I built a killer combat robot

[@iteerrex8166]

Oh man I felt bad for the spider, but seems like he was going for a win in building rather than fighting. Great fun, congrats Angus 👍

[@moremakersmuse]

Redback is definitely a work of art! I didn't want to destroy it.

[@69uremum]

KISS is probably the best philosophy to use when it comes to a remote controlled "battle-robot".

[@Nevir202]

Ya, I don't think he had any intention to win, as he doesn't even seem to have any WAY to win a fight, if the enemy doesn't break itself.

[@conorstewart2214]

@@Nevir202 It has that saw blade right on the front, but it wont do much.

[@233Deadman]

some people do build combat bots with fun being more on the menu than being competitive, and the "want to make something cool" crowd are more attracted to the Sportsman comps for obvious reasons.

[@Inventorsquare]

That spline shaft looked like certified hard work. Props.

[@MushookieMan]

jerry rigged. That's my favorite way of doing things

[@keithyinger3326]

@@MushookieMan I call it farmer engineering. Doing what ya need to do, with what ya have on hand. Sometimes that involves making your own tool because it's a heck of a lot cheaper than going and buying some Custom Tool that you're going to use once.

[@MushookieMan]

@@keithyinger3326 I call it 'doing it wrong the first time'.

[@TommiHonkonen]

it probably beter quality than what i do at work on a real cnc

[@Sharpless2]

@@MushookieMan If it works correctly, its not been done wrong. Maybe its been done *inefficiently,* not wrong.

[@bale7297]

Finally, I have missed your combat robotics videos so much. Glad to see them again. Would love to see you go to something like Norwalk Havoc!

[@moremakersmuse]

Would be cool to make some international events!

[@connorbingel7134]

@MORE Maker's Muse, the US would love to have you!

[@slightlyevilrobotics4271]

Awesome bot Angus - it's just a pity we didn't fight (except in the rumble)! Even seeing it in person I didn't appreciate how you did the lifting mechanism - that's a nifty design, and a great video as always

[@MakersMuse]

I can barely remember the rumble but looks like we had a few good engagements! Great to catch up and I definitely need to try those brushless drill conversions some time, I have so many old gearmotors...

[@mathieusicardi9178]

@@MakersMuse I have a question. I'm trying to build my own robot and I have fairly powerful 12V 0.5A motors. I'm trying to find corresponding esc to remote control it, but I can't find any that fit the 12V 0.5A parameters? Do you have a god website to recommend for ESCs?

[@gumbly4174]

THE HASH SLINGING SLASHER 😱

[@unicycleboi5874]

THE HASH RINGING

[@myths_and_Legend]

@@unicycleboi5874 The Bash binging

[@giving6]

The smash stinging

[@gumbly4174]

@@unicycleboi5874 THE RASH RINGING RASHER 😱 🤨 📸☠️

[@tantamounted]

Custom made to settle your hash!

[@GoodTato]

"keeping you in place while i lower a saw into you" is such a classic Robot Wars design, glad to see stuff like that's still being built.

[@daylen577]

Seeing amazing walkers and very complex commercial grade robots get obliterated by small DIY machines at these events always seems like a waste but at the same time is super satisfying. I guess everyone knows what they're getting into, but imagine putting weeks or months into a build and then it's destroyed in a way that can't be repaired in the first fight

[@hazonku]

Can't believe you ground that spline shaft by hand & it not only worked, it held up the whole way through too! Really impressive! Excellent work & congrats on 3rd place!

[@Cheeky_Chelsea]

I'm very impressed by the lifting mechanism, when i saw it working in the arena I thought you had a separate servo for the lifter

[@Sir_Uncle_Ned]

3rd place is nothing to sneeze at. Building robots to fight each other is a whole new level of engineering difficulty and you tackled that challenge wonderfully! Also mad props for HAND grinding those splines!

[@nicknack125]

17:55 seeing Glen suplex your bot into the pit was such unnecessary flare on his end and I absolutely love it

[@FilamentStories]

This was *such* a fun video to watch! I loved hearing about all the details of your build and the competition. PCBWAY has so many things to offer to help makers these days. Just a fantastic video to watch. I can’t wait for the next installment!

[@Nvenom8.]

As much robot combat content as you want to make, I'll always watch it!

[@FasutonemuMyoji]

ditto!

[@connecticutaggie]

Looks like lots of fun. Thanks for sharing your adventure with us. It was fun to see the Band Saw too, that is the same one we have in our High School Robotics Lab. One recommendation concerning the bent arm and bolt holes. Fusion 360 has an amazing stress analysis tool. I had to design a robotic gripper at work and weight was a major concern and using a the tool, I could determine exactly where I needed material and where I didn't.

[@ishotfatcat]

A tip from an experienced spanner swinger when you have a slightly loose id for a bearing a few center punch hits will help tighten the bore and hold the bearing tight

[@WorldPowerLabs]

That's actually how the bearing in my truck's A/C clutch pulley is retained from the factory--a series of punched divots around the circumference of the bore it sits into in the pulley.

[@101rotarypower]

Love seeing videos on this topic!!!!! Please continue to create and share them! After so much time and hinting of your enthusiasm for robot combat, we finally got to see a propper video on it, hope to see more, and any details you improve or move in a new direction with. Enjoy the Sin City Slug Fest, its been great so far! always hoped to get involved in robot combat, its great to see a grassroots bots and see how they were conceived and implemented as the problems are ironed out.

[@taxatogaming]

Yeeees, been waiting for more battlebot content!! Excited to watch

[@auxchar]

This was really cool! Had no idea that Sportsman category exists, that's really cool. The KE weapon meta was getting pretty sweaty, so seeing some alternatives opening up is great to see.

[@moremakersmuse]

It's why we started it here, the barrier to entry for the unrestricted class was becoming way too high sadly. You either made a boring brick / wedge or invested thousands into a robot that would be potentially obliterated in its first fight. Sportsman fights last longer and still have plenty of entertainment value!

[@the_donz]

@@moremakersmuse as an australian i'm seriously interested in joining something like this, but i cant seem to find any info online about battle bots here. do you know where i can find more info?

[@MakersMuse]

@@the_donz You can try joining the RobowarsAustralia facebook group !

[@slightlyevilrobotics4271]

@@the_donz What state are you in? SA, Qld and Victoria have groups with regular events for smaller (150g and 1.3kg) bots, all have groups on F-book. Bigger events with combatants Australia-wide like this used to happen 1-2 times a year but it's been 3 years till this recent one - my bots were getting restless! (sorry if duplicate replies, my first one seemed to get eaten by the algorithms)

[@the_donz]

@@slightlyevilrobotics4271 i'm in NSW sydney, do you know of any over here? i've always wanted to try and make a battle bot

[@razer259]

I was there when you fought this thing and I really enjoyed watching it! (So honoured to have my ant make a cameo appearance! Big vert, pink wheels, purple eyes. Can't miss it!)

[@richardepps8500]

Big up yourself for that spline shaft. I wish you went more into how it's wired and controlled

[@Mattay20]

Loved robot wars growing up. Never made it to the live shows but years later managed to go to a touring event and it was amazing. Really enjoyed watching your journey and hope to see more

[@BeaverBotics2]

I like the lifter Saw Combo, pretty unique take on the saw bot concept. Fun idea (though probably not as practical as the spike), what if added a spatula as the lifter to further add to the Hash Slinging Slasher theme

[@frcbe]

Angus this rules. Dunno if you remember, but you helped me make a sawblade wedge using a direct drive car fan motor that got obliterated by a vert spinner way back in the day. So glad to see you still kicking arse and scaring off mormon doornockers!

[@MakersMuse]

omg Nick! Good times that was so long ago haha. yeah we did some pretty sketchy things back then. Hope you're good?

[@frcbe]

@@MakersMuse yeah mate! Stoked you spotted this! I’m doing great, working in web development, still in Sydney, although the most I’m building these days is a mechanical keyboard haha! Always stoked to see you drop a video :)

[@alkalinekats8300]

It was honestly great to hear your legit thoughts about PCBway in the video instead of just being sponsored and giving an ad read, it might actually be something I will use in the future, thankyou!

[@EvanCops]

KZbin's makin me happy with recommendations. Awesome job dude

[@marcfruchtman9473]

Thank you for making this video! The idea of hand grinding splines... wow. I agree with you that the belt has no defense. So, yea, that needs something to prevent it from being rendered useless after 1 hit. If you must stick with the saw blade design with a "lifter", you should consider a lifter that has at least 2 parallel lifters, perhaps like a fork lift, or maybe upside U shaped (joined at the ends) for more rigidity. I suspect, that 1 lifter, tilts the enemy bots more than it "pulls it up" into the blade., whereas a parallel lifter might give you better leverage. The Locked Rotor Amps / Stalled Amps of a motor tend to be 6 to 10 times more than full load (100% RPM). So, one reason why the controller may be dying might be related to the Amperes being drawn with rapid "on" / "off" cycling. Because that's basically like several 6 to 10 time Max Current hits in a row.

[@moremakersmuse]

Definitely agree on more of a "fork" design for stability. I was originally going to have a spatula kind of scoop, hence the name, but went with the spike due to time restrictions.

[@marcfruchtman9473]

I forgot to mention... that DC motors with big armatures tend to have pretty big spike voltages due to the commutation. Consider adding flyback protection.

[@MakersMuse]

@@marcfruchtman9473 Yeah, we suspect that's what killed the esc but it wasn't doing any heavy lifting at the time. I'll most certainly swap to a smaller brushless outrunner for next time if only to save several KG of weight.

[@tigerzero5216]

@@marcfruchtman9473 . "Flyback protection"? A term I've never heard before. Granted my electronics schooling is 40 years old. I think I understand what you are talking about. When you power any wire coil it builds a magnetic field of energy. (Solenoid or motor winding). Take away that feed to it, the collapsing magnetic field around the coil wants to dump current/voltage to somewhere. You don't want it to go back into the driving circuitry. So you add components to direct it away from there. In the case of solenoids, it's simple, a diode/rectifier to ground. DC motors I can see being tricky because it's not a one way deal like solenoids. Did I get it right?

[@marcfruchtman9473]

@@tigerzero5216 Right, not only that but the collapsing field can dump many times the voltage of the power source.

[@duconlajoie9680]

So much enthusiasm about conception, construction and destruction is very motivating.

[@ivovass195]

Very cool, looks like great fun after the engineering and building challenges. Looking forward to seeing the next one

[@Roboseal2]

Thanks for doing something with BATTLEBOTS in it because those are the coolest things

[@Druidus98]

Thanks for 22 minutes with a smile in my face and get well soon 💐👍🏻

[@versag3776]

That spline shaft! Tedious work, I know from experience, you must be an artist!! I enjoy art and craft projects that take patience and problem solving like that.

[@michaelschecker2716]

Thanx a lot showing so much fun stuff. 😂 I mill ~ 8 ton/year of 7075, also called AlZnMgCu1,5 a good choice for max stable parts. 7075 is 550N/squareMM and you never need threaded inserts. I also like in this alloy there in no silicium, so milling cutters last 10 times longer.

[@jimlynch9390]

That has to be the best video I've seen this year. Maybe the best in the last 10 years. Thank you for the insight.

[@N4CR]

Just a tip from someone who spent some time in a machining hall ;) Use steel wires to jam if able, or consider a copper layer on your armour, it will gall and break teeth on saws at high speed and cause them to fail.

[@rmdcade1717]

Combat robots are so cool, but the coolest thing about this video is that '90s-looking hoodie 😍

[@edwardfletcher7790]

Was that Paramount Browns ? EDIT : Nope, you're in Sydney. I bought some Ex-Govt PC's from there years ago for $5/kg 😆 Can we have a LOT more Aussie Combat robot content please ? This video was FANTASTIC 👍

[@Bibibosh]

.....YES A video by muse... Keep up the interesting content maker's muse! This video best of all year in my opinion!

[@JonathonBarton]

6:13 Good ol' Cut'N'Try Engineering wins the day once again! ❤🥇

[@Donorcyclist]

Great work and thank you for sharing! For the anti tip feet, if you were to put a bearing under each, you wouldn’t end up stuck in place and you could use that mobility to move your opponent to a place they don’t want to be. Cheers!

[@spikekent]

What an awesome video Angus, always love these. Massive congrats on 3rd place too.

[@vlfreak]

Great to see some robot videos again, have missed them a lot.. WOW you created a beast there, thanks for the extensive breakdown on the build and techniques used, that was really interesting stuff.. Those battles looked epic and congrats on the 3rd place 👌

[@punkvisser]

Nice video. This and earlier robot videos make me to want to build at least 2 3d printed robots

[@moremakersmuse]

3D Printing is completely viable for the smaller classes! We even have a 150g "plastic" class which is similar in spirit to the sportsman class with a very low barrier of entry.

[@punkvisser]

@@moremakersmuse I need to look up what we got here in the Netherlands. Will than probably start with push bots.

[@lithuets]

As a ultra precision machinist, can confirm tolerances of e-5 (.00001in) are pretty easy to achieve with the right technique. I've even used a basic lathe and hand polishing to achieve

[@richardgreen4611]

Well done Angus. I like your way of thinking about modifying the robot. When my wife heard the video playing she thought that you were making a "Wombat Robot" not "Combat Robot"! However as Wombats are tough animals it might not be such a bad idea.

[@markfryer9880]

Well given how cranky a wombat is when disturbed it might be a good name for a combat robot. Wombot!

[@isaakcraig6121]

Dear Angus and if that's not your name I apologize I saw one of your older videos a while back about g10 as a build plate and I just wanted to thank you for turning me on to the material and it has saved me a lot of heartache in my 3D printing projects PS I love your channel keep up the good work

[@teamstorm5578]

good meeting ya at the event man. Those where some good fight 🔥

[@MentallyLatent]

Having done Vex robotics for a good like 5 years now, this build made a lot of sense to me and I liked how you made it. When you showed how the arm works I was like "yup that's how I'd do it"

[@jrsxcase]

Precision where needed and when required. Anything extra is just wasted time. I like your efficiency!

[@osprey1645]

I did combat robotics in highschool it was amazing. We did 15 lbs robots and had a solid tool steel vertical spinner.

[@TheSam10pate]

this was awesome to watch! sounds like you brought home some of that event sickness, hope you feeel well soon and keep up the great content.

[@mrnlce7939]

You can make your own HDPE sheets using milk bottles and shampoo bottles. And if you laminate it with aluminium or steel as you said it would be quite a lot stronger and thinner. Great video. Keep up the good work.

[@milkhbox]

Plus 1 for the bandsaw tip. Even a handheld portable bandsaw is a gamechanger for building things.

[@manny4148]

this is an i did a thing level bad idea, but done with actual safety. love it!

[@peterknoll8906]

I had a lot of fun watching the video! Thank you! 😊

[@tryzeicon6392]

I love how you guys are keeping it clean this is what you call friends doing what they love gotta support y'all ❤️

[@chase2496]

When you mentioned how hard it was to control, oh man did I relate to that! I did a lot of FIRST robotics (FTC and FRC) and they can get really complicated to figure out. Normally we set up for two drivers, but once or twice we had to drop to one for some reason or another. And man, did that suck to do!

[@plasmaman9592]

No one uses 3,000 lb winches on cars or trucks. Those are used on ATVs. I know this because I bought one for a light truck and the cable snapped the first time I used it because even a light truck when stuck in the snow has too much resistance when trying to pull that far exceeds that 3,000 lb line strength which causes it to snap

[@eriklagergren7124]

Those sparks at 6:33 would make electroboom proud

[@MechVince]

Awesome, awesome, awesome! More robot fighting and I love the behind the scenes breakdown of how and why!

[@HatelivesNextDoor]

Sandwich: the cutting board with thin sheetmetal between. When I cut concrete, thin metal would immediately bind blades that were over %25 buried in the material to be cut. Those thin strips were jamming up 30hp saws. I think itll work. You could also try to apply the "reinforced concrete idea, and put little scraps of dangerous shit inside of the plastic if you are able to melt and recast for the armour.

[@gwamhurt]

The spline lmao. Nothing really beats how satisfying a good kluge can be imo.

[@stephenkitto5782]

I love that you just picked W.A.C.A. up and put it in timeout.😂 Congrats Angus!

[@NeoIsrafil]

I had NO idea pcbway does cnc work... thats amazing. I almost regret buying a 10 foot CNC now.....almost.... except its fekking cool. What might be nice is for you to have a way for your saw to lock and push with the lifting arm instead of just having it lift and stay in position, because thats now how saws are designed to work. They need some force to move them into material. Another addition would be some thin armor for the belt/motor, just something to give it protection against glancing hits from other saws or things. Nothing amazing, even just a chunk of throwaway 3d printed plastic would work, just something to keep an instant cut to it from destroying it.

[@crunchysteve]

Love the hand ground spline! True Aussie bush engineering! Brilliant.

[@mvadu]

The best ad for pcbway by actually using their services to the limits..

[@vidhoard]

Amazing! I didn't even really know this whole battle bot thing was a thing!

[@OneIdeaTooMany]

He threw YOUR battle bot directly at YOUR camera. That's beast mode control.

[@The_Forge_Master]

My two favorite weapon types are excellently shown off by my two favorite bots: Minotaur's drum spinner, and Bronco's flipper. Still, to this day, my favorite fight is Minotaur vs Warhead... err, "War----".

[@TroyMackay]

Aaah! He's got a board with a nail in it!

[@rsunghun]

Amzing stuff! Happy to see you challenging this area.

[@AFistfulOf4K]

It's a happy coincidence that the background music you always use is the same music as in Robocraft, a PC game about building battle robots.

[@StormBurnX]

I assumed the hoarse voice was from the screaming and shouting that tends to happen at robo battle matches, hah! Also was slightly surprised to see you using the dual-screen laptop out on the go -- your sponsored video for it felt like a really forced ad so I just expected you would use it for the required period and then ditch it, it's nice to see it's still getting some use!

[@MakersMuse]

Lol yeah, it's actually a great laptop 😂 second screen has it's occasional uses

[@cptcarot]

Used to watch Robot Wars here in the 🇬🇧. This is great stuff, was even involved in providing parts for some robots that where on the BBC TV program. Planned a bot to take out a house robot, but due to weight limits was unable to build our design, we wanted to destroy the badly positioned hydrolic controller, so it bled all over the arena.

[@Edy195_]

I used PCB Way to cnc machine part for my custom motorcycle rear spring compressor.. Did 3D printed prototype first.. Superb quality.. Little slow delivery because some holidays at that time. But can reccomend! :)

[@mozkitolife5437]

BLOODY AWESOME, Angus! Over the moon to see you getting back into the bots. This video easily competes with a BB ep 😃

[@chemicalvamp]

This was very neat, I hope you continue in this (yearly?) competition.

[@avejst]

Fantastic build. impressive work for all the combat boots. Thanks for sharing your experience with all of us 👍🙂

[@tdtrecordsmusic]

Absolutely F in EPIC ! Coolest sh8 ever ! I so wish I could join this madness !!

[@AJB2K3]

There is an old saying here that comes into play "It ain't stupid if it works!" Congrats hand grinding the spline.

[@WildmanTech]

Angle grinder splines for the win!

[@jameymueller2328]

The "Hash slinging slasher" LMAO...awesome nod to spongebob my friend!

[@Deltarr777]

Congrats on the 3rd place ! You created a mean robot ! Can't wait for version 2 !!

[@TsiolkovskySportingLocks]

Great example of TLAR (That looks about right) assembly and design.... fantastic video and totally inspiring!

[@FactionalSky]

I love saw bots. I think they are the most fun to watch. :D

[@dmm8658]

That was hilarious, I enjoyed that so much. Thanks for sharing it.

[@welshdave5263]

Blade motor could be down behind lift motor, drive belt could share the lifting axle with a smaller belt going to the blade motor, regardless of lift angle, sharing the same axle as lift would keep belt tension the same.

[@cypherdras]

3rd place, Nice! I like that Polaris body slammed you into the pit XD

[@makerspace533]

If you would like to build a fighting robot but do not have the tools at hand, look around and see if there is a makerspace in your area. Our makerspace, The MakerBarn, has tons (literally) of equipment for building almost anything. There are hundreds of makerspaces around the world, there may be one near you.

[@jiaan100]

Driving practice is so crazy important for (non autonomous) robotics competitions

[@kingcosworth2643]

Don't feel bad about using the grinder to cut the spline. Sure a mill and indexing head would of been awesome, but McGyvering is a skill on its own, a very important skill, and you got the job done to a suitable standard

[@3DMusketeers]

LOVE the self made splines as well as the saw blade recommendation! Very cool!

[@RomanoPRODUCTION]

Thank you Angus, the robot is funny and sharp.

[@Toastmaster_5000]

2 suggestions for the winch: 1. If you're going to use a speed controller, ramp up the speed rather than go full-force. That arcing you see when applying the battery can cause a lot of stress to the electronics. 2. Use a pair of contactors instead of a speed controller. These are built to handle the intense load and are pretty simple to set up. They're not cheap, though I'm guessing a speed controller that can handle all those amps isn't so cheap either.

[@jacobpage3865]

Legend !!! Cheers for coming to Adelaide!!!

[@xXBeefyDjXx]

Awesome bot, fitting name! :P Polaris is an absolute Tank, so fair play to ya!

[@invaderdrumguy7590]

Thank you for posting this. Been trying to find a good video on Combat Robotics ❤️❤️

[@andrecook4268]

Beast almost got through the 3mm steel armour around Pot Heads wheels. I was trying to take the saw out by 'punching' it with the same armour :)

[@charleslambert3368]

You should try 3d printing jigs to line up the holes correctly. And also learn GD&T to know the correct clearances and how to communicate that to the manufacturer.

[@robotwarsluvr]

With the right funding hopefully I’ll be joining the sportsman class next year as well as my ant and planned beetle

[@rileybriggs4731]

Id say the only thing to change is make the lifter and the saw come together rather than apart. Lifting a robot if you can't flip it or cut it isn't all too helpful, but being able to lift them then cut into them is another story