Curiously Strong Robots

Checked in and ready for a great day of fights hosted by JediJills Stem Lab, Palm Beach Bots and Kraken - BattleBot.

I don't know how the rest of the world does it but I think my "process" is perhaps a bit unorthodox.

I came home from a long drive yesterday all psyched for a new Beetle build; told my wife I wanted to get started on it right away while the ideas were fresh in the ol' gray matter. She gives me the go ahead so I grab the laptop and head upstairs to start working. Just a few short hours later, I'm excited to show her the fruits of my labor. Is it a 3D render or a CAD drawing or even a pencil sketch ready to be fleshed out?

Nope. What I have is the essential first step: THE BOT'S LOGO!

I may not be the strongest engineer or fabricator; not by a long shot. But I am proud of my thematic prowess. And I simply can't move forward on a build if I don't have a sense of the bot's personality.

It's too early to formally announce it's name and don't even try to ask my what kind of bot it's going to be. For now though, I wanted to share a little insight in to the making of the next Curiously Strong Robot.

Just got my order of titanium armor panels. SendCutSend has a very high opinion of the strength of our FedEx delivery driver.

Some of you may have seen our test bot, Snake Skin, out in wild. Well now you too can make your Viper Kit awesome.

Wheel prep day.

While I never consciously feel like things are going well, the fact that I felt like I had time to coat the wheels must be a sign that it’s going well enough.



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Meet Screaming Mimi!

Ever have one of those "I Know This is Dumb" ideas that won't leave you alone until you do something about it? This is one of those.

I had a thought this morning about how potentially awesome it would be to have a weapon drum system that doubled as a mechanical, rotary air raid siren. Using the weapon tooth and a special baffle behind the drum to generate the sound.

There are a million reasons why I'm pretty sure this would never work and I have no real intention of ever trying to build it myself but I'm putting the idea out into the world in the hope that someone out there might take this bit of lunacy and run with it. All I ask is that if you do, please send me a video of it in action.

Or maybe it will inspire you to try some other dumb thing. IMHO, we need more impossible yet incredible bot ideas. Let's see what hare-brained designs you've been hiding from the world!

Little known fact: Robots love stickers.

Stop by Building 4 at the South Florida Fair to say ”Hi!” to Mr. Slappy and see some great robot combat action.

IT'S THAT TIME!

Need help remembering when the next episode of Battlebots airs? Get yourself a new clock!

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Moving in to 2023 with some major Big Wheel Energy!

Thank you to our sponsor, Robot Fight Club Apparel. Check them out for all the best in robotic combat related shirts and stuff.

Pick up the perfect gift for the folks on your naughty list.

Ugly Christmas sweaters are hot and itchy. Get yourself a new tshirt, sweatshirt, or hoodie instead!

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Patience little one… your time will come.

Maker Faire Orlando
Robot Ruckus
Robot Fight Club Apparel

Mr. Slappy is locked and loaded for Robot Ruckus this weekend at Maker Faire Orlando! We, along with Robot Fight Club Apparel, are bringing the stickers (so many stickers!) so look for us around the insect-weight arena. We'll be there making trouble all weekend. Get a high five from Mr. Slappy and stickers from us!

Can't wait to see everyone there!

Head on over to our partner page, Robot Fight Club Apparel, for team CSR swag like shirts, stickers, hats and more!

They also carry a wide range of other robotic combat and pop culture related products. Give them a follow!

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Mr. Slappy ended his run at Robot Ruckus Palm Springs today in ignoble fashion getting one of his wheel mounts peeled away which left him high centered and unable to move anywhere. The only thing that saved him from more damage was the fact that his opponent was a walker-bot which moved too slowly across the box to take a second hit.

Not a great showing for ol’ Bob today at Robot Ruckus in Palm Beach. First fight (top pic) the new weapon belts were slipping which meant the weapon wasn’t spinning which meant I was a sitting duck. The opponent landed a blow to rip the weapon Ribs clean off, cracking the chassis in the process. All the random debris in the first pic are bits of my foam tires.

I still wanted to try and star in the fight even with no viable way to salvage the weapon so I bolted an extra piece of titanium I had on hand and gave it a shot. Without the weight of the weapon on the front, Bob mostly popped wheelies every time I tried to drive at the second opponent. Eventually, Bob flipped all the way over and landed on the new front plate which ended his ability to do anything.

Only 🎶 twenty, twenty, twenty-four hours to go 🎶 before Robot Ruckus at Maker Faire Palm Beach! I decided I needed to round off the top points on the lightning bolts a bit to minimize the likelihood of wedging into the plywood floor when I get flipped over.

While Mr. Slappy is a super fun bot to drive, I've come to the realization that it'll never hit hard enough to cause real damage and win consistently, so I've decided to replace the iconic hand with a more robust weapon; one capable of giving out huge hits while also being able to take a massive amount of abuse and still keep working.

Introducing: Mr. Slappy: Nokia Edition

When your wife tells you to take a day at the hotel by yourself to enjoy some peace and quiet, you end up streaming 6+ hours of of Norwalk Havoc Robotic Combat while trying find a way to stuff all of Blitzkrieg Bob's guts into his chassis.

When your daughter needs a subject for her photography class assignment your bots get glamour shots!

BST Bot Bouts day 2!

We’ve changed out Bob’s 2” wheels with 2.5” which will allow him to drive inverted! The way-sharper-than-necessary lightning bolt tips are going to murder the wood floor of the battle box while doing it but some things can’t be helped. 🤷🏻‍♂️

He ain’t pretty but he works.

Am I doing the meme correctly? While I loved idea of the oversized noodle drum (and still do), after that last match I decided if Altoid the Destroyer was going to live up to his name, he needed a major weapon upgrade. A chonky, asymmetrical undercutter ought to bring the pain quite nicely.

Mr. Slappy’s first outing was a lesson in how important it is to keep one’s wheels attached during a fight. Hopefully this new configuration will help. Every part of the drive system has been upgraded: better motors, better wheels, and snazzy new wheel guards to support and protect everything.

All in all, Not a great showing down in Miami this weekend with Robot Ruckus: December Destruction. went 1 & $ across both weight classes. I've already got a major revisions in the works for both AtD and Mr. Slappy to hopefully make them more dangerous... or at least stable.

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Awesome! Everything fits under the hood.

Next step is to break out the soldering iron and wire everything up.

For those who are wondering, this is still a prototype print and apparently my printing service only had the shiny purple in stock. Hopefully they’ll have the flat when it’s time to print the final version.

I find myself waiting on parts for all my robot builds right now so am killing time playing with the Fusion360 rendering engine. Glamor Shots of Blitzkrieg Bob it is. Hey Norwalk Havoc Robot League, You should try making an HDRI image of the inside of one of your arenas so we all could use it as a rendering environment. Far cooler than this random alley I'm using in this image.

Decisions, decisions... I need to choose which configuration is going to be the main setup for Mr. Slappy. The option on the right is definitely more "slappy" as the better balance allows for a faster, more stable spin. The left option, while not as good at pure spinning, does add the nice overhead chop attack to the mix.

Which would you go with?

With the pandemic still making attendance at public fights not the greatest of ideas, I've begun work on a related side project for the kids and I to play with around the house.

They don't have much interest in fighting robots but they like cute animals and they like eating so I thought, why not combine all our interests into an RC version of Hungry Hungry Hippos?

This is just the first draft print and I'm still waiting on some electronics to arrive but when complete we should have a set of fun little bots to play with.