Development Log – First Tournament

Finalizing the Robots

Before the first tournament I finally finished both of my battlebots.

Nailee

Nailee is a simple pusher with a TPU chassis and PLA-ST forks. I wanted it to be as simple and reliable as possible, without any active weapon.

Tongueboy

Tongueboy is built in almost the same way as Nailee, but it has an extra servo connected to a flipper arm so it can try to grab or flip opponents.

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Wheel Development

The wheels ended up taking way more time than I expected.

Version 1

The first idea was just a 3D printed cylinder with silicone poured around it to make a tire. It sounded like a good idea, but it didn’t work at all. The silicone I have is really soft, so it just spun around the hub instead of driving the robot.

Version 2

For the second version I added ridges to the hub so the silicone couldn’t slip while driving forwards or backwards. That fixed one problem, but the tire could still move sideways if it got hit.

Version 3

So for the final version I added ridges around the sides as well to lock the silicone in every direction. This made the wheels heavier than I wanted, but since neither robot has a spinner weapon I could afford the extra weight.

In the end I casted 8 wheels for both robots and some spares, and honestly I’m really happy with how they turned out. At the tournament they had great grip and worked exactly how I hoped.

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First Tournament

Both robots competed in their first tournament against 22 other robots.

Results:

• Nailee: 10th place
• Tongueboy: 8th place

For my second competition I was really happy with those results.

Nailee

Nailee did pretty well until it fought a hammer saw. The very first hit landed right above the electronics and instantly killed the expensive Malenki Nano, so that was the end of the match.

It definitely showed me that I need to spend more time protecting the electronics instead of just making everything lightweight.

Tongueboy

When Tongueboy had to fight the same hammer saw, I didn’t want the same thing to happen again. I took a piece of chassis from another damaged robot and used it as extra armor over the Malenki Nano.

Surprisingly, it actually worked. The electronics survived the whole fight.

The fight itself… not so much. 😅 It was completely one-sided and Tongueboy got absolutely beaten up. It still survived, but it definitely looked a lot worse afterwards.

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What I Learned

Even though both robots took a lot of damage, I learned a ton from this tournament.

• The current wheel design works really well, so I’ll definitely keep using it.
• The Malenki Nano needs much better protection.
• Every fight gives me new ideas for improvements.

Overall I’m really happy with how both robots performed. They weren’t perfect, but finishing 8th and 10th out of 22 robots on their first competition gave me a great starting point for the next versions.