I was the STOMP team engineer on the 3rd series of UK Robot Wars.
The Prototype was build using Lego Mindstorms.
The robot was made from aluminium catering supply boxes from an aircraft. It consisted of a central 'body' and two 'feet'. The feet moved together on the end of three cranks. The two bottom cranks were driven by two wheel-chair motors through chain reduction gearboxes. The third 'top' crank was not powered and was there just to improve the stability of the feet. Total weight 90Kg.
To turn, the robot had a 'turning disc' underneath the central 'body'. When the body was on the ground, the disc was spun and the robot turned very quickly on it's own axis. The disc was powered by a large starter motor, which I re-wired to rotate in both directions.
Picture Gallery
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| Simon manages to tune into GLR on two old wheelchair motors. |
Carl attempts to break into Simon's wallet. |
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| If at first you don't succeed, get a bigger hammer! |
Malc enjoys some Extreme Swingball during a break. |
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| Lord and Lady Tightener attend the Nielsen charity ball. |
The Competition
We appeared on the telly on 28/01/00. Our opponent was Miss Struts. Despite STOMP walking well before the event and in a test we had to do in the pits, we had a major failure as soon as we tried to lift the body. One of the main drive shafts split in half leaving us with only half the walking power. The body was a lot heavier that the feet and needed full power to move. The result was that we could move the feet backwards and forwards and spin around, but we could not move the body. We managed to give Miss Struts a few good bashes by spinning and nearly over-balanced her at one point by lifting the feet underneath her. The house robots got bored in the end and came in to have a go at us. The axe failed to effectively penetrate the lids of the body, but did bend them. The grinders managed to slice into one of the feet, but there was nothing vital in there. Sir Killalot picked us up, but could not get us completely in the air because of our weight. Fortunately for him, the panel he had speared, gave way just as he started to tip forward. We were still moving at the end. A good day was had by all.STOMP-2
Simon and I dropped out of the team for Series 4. Carl, Malc, Tim and Geoff carried on with the version 2 of STOMP. They dropped the awkward to work with shell bodywork and rebuilt it with a space-frame body. Unfortunately they were not quite ready for the show. However, watch out! they might be back for Series 5. |
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| 'Top' view of STOMP2 on it's side. | 'Bottom' view of STOMP2 on it's side. |