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Meet Kermit. Designed for UCLA's Combat Robotics club, this 3 lb. robot has competed in a tournament against bots from other universities.
Kermit is a horizontal spinner bot. It has a 3D printed PLA chassis and aluminum wheel guards. The aluminum triangular bars and the steel weapon blade were cut using waterjet technology.
Design
Kermit was conceptualized and designed using SolidWorks. Below is the finalized model.
Kermit has undergone a series of revisions and redesigns. This version was over the weight limit and not as compact as it could have been. In future revisions, I prioritized decreasing the size of the chassis.
Prototyping
Several versions of the chassis and mounts were printed to help identify weak points in the design and see if mass reduction was needed, as it is the most challenging constraint in combat robotics. While weight can be approximated using SolidWorks materials, it cannot account for infill density to provide the precise weight of a 3D printed component.
Final Product
Weight was a major limitation when designing Kermit. Using the 3D model, I was able to ascertain an approximate final weight for the bot, but not with complete accuracy. It was difficult to account for the mass of the wires, the infill of the printed chassis, and other possible sources of error. The bot was far enough under the weight limit for wheel guards to be added.
These pieces of ablative armor were replaced during competition.
Now that competition is over, what would I do differently?
I would make the chassis cavity slightly larger. I based the size of the chassis off of the dimensions needed to fit the the ESCs, receiver, motors, and battery, but not the wires. It was challenging to cram to all of the components into the opening, much like solving a puzzle, so I wish had had accounted for error.
I would add aluminum plating directly on top of the PLA chassis to create a less brittle body.I would design the weapon blade to sit lower to the ground to ensure it is able to hit opponents with a shirt body. Its height was an issue during competition as it faced a bot barely tall enough to be damaged by Kermit's weapon.
In spite of its design flaws, designing this combat robot was a great learning opportunity and an incredibly fun experience.
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