[TC11] Son of Whyachi

[braker23]

Howdy ya'll Technic folk!

I want to present my latest creation, a replica of my favorite battle bot, Son of Whyachi, the rookie which became the Heavyweight Champion of BattleBots back in 2001.
It's not built to scale, but I wanted to keep as much details as I can, like the overall shape of the bot and it's rotor, color scheme, internals and abilities.
By example, the 3-arm rotor is driven by a single RC motor, but using a tri-star configuration: 24 tooth gear with clutch -> 3 x 8 tooth gears -> 24 tooth gear.

If you want to read more on the real thing, go on their official site, it rocks: http://www.teamwhyachi.com/

So, let's see the stats:

Category: B (IR)
Weight: 1.800 g
Dimensions: 45 x 45 x 18 studs
Signature Move: 3 arm rotor with hammers
Drive: 6 M motors (one/wheel)
Drive Speed: Fast
Steering: skid steer
Rotor Speed: 750 RPM
Rotor Diameter: 45 studs
Rotor Motor: RC/buggy (5292)
Rotor Weight: 180 g
Rotor Material: ABS
Design Time: 1 Week
Build Time: 2 weeks

But enough talk, here are the photos and video:

Sorry for the low video quality, I accidentally filmed in 480p and I do not have time to re-shoot everything. Enjoy!

If you want to see more, head up to my album on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/braker23/albums/72157682329304496/with/33822364351/

Thanks for your attention, eagerly awaiting to know your opinion and comments.

Edited April 20, 2017 by braker23
Video edited, added rotor weight

[PKW]

Good build, maybe fast, but id doesn't looks really maneuverable due to poor steering, also how much does te spinner weight? Because 750rpm are quite low, i wonder if it compensates with the mass, the looks is really good indeed!

[Aventador2004]

Yeah, it is not very maneuverable because of the tires on all wheels. You could try tracks.

[braker23]

2 hours ago, PKW said:

Good build, maybe fast, but id doesn't looks really maneuverable due to poor steering, also how much does te spinner weight? Because 750rpm are quite low, i wonder if it compensates with the mass, the looks is really good indeed!

Of course, steering can be improved, but it's performance on carpet is rather low, on parquet it moved much better. I will weight the spinner tonight, I am now quite curious as well. Thanks for your thoughts.

1 hour ago, Aventador2004 said:

Yeah, it is not very maneuverable because of the tires on all wheels. You could try tracks.

Well, my intention was to replicate the real Son of Whyachy, namely version 3.0, which uses 6 motors to power 6 wheels, placed exactly like in my configuration. Tracks would improve steering capabilities, I agree.

[aminnich]

Looks good, the only thing I would change is adding weight to the arms like I did. We both had difficulties with drive/steering. 

I plan to rebuilt mine after the contest without a size limit, just to see what I can do. Mine really just needs more battery boxes for more power and so that I am able to use all 10 motors at full speed without any problem. 

Overall, yours looks more like son of whyachi, nice work! 

[Jurss]

Looks good. Lot of votes guraranteed.

[PKW]

17 hours ago, braker23 said:

Well, my intention was to replicate the real Son of Whyachy, namely version 3.0, which uses 6 motors to power 6 wheels, placed exactly like in my configuration. Tracks would improve steering capabilities, I agree.

Maybe i've made some mistakes, but isn't season 3.0 where Sow first appears? And it was a shuffler bot there, instead i've found that the last version used on 2016 series (the one with the front wedge as yours) has got  Only 4 wheels, it was too strand for that wheel setup to work good on a real bot! Ahahhah

[braker23]

18 minutes ago, PKW said:

Maybe i've made some mistakes, but isn't season 3.0 where Sow first appears? And it was a shuffler bot there, instead i've found that the last version used on 2016 series (the one with the front wedge as yours) has got  Only 4 wheels, it was too strand for that wheel setup to work good on a real bot! Ahahhah

You are right, I've mistaken the version, the 6-wheeled one is 5.0. You can read all about it here, it's loaded with technical details: http://www.teamwhyachi.com/SOW1.pdf

Here's what they say: “It’s driven by these six, one horsepower Astroflight, modified model aircraft motors” and “Okay, what you’ve got are two motors at the front, two at the back and one on each side”.
In the real bot, they could control each motor independently, which is awesome, but cumbersome for the Lego version, so I am obviously driving 3 motors at once, left and right.
Unfortunately, I found no images from the underside, except the one in the PDF, where you can see only the empty spaces where the motors and wheels should go.

And yes, the latest version has only 4 wheels and should turn better. I am really curious what chassis they are building now, for the next BattleBots season ;)

[PKW]

6 minutes ago, braker23 said:

You are right, I've mistaken the version, the 6-wheeled one is 5.0. You can read all about it here, it's loaded with technical details: http://www.teamwhyachi.com/SOW1.pdf

Here's what they say: “It’s driven by these six, one horsepower Astroflight, modified model aircraft motors” and “Okay, what you’ve got are two motors at the front, two at the back and one on each side”.
In the real bot, they could control each motor independently, which is awesome, but cumbersome for the Lego version, so I am obviously driving 3 motors at once, left and right.
Unfortunately, I found no images from the underside, except the one in the PDF, where you can see only the empty spaces where the motors and wheels should go.

And yes, the latest version has only 4 wheels and should turn better. I am really curious what chassis they are building now, for the next BattleBots season ;)

Thanks for that file! Really interesting to look at, Aldo guessed your problem with turns, the real one is a lot wider and shorted than your square bot, but has wheels that in proportions are just impossible to motorze in lego (more ore less the size of a small gear) so you have a point on successfully build a really strange setup with lego and making it work good

[braker23]

On 4/12/2017 at 11:26 AM, PKW said:

Thanks for that file! Really interesting to look at, Aldo guessed your problem with turns, the real one is a lot wider and shorted than your square bot, but has wheels that in proportions are just impossible to motorze in lego (more ore less the size of a small gear) so you have a point on successfully build a really strange setup with lego and making it work good

Nice find about the wheels, I had no idea they were so small. This strange setup got me thinking. What if I switch to 4 wheels only? So I removed the 2 side wheels and did some tests. Well, steering got worse, it turned much slower and after a while, motors stalled.

So yeah, I would need to either gear it down a bit, but then top speed would be lower, or switch to L motors. I might just do that, experiment a bit in this direction, but only after Easter, I am away from home now. Cheers!

[luukietechnic]

I love this one! It is not big and very realistic! 

[PKW]

3 hours ago, braker23 said:

Nice find about the wheels, I had no idea they were so small. This strange setup got me thinking. What if I switch to 4 wheels only? So I removed the 2 side wheels and did some tests. Well, steering got worse, it turned much slower and after a while, motors stalled.

So yeah, I would need to either gear it down a bit, but then top speed would be lower, or switch to L motors. I might just do that, experiment a bit in this direction, but only after Easter, I am away from home now. Cheers!

Nope you have to remove either the front or the back one, imagine to create a shape connecting all the wheels on the point thy touch the ground, you need  to have that shape to be as large and as short as possible (meaning that the "frent/back" of that is in the direction where the bot move) if you remove side wheels then you have same legnt but less width, instead if you remove the front or the back ones you get the same width but with half length (that's why 2 wheels are the best, became the footprint is like a line so a rectangular from with 0 length and some width)

[braker23]

On 4/14/2017 at 11:27 PM, luukietechnic said:

I love this one! It is not big and very realistic! 

Thanks mate, this is what I was going for :)

On 4/15/2017 at 2:26 AM, PKW said:

Nope you have to remove either the front or the back one, imagine to create a shape connecting all the wheels on the point thy touch the ground, you need  to have that shape to be as large and as short as possible (meaning that the "frent/back" of that is in the direction where the bot move) if you remove side wheels then you have same legnt but less width, instead if you remove the front or the back ones you get the same width but with half length (that's why 2 wheels are the best, became the footprint is like a line so a rectangular from with 0 length and some width)

Thanks for your input, after looking at the latest 4-wheeled version of SoW, its base is short and trapeze-shaped, I can try something similar for my next version.

[braker23]

On 4/11/2017 at 2:35 PM, PKW said:

Good build, maybe fast, but id doesn't looks really maneuverable due to poor steering, also how much does te spinner weight? Because 750rpm are quite low, i wonder if it compensates with the mass, the looks is really good indeed!

I totally forgot about this, sorry mate. I've done this last night, the rotor/spinner mass is 180g, so exactly 10% of the total bot weight. I could make it heavier, the RC motor has no trouble starting it up now, so it can take more. 

[PKW]

52 minutes ago, braker23 said:

I totally forgot about this, sorry mate. I've done this last night, the rotor/spinner mass is 180g, so exactly 10% of the total bot weight. I could make it heavier, the RC motor has no trouble starting it up now, so it can take more. 

Well 180g are quite good, i'm familiar with 2k rpm but ~80-100g even if your bot is bigger and heavier I would really love to fight it with my witch doctor

Edited April 20, 2017 by PKW

[braker23]

23 hours ago, PKW said:

Well 180g are quite good, i'm familiar with 2k rpm but ~80-100g even if your bot is bigger and heavier I would really love to fight it with my witch doctor

Mate, please check your Twitter link, it's not valid unless you remove "pkw_ita//" from it. I saw your Witch Doctor, I must say I am impressed by it's destructive capabilities :)