ANTWEIGHT.CO.UK
HOWTO - Idea
Goals:
Any idea has to have goals, and here they are:
1) Ant has to weigh less than 150g, less than as otherwise you will go overweight. Ideally aim at 140g.
2) Low COG (Center Of Gravity), this will help fight those flipping ants.
3) No aggressive weaponry, firstly as a guide I don't want everyone to make ants with spinning weapons, secondly I'm very accident prone.
4) Must expand, a bit complicated for a howto guide but it will show you what is possible.
1) WEIGHT:
I have some bits left over from previous ants, these are:
| HS50 servos | 6g each, bit weak for a drive servo |
| HS55 servos | 8g each |
| SD200 | 16g each, nice weapons servo |
| GWS mixer | 5g and useful if you have a weapon to control at the same time |
| Jeti Rx | 4Ch receiver, doesn't work too well at 40MHz |
| Hitec feather Rx | 11g 4Ch receiver |
| Nicad 110mAh batts | 33g for 4 cells and connector, hmmm. Very heavy as 4*100mAh NiMh with connector is about 4g*4+2=18g. Think about this. |
So roughly, overestimating:
HS55*2=20g
Hitec Rx=11g
SD200 weapons servo=17g
mixer=5g
batteries=35g
TOTAL: 88g
This shows you how easy it is to use up the allocated weight with just the basics.
2) Low COG
Although the rules allow a 4" cube (100mm) it is vital to have the weight as low as possible on the ant, this will help when someone is trying to flip your any over. The chances are it will probably be Odyssey driven by me.
This is easy to achieve as i'll put the batteries at the bottom. Also I will try to make the ant as low as possible, this will help if it gets hit by a spinner as they can tend to try an flip an ant when it hits.
3) Weaponry
Since I've set a no rotational weaponry rule it leaves:
crusher
lifter
pusher
Since I've already allocated a weapons servo and I want to do something a bit special a pusher is out of the question as they can be a bit 'boxy'. I've done a horizontal crusher with Anteater and it's currently being improved so I don't want to do 2 identical ants, also ant vertical crusher is going to be compared with Razer/Close Shave.
So a lifter is left, boring....
Odyssey was/is a successfull lifter so I don't really want to do another lifter do I???
Lifters can be improved upon, firsly I thought about a front and rear lifter but decided I might as well use a lifter all the way round the ant. This will help with the multi-ant battles too.
4) Must expand
A lifter that must expand, after thinking about this the lifting flaps lifting could expand the ant outside it's 4" box.
So after a few sketches:
 |
This is a bit tricky to explain apart from the scriblings of a madman late one night.
The top view shows the SD200 in the centre with 2 HS55's each side attached to wheels. Also the flaps can be seen rotating.
The lower bit shows a top view with the batteries and Rx shown. |
And after a bit on the computer:
Above shows the transition from a 4" cube to a 6.6" (168mm) flat ant. Low COG, expanding and weapon achieved (on paper and computer anyway).
More views showing 1/2 expanded and top view.
Now, building