Building a Robot Dog (with an airsoft gun)(erikschluntz.com)
erikschluntz.com
Building a Robot Dog (with an airsoft gun)
https://erikschluntz.com/hardware/2025/10/26/robot-dog.html
12 comments
Blog post about my mechanical design, robot math, stress testing, and competition for "Mech Warfare", a small airsoft-only battlebots competition this summer
OP getting this robot working in about 3 months was insanely impressive.
- guy whose back yard the scrimmages took place in
- guy whose back yard the scrimmages took place in
what is the no gimmicks rule?
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.
- 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.
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!)
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!)
* Z3l3nsky joined #mechwar
* Z3l3nsky slaps eschluntz around a bit with a large trout
<Z3l3nsky> @eschluntz pm
That happened.
* Z3l3nsky slaps eschluntz around a bit with a large trout
<Z3l3nsky> @eschluntz pm
That happened.
I absolutely hate this. Great to the OP for amazing work, but I am so sad that we're living Black Mirror dog world instead of Star Trek equality world.
There needs to be a new word for when you're impressed, but so depressed at what is being achieved.
There needs to be a new word for when you're impressed, but so depressed at what is being achieved.