Shawn & Lara need a Toolbox... Droid?

[savagecreature]

I wanted to give you a hard time about building this stuff out of lego, but I must admit it's sufficiently cool and I'm so impressed that I just can't bring myself to say anything negative, even if it is in jest. Cool stuff, kresty.

[kresty]

I wanted to give you a hard time about building this stuff out of lego, but I must admit it's sufficiently cool and I'm so impressed that I just can't bring myself to say anything negative, even if it is in jest. Cool stuff, kresty.

Thanks, that's nice to hear.

[kresty]

FINALLY!!!!!  The drivetrain's (mostly) together and.... it works!



And they said I couldn't get it to turn...

Of course you don't see the attempt on the carpet here.  *way* too much friction on carpet.  Not only can't it turn on the rug, but it threw the chain off the motor sprocket on one side.  Probably because I haven't bolted the wheels yet, so they can slip sideways.

The last few seconds I try to show that the Lego bits on the track pads actually are used by my inverted-sprocket wheel thing.  

None of the Lego is glued.  The individual links in the tracks are connected with TPU printed hinges.  (See previous post)

[kresty]

The idea has been to have the droid done before BrickCon next weekend (always 1st weekend in October).  This may be tough.  

Managed to get the hard part of the top, tomorrow Lara will get the bottom recess bit - We chose to split it about where Lee's real droid's top came off.

Toolbox Top 3/4 Way
Work area... Lots of bricks.

Toolbox Top 3/4 Way
Getting closer with the toolbox droid top - have most of the hard part done.

Toolbox Top 3/4 Way
The green is the printed brick to get the angles right and for strength.

At the bottom of the printed brick are a bunch of little holes. That's at an angle and the intent is for the holes to line up with holes in the top printed brick of the body. Then we'll pin them in with Lego lightsabers (or similar diameter poles).

Toolbox Top 3/4 Way
Different Angle.  The green in the previous will be laminated like this, probably tomorrow.

[kresty]

So, we're supposed to take this to BrickCon on Thursday...  To do list:

• Need to finish the top (that'll probably be pretty quick, the 3 tall row at the bottom we finished today was a serious pain, but the rest should be smooth)
  
• Need to build a body.  Yipes.
  
• Hubcaps.  Have an idea for those but haven't really started.
  
• Finish assembling electronics.
  
• Final assembly of tracks (in the video they don't have nuts - spacing is important for hubs).  
  
• Door.  Ack.  Eventually it'll be motorized, but we'll be lucky to have a wall there this week.
  
  

[Dyne]

Ah con crunch, I know thee well.

Fingers crossed it isn't literal crunching, as that'd either be bad or painful. Those things are really just caltrops in disguise.

Looking good

Sent from my SPH-L720T using Tapatalk

[savagecreature]

You Lego people are utterly crazy!! But you're also my friends, so I hope you manage to get 'er done. Best of luck and can't wait to see it!

[kresty]

Well, it's kinda running - but only part-way done. We muffed up the door side, so ended up showing it with 3 sides done. The hubcap kept falling off... but we got it to turn!

Lara with V0.3 Toolbox
We goofed and the door side got closed, so we stopped trying to finish all that.. We had it running about though at Brickcon

[kresty]

Really rough video, but we managed to get him to turn a bit:

Since it turned at home on the wood floor, Lara had the idea of getting the wood bits. Unfortunately, it wouldn't really turn the first day out. So I printed larger "road wheels" in the middle (about 5mm diameter bigger) continuing the theory that if we could get the weight off the ends and into the middle, then it might turn.

That seemed to help a ton. Still doesn't turn perfectly all the time. Part of the problem seems to be that the motors on one end cause it to tip that way, so it's on one of the road wheels and the drive wheel instead of just being on the road wheels. The other problem is that the floor isn't perfectly flat. Dips cause more surface area and make it harder to turn. Though the crests between the dips make it turn more easily. One trick was trying to remember where on the floor it turned the easiest.

We also expect that with the body on it, the increased weight made it harder to turn. Hopefully it has most of it's weight now, so that's good.

A bonus of the wood floor is that it provided an obvious boundary to the viewing area, keeping folks from crowding the droids too much. That was nice.

[savagecreature]

So cool! Awesome droid