Honors Experiences
Combat Robot Build and CompetitionFor my first Honors Experience at UC I chose to create a self-designed experience. With my main hobby and passion being combat robotics, I wanted to involve the build and competition into the honors experience. What resulted was an Honors Experience that helped me to better document this season, as well as start a YouTube channel to showcase match videos as well as the final result of this Honors Experience; the recap video. I’m still learning the tricks to filming and editing videos, but I personally thought it turned out quite well.
As for competition performance, I took 1st place with Razors Edge and will return to competition on April 18th for the Xtreme Bots 2020 Spring regional competition. |
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Razors Edge Spring 2020 Improvements and CompetitionWhile both the 2020 Spring Xtremebots Regionals and 2020 NRL Nationals have been canceled due to COVID-19, the RE Combat Robotics team continues to make upgrades to the bots. This recap video showcases our new team shirts, upgrades to Razors Edge, and our plans going forward.
Although this second Honors Experience didn't turn out as originally intended, I still wanted to provide a spring recap showing what I'm working on. I tried some new things with fimling and editing this video, and belive the improvements made to Razors Edge definitely would have won spring regionals, and very well nationals too. But, we'll have to wait until the fall to see what really happens. |
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Bridgeport Mill Restoration and ImprovementsIn early 2020 I finally took the plunge and purchased a 1980 Bridgeport knee mill. This is a huge step forward for me and my hobbies, as I will now be able to machine my own parts not only for Razors Edge, but future upgrades for the mill as well. To document this honors experience I created two videos. The first video showcases the overall rebuilding of the mill the way I purchased it, while the second video details the workings and rebuild process of the glass scales on the machine.
Besides the mill, I’ve also purchased new editing software, a recording microphone, and an amplifier to hopefully achieve better sound quality in my videos. Unfortunately the microphone was still on backorder when it came time to record these videos, but the new editing software was a massive timesaver when it came time to edit. |
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Bridgeport CNC ConversionAs a follow up to my last experience, this one covers the full 3 axis CNC conversion of my Bridgeport Series 1 knee mill. With the mill now able to cut infinitely more complex parts than before, this greatly expands my capabilities when it come to manufacturing my own robot parts. More videos will be posted to the channel soon after this one where I use the new capabilities of the machine to make some specific parts, but in this video I simply go over the conversion itself. For those interested in the cost of the project there is a detailed price breakdown linked in the description to the video, but the entire machine as a package comes to just over $10K. For the price, I’ve ended up with a much more versatile and capable machine than a Tormach or other small CNC mill—not to mention the work area difference. |
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Spring 2021 Rage in the Cage - Robotic TournamentTeam RE Combat robotics and I return to competition at the Spring 2021 Rage in the Cage tournament in Elysburg Pennsylvania and spoilers, we do quite well. Taking first place as well as the best engineered award was a nice return to normalcy for myself, and I finally got to try out a bunch of changes I’ve made to Razors Edge in the time off.
Even though Knoebels Amusement Resort (where this event was held) was over eight hours away, my team and I had a blast traveling out to and spending time at the venue and seeing sights along the way. We will definitely be heading back to Elysburg in the future for upcoming competitions. Razors Edge took a decent amount of damage during this event, meaning I’ll need to build a completely new chassis and weapon system for future events. For now, I’ve been working of a completely new design I hope to field in competitions later this year. |
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