James and I were watching robot wars, and then there it was gone. And in its place was TECHNOGAMES which looked quite fun "Eh James shall we have a go at that then?" said I one week and so it began...........

Inception and Build

After a quick sketch I searched around for the necessary components and made a start. I soon came to realise that I needed a lathe. 500 pounds later I was the proud owner of a jolly little machine that I could now never imagine being without. We are users of tools and they are powerful things. After creating the chassis and machining the top hat like washers for the gears to run on I left things for a while, tinkering every now and again. Then I met Debs who became project manager and things began to progress. When it came to Buoy-Ants body work she suggested that we drink lots of her favourite Cider, and so it was that Buoy-Ant got a great body shell and we got completely legless in the process.The last few bits took a while, because it meant spending more money. The motor controllers were 30 pounds each although I'm sure I could have got them cheaper, but at the time it was the only model shop around. I've subsequently found a far superior model shop reasonably close by, well worth the extra travelling time and cheaper!

Development - Evo 1

The legs were made, the paddles were on, and the motors attached. Then the controllers were wired up to the radio control that was removed from Chompie, and surgically implanted into Buoy-Ant. All was set for the first waggling of his legs. And so I eased the Transmitter controls forward and by golly he burst into life, YIPPEE! After a few moments however smoke started billowing from the motors…… The first modification was to replace bevelled gears with worm drives giving far more reduction and better matching motor speed to required paddle speed. The motors I was using were just some I had knocking about, some old model car motors so I wasn't to worried. Anyway after a little messing around it was off to the trials at Birmingham, which involved rather a lot of queuing however we got to splash around in a pool and strut our stuff.
The cameraman seemed to like us and everyone who saw Buoy-Ant seemed impressed. We went home happy after getting to look around the Millennium center and having a jolly day out. The next step was a test to see how fast he really was and so with great enthusiasm we rushed off to the local park where there was a boating lake and lots of ducks. On the first run we managed 1 min and 20 secs!
Oh dear, that wouldn't do at all. So off we went and changed the paddles, he went a bit faster but there was still lots of splashing and not much movement. So we put the paddles all in synch and raised the ride height and achieved 40 seconds on the next run. Other plans we had were better motors and floats but we were holding off until we got confirmation that we were in the competition. Which duly came a few days later so it was panic stations. The floats took a bit of designing, after a lot of advice from Neil and a lot of making, they consisted of plywood shells, (plywood supplied by Neil) with a coat of sanding sealant and finally covered in solar film and they looked lovely. Off to the canal we went and knocked a whole 5 seconds off the time so we were down to 35 secs.


Time for the new motors! I fitted them and off we went for a test. Carefully placing him in the water we were all set, Debs counted down and we were off. Then there was a whizz and a plop as one of the worm drives dropped off, into the canal, never to be seen again.

Several hours later, having machined replacement parts, late nto the night. Then an early start tp Sheperton studiosf for our first Technogames see Techno2002 for details

Development of Buoyant - changes - replace the worm drive with a  gear train, the worm drive was out of an old windscreen wiper motor, modified to fit the 540 motor. However it was a bodge, so a proper job was required. Replace the nylon bushes with bearings and the nylon legs with carbon fibre tubes and the leg guides from a complicated arrangement to some slots in a bit of aluminium angle :)
 
After a bit more testing we were feeling confident, a much improved Buoyant forTechnogames 2003 see Tecno2003 for details
 Technogame 2004 - Ahhhhhh, Channel 5 upon buying both Robotwars and Technogames decided they didn't want Technogames so just dumped it. No doubt leaving many upset people (including us) who had be rebuilding and redesigning for this years Technogames. So Technogames is no more.....
 
UK Robotic Games. After of 2 years of hanging from various corners of the livingrooms ceiling. Buoyant came down for an outing to the NEC to be put on display as advertising for the UK Robotic Games... He promply returned to the ceiling untill a couple of weeks before the event when we thought we had better get him down and do some testing.
Upon being placed on water, he looked very low in the water. As you can see the level is almost to the top oh his floats
and after a brief paddle he promply turned upside down! Unfortunately this ment I had to go paddling in water upto my knees (pictures to follow curtasy of Debs who was having hysterics) and here they are. On the right if you look carefully you will see me heading towards two floats.
After some careful thought, I decided that lengthening the floats would be the only feasable way to stabilise Buoyant in the short space of time left. Unfortunately for me, in my confidence I hadn't considered having to wade into he pool at Markeaton, so I had to ring out my socks and squelch back to the car and drive hope with rather soggy feet.
So after some some routing around in the loft,to find the left over bits of ply wood and covering. and a few days of reconstruction. Test 2 - although he sat well in the water, only one side is now working. Good, if we wanted to go round in circles, not so good for racing. Its now Thurday, the event is on Saturday. In true robot tradition, every things at the last minute :) So time to find that spare motor controller, and hope it's upto the job. This time he managed to paddle his way to the edge of the pool, so no need for more wading :)