Robot Fighting Toys?

[TransformerRobot]

I recently had an idea for a toy line of fighting robots for kids, kind of like these robots from Japan.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufOz00oYzZM

 

There are a few problems I've thought of, so I figured there would be people here, with enough engineering knowledge, to tell me how it would work.

 

How much would it cost to make fully functioning robots like we see in the robots? I was hoping each robot would cost within the realm of $30-40 USD.

 

What about projectile weapons? What would the projectiles be made out of, what size would they be, and how fast would they travel?

 

What would be the sturdiest metal(s) to make these robots out of? Would something in the way of aluminum work, or is there a better metal to use?

 

If there are other factors I didn't consider, please tell me what they are.

[pavelcherepan]

I really doubt that you can make something like that or even close to that as low as $30-40. A microcontroller alone would set you back at least 20-30 dollars, probably more, then also you need plenty of servos, batteries, camera, sensors and gyros for stability and motion, software to make it all work and then you need to assemble it all together. I can't really give you an estimate, but it'd be a steal for a $100 for sure.

 

 

 

What about projectile weapons? What would the projectiles be made out of, what size would they be, and how fast would they travel?

 

If it's for the kids you just need to do some calculations to make sure that they won't cause serious bodily harm when a projectile will (inevitably!) hit a child in the face. And also that would depend on the size of robots themselves.

 

 

 

What would be the sturdiest metal(s) to make these robots out of? Would something in the way of aluminum work, or is there a better metal to use?

 

Sturdiest stuff would not be cheap. You can build them from carbon fibre or titanium, but that will add a huge extra price. Probably construction-grade aluminium alloy is the most cost-effective option.

[TransformerRobot]

Okay, seems cost is a bigger problem than I realized.

 

What if instead of 12 inches the robots were 6 inches tall, made of recycled aluminum (which is plentiful), and used foam-based projectiles like Nerf blasters?

[pavelcherepan]

Construction materials won't be the main part of the price tag - electronics and software will be. Also that will depend on the degree of autonomy that you want these robots to have. For example, if you want them to be totally autonomous as opposed to being controlled from laptop via Wi-Fi, you'll need a full set of hardware on board - a motherboard, CPU, RAM and some sort of solid-state storage (because they will fall a lot which is not good for conventional HDD's).

 

You'll need software that will at least be capable of making the robot walk on two feet without falling over (which is not an easy task) and have some image recognition capabilities so that it can recognise the shape of other robots to be able to fight them.

[TransformerRobot]

I was thinking more of having the robots operated by remote control, letting competitors themselves worry about recognizing opponents.

 

Do they really need a certain software to stay on two feet though? I thought it was a matter of design.

[pavelcherepan]

People tend to think that walking is easy, because you have been walking pretty much your entire life and it's all automatic in your head, you don't need ot think about it, but my 11-month old son can prove that learning to walk is hard.

 

Think about it, at stage 1 you're stable with two feet on the ground and your body vertical. Then you lift one leg up. At this moment you center of mass moves slightly forward because you have the weight of your leg in front of you. Next, you tilt your body slightly forward to move even more off-balance. After that you "fall" forwards only stopping your fall with your front leg. Now you need to bring your other leg from behind you. If you have your body in vertical position then when you lift your rear leg the center of mass will move backwards and you'll fall back. So then you need to keep leaning forwards, bring your rear leg under your body, while at the same time moving your torso back into vertical position. And this all was just for one step.

 

For all of this you need plenty of sensors and software to control orientation. If you design a robot that will just lift legs and plant them back down it will simply march on one spot and I trust that's not the result you're looking for.

 

Here's a link for a DIY instruction to create a bipedal robot:

 

http://www.societyofrobots.com/sor_biped_engine.shtml

 

More DIY instructables:

 

http://www.instructables.com/id/BiPed-robot-V-3/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-A-Simple-Bidepal-Humanoid-Robot/

Edited December 29, 2015 by pavelcherepan

[TransformerRobot]

Goodness gracious! Had I realized how complex this was, I'd have settled for just making the toys like an updated version of Rock'em Sock'em Robots. XD

 

Regardless, thank you for all the information.