC at the home shop now… more on that eventually.
Thanks a bunch for following along and supporting everything I’ve been up to. I really do appreciate it.