The inspiration for this robot came from a computer game I had recently purchased. In the game, there was a war robot that launched missiles and was a biped (walks on two legs). I decided to create a Lego Mindstorms replica and that is where Crater came from. Naturally, Crater does not look like the robot from which it was modeled after, which is called Zeus, but nevertheless holds a resemblance and the main idea.
Crater is a massive robot and consists of the chassis, legs, and head (with quad missile launchers). My favorite part is the head, which holds a little alien from the Life on Mars series that “drives” the robot. The head holds four specially designed launchers that shoot #6 axles. It is my own special design that consists of shocks, tiles, crossblocks, and a motor(s) that uses a axle to push yet another axle that pushes the crossblock out of the way thus releasing the projectile.
Finally, it must be mentioned that this is more of a prototype. Crater does not really work! I believe the COG is to far forwards (probably among other things) and the robot collapses. I couldn’t figure out how to shift the COG without extremely major changes and the robot looked so nice (in my bias opinion) so I decided to call it finished. Also, There are two motors hooked up to the four launchers which enables the head to shoot 2 projectiles at a time. The 2 motors are wired to the same outport because there are 4 motors in all. The main driving motor has a massive gear reduction but strangely enough a good speed and the walking mechanism does work. |
