Some of you know that I really love building robot. I learn alot with sumo robot. I have been building 500 gram and 3Kg sumo robot in the pass and learn many things regarding electronics, software and mechanic.
For those who aren’t familiar with sumo robots, those robot are autonomous and find the oponnent to push him out of a ring. The ring is black and has this white boarder. The robot can detect the white border and know that it should back away or else it falls out.
This is my very first sumo robot. That was in 2006. Has you can see, lipo battery where rare. 🙂 My motors and electronics (PIC microcontroller) where on the same power source. During a head to head match, the robot reset due to votlage drop on the 5V! The PIC reset and went into a “wait for press of push button” mode. I learn that you need two separate power supply, one for the electronics and one for the motors. These days, I have a better power supply so I use a single battery.
The winner of the competition told his secret. They told us that the secret is “battery – motor“, simple has that. I then when and made a new robot call Rhino for the 2007 competition. It use a 12$ cordless drill motors.
New wheels because the old blue tear up 1 day before the competition.
The last competition I attended was in 2007. We are in 2014, there is a lot of things that change in 7 years. Exceptionally my skills! I have learn to use Solidworks and when throught University.
Febuary 28, 2014 I get a email of a competitor back in 2007 informing me that there is a sumo competition in 1 month, march 1st. I thought if I could make a complet sumo robot in 4 weeks. I said yes. I did everything in Solidworks first. The first 2 weeks has design iteration, ideas, etc. I knew that I was going to use a 3D printer to print the chassis, so that help a lot for the design. The next 2 weeks was fabrication. Lucky me, we have a nice workshop at work. I present to you El-Chapo!
I was reading the news and saw this drug lord get caught by police at the end of febuary. I said that is a cool name!
I won first place! I did not even have white line detection. Here are the highlight of my robot
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acXb_-CwhnE
Here is the complet 75 match
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhQk9CCiA5o