Backpost 2: The 4 Week Combat Robot Build Challenge: MowBo

Title: The 4 Week Combat Robot Build Challenge: MowBot Date: 2012-10-7

A little over a month ago it was mentioned in passing that there was going to be a combat robot arena at the Atlanta Mini Maker Faire the first weekend of October. The thought, “4 weeks is plenty of time” crossed my mind and it was off to start designing. I opted to build a 3lb robot; it gave me enough weight to build something with a decent weapon and not have to worry too much about weight. Below is what happened. MowBot is a 3lb combat robot with a solid 4 wheel tank drive, hardened 1095 steel plates for armor, and a spinning blade on top that has just over 800 joules of energy in it when fully spun up (this is the same amount of energy as dropping the 3lbs robot 60 meters and letting it hit the ground). He is the first combat bot I have built and it won its first competition! Click through to the read me post to see the whole build process or check out the portfolio page which has a gallery of all of the build pictures. Links to the videos of the competition are included!