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.
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.
Fireball V1
We competed September 9th and 10th 2024 at the Battlebots Destruct-A-Thon live show in Las Vegas as a Proving Grounds fight. The robot worked, but was very hard to repair and needed some armor upgrades. We took what we learned and made a second version.
Fireball V2
Fireball V2 fixed some of the structural issues with V1 and was significantly easier to repair. Most importantly, the flamethrowers worked much better! Unfortunately, we had some tough opponents, and while V2 worked well, we ended many of our fights... in a fireball.
My Contributions
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
