Sumo Bot Vs. Stair Climber

Sumo Bot
Sumo Bot is relatively easier to make however might take some time to find the correct motors, etc. So the goal for the Sumo Bot is to stay in the arena longer than the other Sumo Bot and to be able to knock out the enemy Bot.

Stair Bot
The Stair Bot would probably be harder because it would take more programming to do as each stair has a different height. The Stair Bots’ goal is to climb up to the top of the stairs. Even though the stair length is the same but the height is not which may require more programming to follow the lines.

My Option
After having a look at both on the internet, I think that I will probably be looking forward to building a sumo bot as I think I already have an appropriate prototype which is probably giving it wings on the floor to shove other bots down. I think that the Stair bot will require too much work and I may not be up for the challenge.

Sumo Bot Prototype Design

 

Option 1

I think for this prototype, the attack is pretty good however it lacks a lot of defence on both ends or sides and it also lacks some attack on the other end. I think that this will be an okay bot because if it becomes lucky and attacks the other bot with the shovel end, it will easily shove the other bot off the arena. It does lack defence as mentioned and is quite easy to overrun. This prototype, might also have balance issues as it has 3 wheels, 2 big and 1 small. This bot seems pretty easy to make as well.

 

 

Option 2
I think that this prototype has a better attacking ability than a lot of other sumo bot. This sumo bot can not only flip other vehicles or bots but can also shove them off the arena. This bot has a better defence than option 1 as it has a bigger body and has 4 wheels that are stable and the same size. This bot seems a little bit harder than option 1 however a much better choice.

 

 

Option 3

I think that this bot has a really good defence but lacks a little bit of attack although it does have a shover. I think that the shover helps the bot defence and stable itself, however I think that if it has a bigger body it can overrun other bots as it can still shove others out with its weight. A con that this bot has, is that if another bot comes from behind this bot, it is dead because it has no defence or attack on the other side.

 

My Option

I think that prototype number 2 will be the best however a lot still needs to be added as it does lack very little of defence so maybe I could make a bigger body for more stability and balance and possibly bigger wheels. I think another area this bot lacks in defence is when a bot comes from the side that there are no shovel on as is only has a surface. I think to solve this problem I can add another shover to the other side and to avoid using too much space, I will make it flip down right when it starts fighting so it has a good amount of defence and a huge amount of attacking ability.

Problems

Problem 1: Gearing for Barrier

There were 2 major problems of the gearing system for the barrier. This was because the gears were unstable and it was nearly impossibly to connect the gears because of the uneven slant that the vehicle has. It was not mechanically possible for me to attach the gears together, even if I used the curved gear it still wont work. There is no solution to this problem because even though I made the gears more stable, there would be an awkward slant and it won’t even move. I decided to take out the gearing concept of the vehicle, as it won’t benefit anything. Even if I take out the gearing concept, I decided to leave my barrier facing upwards so that it was mainly for “defense” and moved the slot for my brain a little bit higher on the vehicle so that nothing will touch or clash into each other.
Before                                                                                  After

 

 

Problem 2: Barrier (no gearing)

The main purpose of the barrier was to lift other vehicles up to provide defense and also offense with the way it is stabilized. With this being said, the ways that I could attach the axle with the barrier to go “offense,” was to make the barrier extremely long. The only problem with this is that if it goes the long way, the vehicle would be too big for the 8 in by 8 in max capacity. This was a pretty easy problem to fix however after solving this problem another problem raised which I will explain later. To fix this problem, I turned the axel and the barrier 90 degrees so that the barrier would be facing up and will be more of a defensive vehicle.
Before                                                                                 After

 

Problem 3: Cables

After solving the problem by turning the barrier up 90 degrees so that it will fit the max capacity of the robot, there were no spaces for me to attach my cables as the barrier was directly touching the brain. This problem took me some time to solve. I solved it by finding an open brick slot farther away from the barrier so that I could fit all my cables that I needed for the sensors. I had to find extra spaces on the back to attack more bricks to connect the brain. Although my writing can be confusing because it is hard to explain, the picture will help understand the problem.
Before                                                                                 After

 

Problem 4: Compound Gearing

After having many “tests” with other cars trying to knock out theirs, I realized that my vehicle was very weak and the wheels could not withstand a lot of the pressure that the other cars were pushing to my vehicle. The wheels would just not run and would just stop. The mechanical concept was very weak and I decided to add Compound gearing, which is to lower the speed but to add a greater force to the vehicle, so although the other vehicles were strong, my gears will still move and it will be very hard to stop. This was a minor problem and to solve this problem, I added a brick, 1×11 (around) and I connected the smallest gear I could find with the motor and connected it with the biggest gear and along with the biggest gear, I connected the wheels. This way the gearing for the wheels is very strong and the wheels will be very hard to stop.
Before                                                                                After

 

 Problem 5: Barrier Stability

After adding the compound gearing to my vehicle I went to test it out and I realized my vehicle still wasn’t too good compared to others. The wheels were very hard to stop however there were many components that still weren’t working well and one of the major ones was because the barrier was lacking stability and would always just fall back even though the gearing for the wheels was very good. This was a big problem however was really easy to fix. To fix this problem I added a curved brick to connect on the connecter brick for the brain. This might be a little bit confusing but the photo basically describes the whole thing.
Before                                                                                After

 

Improvements

Some improvements I think I can solve with more given time is the overall body structure of the robot. I feel like the structure is slightly weak and can improve a lot more by adding more weight so that it would be a stronger robot overall. If I were to redo this whole project again, I would add more weight and Legos onto the structure so that the robot will be stronger. I think that the gearing and everything was fine, just the structure of the robot needed improvements. Now that I am more confident in creating another project whereas at the beginning of this course I had no experience in building and programming Lego, I am much looking forward for the next project.

 

Final Product

Robot/Programming/Video=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbgU-_dYwSE&feature=youtu.be