Fireball
Fireball is a combat robot designed to fight on the TV show Battlebots. It is a classic 4 wheel drive vertical spinner with a twist - a flywheel spinning counter to the main spinner, which counters gyroscopic forces and dramatically increases manuverability. I began work on Fireball along with 4 other WPI students June of 2023, and we competed at the Battlebots Proving Grounds in Las Vegas September of 2023 to show off our work and impress the Battlebots producers to increase our chances of getting on the next season of the Battlebots TV show.
My Contributions
I worked on a lot of parts of the bot, but these were my favorite
Drive Train Design
Designed robust brushless drive system in Onshape
Technical Drawings
Created technical drawings for outsourcing parts
Machining
Machined multi-setup tight-tolerance parts
Wheel Casting
Designed mold and cast custom urethane wheels
Build Process
I began work on Fireball with a key team of 4 other WPI students, along with a few helpers during the pit at competition. The robot was built on an extremely accelerated timeline, with only 10 weeks between our first team meeting and fighting at the Battlebots Proving Grounds in Las Vegas. We designed the robot in OnShape, allowing us to collaborate and easily share ideas. While we had sponsors create some of the largest parts, we manufactured most parts in-house at the WPI machine shop. The last 4 weeks before competition, I spent 10-14 hours every single day in the shop machining parts, assembling, and testing the robot. Getting the robot ready was the greatest challenge of my life, and every member of our team worked our hearts out to put the bot together. Finally, the bot was ready for the competition!
Competition
We competed September 9th and 10th at the Battlebots Destruct-A-Thon live show in Las Vegas as a Proving Grounds fight. This was a chance for us to show off all our hard work and prove that we have a competitive robot and a cohesive team that would be a good addition to the Battlebots TV show. We did fantastic in our first fight, throwing our opponent "The Twins" across the box and winning by knockout! While we lost our second fight against "Witch Doctor", we put on a fantastic show and it was amazing to see all our hard work come together.
Next Steps
While our robot surpassed all our expectations at the competition, we know there's a lot that can improve. These include a new flamethrower that would look fantastic on TV, as well as further tuning of our electronics. We are currently in the process of trying to secure additional funding so we can go back to Proving Grounds and fight again.