Bone Dead Robotics

January 2023

The first design points for what became Vorion happened directly after the events of the December 2022 NHRL World Championships. Phenomenon had been defeated yet again by the great MegatRon and I was thinking it was time to move onto V2. The new design shares the same general layout and footprint as its predecessor, with a few notable improvements.
1. The drive gearboxes are now supported by the outer frame rail, creating much more stiffness in the drive and tying the rear rail to all of the frame rails thereby dramatically increasing resilience and ensuring stability.
2. The wheel armor was switched from 3/4″ UHMW over 1/2″ Aluminum to 3D-Printed TPU. The outer armor on Phenomenon was incredibly overkill; it likely could have been used on 60lb or 120lb robot and have survived. The failure for them was always the 1/4-20 bolts near the front of the robot that connected it to the front cross brace. To move the weight internally to support the drivetrain, this was switched with TPU which is not only lighter and cheaper to replace but also able to squish and absorb energy.
3. The fork mounting is much better. Before I the screws were mounted in-line with the pivot bolt making service between fights a huge pain. By spreading out the mounting bolt pattern it increased serviceability and durability.
With these thoughts in mind, the production for then-Phenomenon V2 began, though due to delays in manufacturing and the Phenomenon V1 chassis learning a few more tips it did not come together until May 2023.

May 2023

At the beginning of May, the building began with the first few parts began coming together. For a brief time, I considered offsetting the weapon further forward to inviting more impacts (hold that thought for later), but still kept the more reasonable shape in mind. A quick experiment sacrificing some 5/8″ 6061 stock proved the weight balance was off, ultimately casting away the idea. The one thought I did learn from this exercise was to remove the center connecting area of the wedge and leave the weapon as exposed as possible to make an impact. As we will see throughout the journey, this was a critical thought that elevated it over its predecessor.

After going back to the original shape, the cutout was made to the front area of the wedge and the shape of what the robot is known for came into shape. Before the parts were machined, pulley fittings were checked using a PLA set of center rails (brightly colored so I don’t forget to replace it!) and assembly continued.

June 2023

After utilizing skills from r/c car painting, the new bot came together. Initially this robot was made to be just Phenomenon V2, but for the June NHRL event I realized that original V1 chassis just wasn’t too broken to justify getting rid of it. By this time, only Phenomenon had qualified for Finals and Fracas was a long shot to make it. In order to guarantee a second entry, the new machine became its own branch of the tree: Vorion.

The June NHRL went well with Vorion where in its very first fight it roofed Red Storm, the first time I’ve ever done so. Though it lost to Yahoo which knocked it out of the tournament, leaving it at 1-1, clearly this machine had an exciting life ahead of it. There was still lots of damage from Yahoo such as the weapon tooth being ruined, fork mounting screws sheared, one of the weapon bolts backing out mid-fight (seizing the weapon) and the main weapon shaft being bent. The great learning came from the TPU side armor absorbing a direct shot from the drum and it only moved the bot over. Because of TPU’s flexibility, the drum couldn’t effectively bite as the wider tooth geometry compressed the material and kept it from properly engaging. Every fight is a chance to learn! Enjoy the coolest moment of the competition below!

Post-Mortem

After the event, I rewatched the stream and noted shortcomings that appeared in combat. The critical design attribute I designed into Vorion was future serviceability; the robot is perennially underweight with the idea that overtime I could add more features or beef up certain areas as needed. During the event, Vorion only weighed ~24-26lbs. While only a slight handicap during combat, this allowed for later innovations such as a self-righting arm. It takes a bit of work, but its importance cannot be understated.

From this point I continued to develop the lifting arm, originally testing in NylonX filament, but once the print failed I decided to make a new piece using UHMW. Note, this was transmitting torque through an aluminum Banebots T81 hub into a plastic arm so it was slowly wearing out the mounting area. It was ticking time bomb, but I hoped it would last for awhile. Even with the lifting arm and the 1/4″ top plate that it was attached to and a TPU pulley guard, Vorion was still well underweight.

August 2023

For this event, Vorion and Fracas came to play with a simple goal: qualify for the NHRL Finals. Neither machine had made it in and I was desperate to have a 2nd entry qualify for the Finals to ensure that it wasn’t going to be a short day. At this point in time, Kablooey Tango was looking to win three events straight and Finals runner-up Polyester was hungry for a win. After surviving preliminary fights against Yamato III and Darth Bot, I ground the front wedge in preparation of fighting Kablooey Tango. The fight was quite cagey with both bots driving tactically, until Vorion managed to land an incredible shot on KT resulting in the blade being torn off and leaving a very impressive final image for the judges.

After surviving the fight and moving on to the finals, some prep was done on the robot, namely switching to forks. Though Polyester has two weapons (both a drum and horizontal spinner by virtue of being a multibot) I elected to have forks as I would rather invite contact with the weapon than risk Poly (the drum part of the machine) mangling the front wedge and negating my ability to attack. The strategy worked as I was able to knock out Ester (the horizontal half) early on and focus on a 1-on-1 with Poly. Through careful driving and patience, I was able to take the win over two of the top machines in the class and take home my first 30lb trophy! Its hard to understate the immense weight of this moment as 3 years of near misses on Phenomenon had taught me much. To see Vorion, the product of that learning, work so effectively and so early in its life achieve a level beyond what Phenomenon had ever done was deeply rewarding.

Post-Mortem

After the event, it was time to teardown the robot and see what was damaged. Despite the perceived lack of effectiveness from Ester in the fight, it did the most damage of the entire event by nearly tearing apart the baseplate of Vorion. If it was able to hit the robot repeatedly, there is a fair chance the base may have split entirely. What a close call!

After noticing how exposed the arm gearbox was, I added a wider blocking plate over the right side of the wedge to better protect against shots.

2nd Vorion

The first plan to prepare for the coming Finals was to prepare another Vorion chassis that would not be Vorion but instead be Phenomenon. Due to Phenomenon qualifying at the beginning of the year it will also compete but running three unique machines in the same class is too much work. Despite the damage from Ester, Vorion proved to take very little damage overall leading to confidence in it surviving without heavy structural maintenance between fights. With this in mind, a new chassis was CNC’d by an outside company to ensure minimum manufacturing time to complete. With the parts all arriving together, assembly went together very rapidly with most of the time spent on wiring.

After building up the chassis, it was brought down to the Hive to test alongside Vorion classic to run through its paces. After receiving a 3/16″ AR500 lifting arm to attach to the 132:1 Banebots P61, the bot was put through its paces. During testing issues came out such as the needle roller bearing on one side giving out, seizing the entire weapon to the chassis forcing it to be stripped all the way down. One of the Versaplanetary output shafts also shifts due to the retaining clip groove not being deeper. This was a change that later cascaded to all the other gearboxes. The output of the 132:1 was also destroyed as whenever the arm hit its end stop (not even good human reaction can save that) it rounded the output and sheared output gears. Either of these would have been catastrophic in combat so big thanks to Team Honey Cracked for allowing these issues to be found!

3rd Vorion

The next step was to begin making the 3rd Vorion chassis which could either run as Vorion or serve as Phenomenon (as it also qualified) depending on which bot had need during the Finals. While my CNC router is a very helpful tool to cut out parts in-house and keep costs down, it is not without flaws. After completing one frame rail, the machine threw up an error midway through the cutting of the other, forcing very crude efforts with an angle grinder to remove it. Though not as clean, the frame rail was still very much useful though it contrasts with its very clean twin. In a sense its a mirror of Vorion and Phenomenon itself as the first Vorion had to be angle grinded out due to a similar fault whereas Phenomenon’s chassis was made from outsourced components that went together rapidly. Half and half. Therefore this third chassis shall be called Phenorion to reflect its mixed nature.

Like the 2nd Vorion chassis (Phenomenon) this also went together very quickly though a tap did break off in one of the frame rails. There were efforst to take it out, but ultimately it remained lodged.

One of the big thoughts coming into the Finals was the presence of machines like Emulsifier and Synthesis 30 who are a larger diameter than Vorion’s blade, Though the frame rails generally block the pulley from impact from horizontals, the ability of either of those machines or perhaps others (like Knock Off White) to go nose to nose and hit the pulley was a big fear considering how difficult it would be to fix if damaged. To counter this, belt guards were made. They are designed for an air gap to space them off of the pulley so if they are struck the would not impede spinning but have an inner layer which lays on the central frame rail to support the shape under load. To keep cost and weight down it was designed for welding. After prepping the steel and tacking it into place, the gaps were filled with filler wire and made as hefty as possible.

All three chassis were brought down to the Hive again for testing. The robots were in general okay, though the iFlight Blitz 80A ESCs in Phenomenon had some issues so new capacitors were added which allowed it to work properly again.

Later on all the 30lb machines were brought down to the Hive again for full testing before Finals to ensure function. All robots were working (or at least needed very small tuning) so all 3x Vorion chassis were good to go!

November NHRL Finals 2023

The NHRL Finals were a strong showing for Vorion, though ultimately unsuccessful. Vorion ultimately suffered from 2x fires which was ultimately how it lost to the great Emulsifier in Emulsifier’s closest match of the tournament. The theory is that that there was a shorted drive motor on one side since it killed 2x controllers on that side though as it burned it later took down the other side, ultimately killing the machine. The 2nd loss it suffered was against Chibata which fought an unprepared Phenorion (that is, 3rd Vorion chassis) due to the machine with the horizontal wedge still not working after having a fire earlier. This fork configuration was perfect for Chibata to hook the inside and peel the robot open. It was disappointing since it practically sacrificed a whole robot in a fight that should have been far closer if properly prepared, but thats the tricky business of preparing at Finals. Despite this, the strategy of using Vorion and Phenomenon as interchangeable chassis worked perfectly as it allowed flawless preparation between matches and rapid learning on the strengths and weaknesses of the design. Overall, a loss in the quarterfinals to the eventual champion (~roughly 5th place) is nothing to be disappointed in!

This epic photo by JCRB photography captures the tense fire of the scene, but it shall also serve as a reminder of how Vorion made the king sweat.

Post-Mortem

After returning home it was time to tear down the machines and see what was damaged. On the 1st Vorion chassis it was a matter of removing the burned speed controllers. They were pretty toast; you can even some of the board components rattling around in the bot! In addition, most of the mounting holes on the right side were entirely stripped as Emulsifier’s shot to the side blocker ripped almost all of the screws out.

The broken bolt in the cross brace rail came from 3rd Vorion (Phenorion) after being broken by Chibata. Through a mix of grinding flats and welding extra steel to the screw body, the screw was extracted!

The bent shafts come from the 2nd Vorion (Phenomenon) after its fight against Touro Feather. In addition there were other small bends and sheared off screw heads around the chassis which needed to be removed through the same “grinding flats and add steel when needed to get it out.” All in all a lot of parts were broken off the robots leading to some very hefty work for the future.

To fix the 1st Vorion chassis, many of the stripped holes were filled with helicoils to make a new thread. This should allow this chassis to run for awhile longer!

One of the big upgrades going forward was to add a Andymark 57 Sport 64:1 gearbox in place of the Banebots P61. To accommodate this, new top plates were cut with the proper hole pattern and a slightly longer mount adapter. In addition, a new self-righting arm was made with the name cut into it. The biggest change was the making of a new horizontal wedge with large blockers. Designed explicitly to defend against Huge, this shape’s greater defensive ability will see it used against any high-striking opponents in the future.

December NHRL All-Stars 2023

After Finals, Vorion was invited to compete in the inaugural NHRL All-Stars event! It was an honor to be chosen though very worrisome given the fierce competitors around so prep was critical. At the event, Vorion got a bit of warmup by throwing around the old base of Bugsbee weighed down to 12lbs. After that it fought against Disinformation, Floor Letter Word, Huge, Knock Off White, and then Red Storm. You can watch the video recap here! The overall event was full of learning, namely the continued battlehardening of the drivetrain after fighting Disinformation (i.e. cutting a deeper groove for the retaining ring), the new wedge design working perfectly against Huge, and need for improved top armor to resist bots like Knock Off White (as evidence by the damage to the weapon motor and controller). In the end, Vorion pulled out a win and became 30lb All-Star champion! Not a bad way to end out the year!