[HN Gopher] Building a Robot Dog (with an airsoft gun)
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       Building a Robot Dog (with an airsoft gun)
        
       Author : eschluntz
       Score  : 39 points
       Date   : 2025-10-29 17:15 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (erikschluntz.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (erikschluntz.com)
        
       | eschluntz wrote:
       | Blog post about my mechanical design, robot math, stress testing,
       | and competition for "Mech Warfare", a small airsoft-only
       | battlebots competition this summer
        
         | gertlex wrote:
         | OP getting this robot working in about 3 months was insanely
         | impressive.
         | 
         | - guy whose back yard the scrimmages took place in
        
           | oidar wrote:
           | what is the no gimmicks rule?
        
             | gertlex wrote:
             | I can't quote it offhand, but it's stuff like:
             | 
             | - Don't stick your camera on an arm and poke it around
             | corners to see the opponent
             | 
             | - No detachable parts? It's more nuanced than this. Not
             | leaving "mines" I think is a case of this.
             | 
             | Basically there's a few goals to the rules (this has been
             | an on and off competition for about 15 years now): keep the
             | spirit of "pilots in giant mech robots" (loosely 90s era
             | stuff), and homogenize the competition slightly for
             | competitiveness.
             | 
             | Melee is still allowed! If you walk into the other robot
             | and trigger one of their 4 score panels, that still counts.
             | 
             | It's a hard competition to prep for. Numerous bespoke HW
             | subsystems, software, budgets that grow quickly with the
             | size/weight of your bot... and being reliable.
        
         | djmips wrote:
         | Excellent write-up. This is one of those side projects that has
         | been on my list since forever and this seems about the level of
         | accomplishment and tech that is within reach. Good effort! I'm
         | looking forward to further refinements.
        
           | eschluntz wrote:
           | Thanks!
        
       | apeters wrote:
       | * Z3l3nsky joined #mechwar
       | 
       | * Z3l3nsky slaps eschluntz around a bit with a large trout
       | 
       | <Z3l3nsky> @eschluntz pm
       | 
       | That happened.
        
       | flemhans wrote:
       | Any plans to release the files or a build guide?
        
       | gertlex wrote:
       | Having had a chance to read more of the blog now, maybe the most
       | pleasing part is your similar discovery of, "I'm writing my own
       | kinematics, and generating plots of it is the fastest validation
       | of that code". I did similar matplotlib plots of my quad (spider)
       | leg movements years ago. Definitely need to do more of that when
       | I finally revisit the software on my mech from 2019 with AI help
       | :).
       | 
       | And more generally, yeah, having the AI manage some of those
       | plotting needs will be fantastic in other work too; I enjoy
       | figuring out what to plot, and don't mind wrangling and hand-
       | refactoring said scripts... but it's so time consuming
       | historically, and there's always the itch to urgency to get back
       | to the "main code". (at least I learned to gradually convince
       | peers that often plot scripts should be commitable without being
       | polished; they're a form of documentation sometimes!)
        
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       (page generated 2025-10-29 23:01 UTC)