to get the floor installed, will it be possible to step inside the arena? can you install the floor before installing the last of the 4 walls?

Hmm, installing the floor with one wall missing - quite plausible! The difficulty would be that the floor supports are quite narrow, so any misalignment will result in the floor falling out. I can see several ways around that, so great idea.

I'm here all week

hahaha try the veal!

Design looks good are the green box section pieces in the 2nd pic part of the "frame" or are they just freestanding pieces? kinda hard for me to visualise things in 2d (learn rhino already )

Might be easier to erect if the wall panels as complete units could just drop into some slots/rails on the arena frame itself and then be retained by 4 m8 retaining bolts or something. Trying to juggle everything into place to get the bolts through could be a real pain in the butt!

Perhaps this will clear things up - the green corners are separate vertical poles that couple the side panels together at the corners and raise the arena off the floor. Here is a side view of a panel & pole with the attachment bolts just on the left side:



We could make the arena lower, but I figure that rug-rats under 1m tall are too young to build robots and having the top of the arena under 2m will make it hard for many adults to view without bending or standing further back.

BTW: the base of each corner pole will have a simple levelling foot to stop the arena from wobbling on an uneven floor.

Simple and sturdy looking, good call on the adjustable feet! I went to dorkbot in the city today, ran into Andrew. They would be a wicked place to host an event one evening.
http://serialspace.org/photos/
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YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

good idea. damn good idea

+1

Mini build day

I had Glen, Andrew and Angus drop over for an afternoon in the workshop:

Andrew now has a very tough bearing block for a beetle disk spinner

I bought Glen's brushless Etek motor - what a beast!

We tested the Novak sensored brushless motors; one of them locked up (my bad) and the other one performed extremely well. Instant reverse and great low speed control with plenty of torque. The locked motor probably just has an assembly problem.

Angus now has a set of gearboxes to go with the Novak HV motors; expect extreme pushiness at the nest featherweight event!

Cool.

How's the progress of the beetle arena?
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Farnsworth - "I hate these nerds. Just because I'm stupider than them they think they're smarter than me."

I just finished the shopping list; the arena uses 1 length of 50 x 50 tube and 5 lengths of 25 x 25. There is a total of 45.8 metres of steel tube so the arena will be very solid & safe. The joining hardware is all ordered and unless work is insanely busy next week, I should be able to pick up the steel as well.

The sides have to be identical so I plan to make a welding jig from plywood to keep all the parts in place while I tack them together. The welding is a fair bit of work but with the ig and production line techniques it should only take one or two weekends to get the main parts built.

Edit: I just worked out some material weights; the arena is going to tip the scales at about 165 Kg.

That sounds like a fairly good weight. Hevy enough to not be bumped around, but liftable by two people if required.

So the arena won't be ready for the next event then? Not a major issue just wondering?
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Farnsworth - "I hate these nerds. Just because I'm stupider than them they think they're smarter than me."

It probably won't be ready for the nest event, there is too much organising and work for that and only 1 weekend before the event.

liftable by two people?

i think not

*SHIFTABLE* perhaps!

Exactly, that is why I was so keen to make it disassemble into smaller parts that two people can easily carry.