We’ve tried to put together a rough build log to illustrate the madness we went through to bring HUGE to Battlebots. While we’d been working to improve the smaller 30lb and 3lb Huge’s for the last couple of years, the idea of building a 250lb HUGE was daunting. After all, Peter and I had only been building or fighting robots since Season 2 (2016) had aired on ABC. Once we heard that Battlebots was on its way back, we got to work. In a fit of both inspiration and desperation, we all stayed up until 4AM to put together models and renders to send to Battlebots. We edited together a montage of Huge’s greatest hits. We took screenshots of the models from strategic angles to cover the fact that nothing had bolt holes in it, and our “welded chassis frame” was just an arbitrarily sized box. But somehow, they let us in!
Everything to do with HUGE stayed untouched as we all got ready for Motorama, the biggest competition in the Northeast (sucking up a week and a half to two weeks of our build time). This paid off with an excellent 4-2 record for our 30lb featherweight Huge and a 2nd place overall (for the second year in a row!) finish for our 30lb sportsman BEEESS??, but put a massive time crunch on us to get HUGE built for Battlebots.
After Motorama, we truly got into design mode. Starting February 20th, we knew that the crate-ship date was March 21st, and we were stuck with no components, no design, and only rough dimensions and an idea of what we wanted to build. All of the internal components we needed, and a few we didn’t, were ordered quickly. By March 9th, the chassis design was set and all steel chassis parts were ordered. All aluminum waterjet parts (shaft mounts, motor mounts, etc.) were ordered March 10th, and weapon bars were ordered March 14th. Again, with the goal of leaving on the 21st, while also working full-time jobs!
The chassis pieces arrived on March 12th, and were ground to fit each other for later welding. Plastic for the wheels also was showing up around this time, and titanium for our drive shafts. We packed up everything and had a huge build weekend in Boston. We worked with Team Valkyrie and a pile of other wonderful people to help get all five chassis halves welded together, a wheel made out of the single sheet of plastic we had (to be used as a stencil for the other three we bought that arrived later), 3 weapon shafts made and hardened, four drive shafts made, all pulleys made, and 3 full sets of exterior titanium sheeting armor. All in one weekend!
As crate-ship date approached, we heard of an alternate plan taking shape. Charles Guan of Team Overhaul wasn’t going to be done on time either, and was going to send a half-full crate full of just spare parts and tools on the normal ship date. Then a few days later, he’d be driving to New Jersey to meet up with Earl Pancoast of Team Bale Spear. Earl was going to be driving his robot out from New Jersey to California, and was leaving a few days after all of our crates were with extra space in his truck bed. This bought us a few extra days to work on the robot. We kept the two chassis halves that came out the best, and enough internal components to build a working robot. Shipping all spares, all batteries, a bunch of tools, our team t shirts, some rubber ducks, and all four cut out wheels. The next few days were spent wiring the robot, and getting it set up to drive around for a quick test. Our weapon bars and aluminum waterjet pieces didn’t even show up until after the crate left! We finished those parts up quickly and decided to pick up some plywood for a quick drive test. We learned that we had no drive belt tension, and otherwise that all systems were go!
After that, we quickly disassembled the bot and packed up all of our things to leave with Charles on the 26th. So to summarize, the robot was designed in 18 days, and the robot was built in 18 days. A heavyweight from scratch in 36 days! Having a simple design, a great team, great friends, great support from our sponsor Mouser Electronics, and great facilities made all the difference. It could have gone wrong in so many ways, and we were happy to have that phase of the build done. But it wasn’t all over yet.
Until we flew out on the 30th, we sat fairly idle, making a few more spare parts, some wiring, and a few of the now-iconic angry eyes. Once we arrived, the work was far from done. With all parts in the same place for the first time, we could finally do our full assembly. Electronics were wired and placed in the robot. Weapon bar bolt holes had to be drilled out at the event (thanks Team Skorpios for the drill press!). Bolt patterns were also drilled into wheels and support legs, and the support legs were trimmed to fit so the robot would ride level with the ground (thanks Team LockJaw and Team Yeti for the bandsaws!). All was put together, tested, and finally put into the test box for safety inspection after 3 long days of work. We passed! And our first fight was late the next day. At that point, we weighed 256 pounds and still had some work to do...
Photo Gallery
The inspiration. 30lb Huge.
Another test-bed, 3lb Tiny Huge.
This was the render sent to Battlebots in our application. Of all the pieces here, we don’t think anything was actually retained in the final robot. We all spent a long night together creating this though!
Much later, we finally have a design that looks like it’ll land near the weight limit, and be a working HUGE that could hold its own in the Battlebox.
Protip: build a mirrored robot and you only need to model half of it.
Each chassis is the same set of parts, just assembled in mirrored fashion. We ordered five halves of a HUGE, and here they are during their test fit after a lot of grinding.
I’m not sure if we should be proud or ashamed of this one. Due to the manufacturing style of the weapon bulkheads, we needed to get a #8 screw to fit comfortably inside of a hole that couldn’t be smaller than 3/8”. Solution? Hammer a spacer into it, and countersink the spacer to accept the flat head screws. For the most part, this somehow worked, as the spacer jammed into place, locked in by the kerf of the cut on the main panel.
Did I mention that we forgot to countersink any of it until the chassis halves were already fully welded together? Don’t try this at home kids…
Another case of doing it fast being better than doing it right. The material was so tough, we had to use a TIG torch turned all the way up to melt the steel a bit. This removed the hardening, allowing us to re-drill it to size and countersink. Without melting the metal first, our tooling had tons of trouble getting through this tough stuff!
This is our first wheel, with team captain Jonathan for scale. After dealing so much with the smaller robots, this truly put into perspective how big this robot was actually going to be. Cut out by hand with a jigsaw.
Our 1” Titanium drive shafts. Buying a tap specifically designed for titanium was a spendy but worthwhile expense. But the dimension on them was more like 27mm than 1", causing plenty of annoyances later on.
A pile of pulleys, with some newly hardened 4140 weapon shafts.
The crate as it shipped out. Spare chassis halves, one of our weapon bars, our mascot duckies, batteries, t shirts, banner, and a pile of tools is all we shipped. 700 pounds on the way out…
… and 1400 on the way back. Whoops.
Thanks to our good friends at Infinity Fuel Cell for the use of their crate!
Here was our workstation for a few days, to wire and assemble the robot.
Finally putting some special, slightly cheaper wheels on the bot. The originals had shipped out already, so we made new ones out of plywood for our quick test drive!
In addition, Huge and Tiny Huge came out to the garage for a little size comparison.
Covered in foam, our two working HUGE halves were sent with Charles Guan in his vantruck, along with boxes full of extra tools and everything that arrived after the crate left. Not shown is also a large tube full of our weapon bars.
Our eyes! Waterjet aluminum of unknown alloy or thickness.
Starting from a pile of parts, we had a couple days to build a robot at the venue!
Moving along here, still with our stand-in eyes, and getting close to full assembly. It took us 3 days to put it all together, and get it wired and moving.
Ready for the bright lights!
And finally our mascots for the build and event. We didn’t even know there would be a bot called Duck! Two of these little guys kept watchful eyes over us.