Rocket Brand Studios Medium Tank

This is the assembly instructions for the Medium Tank from Rocket Brand Studios. This is a great little robot kit, and can be purchased as a complete kit or as a rolling chassis, ready for the micro controller of your choice --Arudino Uno, Duemilanove, Picaxe 28 board, or Gadget Gangster Propeller Board. The Medium Tank comes in lots of super-duper colors (and colours!) so be sure to stop by the website to see what is available.

Step 1 Prepare

Alright there, Skippy --Unwrap everything and get ready to get going.

You will need:

• Little screwdrivers
• X-acto knife
• Soldering iron and small solder

Now, lets go ahead and talk about the elephant in the room... The laser-cut acrylic has a distinctive smell. The good news is that most of that funky goodness is in the paper backing of the plexi and not the actual plexiglass. Unwrap all the pieces by peeling off the paper plastic and get it out of the house. The smell will go with it, I promise.

Comments

[deobomb]

i went to the site is there some way i can order by phone ? i cant find a number

[Chris the Carpenter]

Sorry, my friend. No phone orders (I would have no way to process the payment). I do everything through PayPal. If you really, really can't do it that way, I would be willing to accept a check or money order sent to me, but you are looking at some wait time for the check to clear before I can send the order. If you would like to go this route, feel free to shoot me an email. rocketbrand (at) gmail.com

[meenzal]

Not too shabby. For people interested in tank platform robots, the Rover 5 and DFRobot platforms are very rugged, and you can built a complete robot for the same $100 neighborhood. For $50 more I built this 4WD unit, Arduino driven, autonomous operation with FPV video. Most parts from http://robotshop.com --and they carry the DFRobot platforms which are the most complete kits I've found.

[Chris the Carpenter]

Hey thanks meenzal,
Yup, the DFRobot is a nice platform. Did they ever fix the issue with the treads stretching out and falling off during turns?

[meenzal]

I haven't heard of the problem. Are you talking about the older tank platform or the Rover 5? I have a few of the older ones and after lots of use they're still going good. I only have one of the Rovers so far and haven't had any tread issues so far. But I think that there could be tread issues with it if the axles are set too close to each other --it would make for the treads being loose. As you can see in the photo, I have the axles as far apart as they can be and the treads are tight on the wheels. RobotShop has a little blue platform they sell for about $50 and uses hard plastic treads that come in sections you have to assemble. I hated those because there was no way to adjust them to the tension I wanted. They work ok but I like the rubberized treads better.

I hadn't seen the platform you used until your Instructable (thanks!) I think I may get one and try it out. They are pretty attractive with the colored laser cut panels.

[Chris the Carpenter]

Thanks for the kind words. Yup, I am pretty happy with this guy. It is actually around version 7 or 8, with I don't know how many different designs I cut from cardboard. It is a nice, simple, solid robot.

In terms of the rover, I find myself over at Lets Make Robots a bit and I have seen maybe a 1/2 dozen forum posts go by about the tracks slipping off. Many of them mention the issue occurring when returning to a narrow stance after being at a wider one (which would make sense, they were stretched!). I dunno, I don't have a dog in the fight either way, I guess. It is a good looking bot though, and I saw some Spark Fun videos of these things bouncing down stairs so, there you go..

Oh, and I totally agree with the segmented tracks issue. --Its pretty simple really, you can't make something out of plastic, that small (with that small of a pivot) and make it sturdy. I have broken so many Solar Botics treads, I have lost count. I stick with rubber treads, period. I found the Pololu tracks (the ones on the tiny and med. tanks) a few months ago and so far, I am very, very happy with them.

[kokpat]

Does the kit included source-program for references ?

[Chris the Carpenter]

Hey kokpat,
Ah yes, sample code...
Well, Christmas sorta snuck up on me and stole my time. Yes sir, there will be some sample code up very soon (I promise). For now, there is an instruction manual with all the pinouts etc for the microcontroller, and I do have a bunch of "getting started" stuff, which is specifically for my RocketBots, but is pretty universal and can help you get going. Not to mention, I am a nice guy and actually return emails and answer questions.

Everything is here: http://rocketbrandstudios.com

Word up,
Chris

[kokpat]

Thx for your reply.

[Eaglesnest Robotics]

Awesome Instructable Chris! We at Eaglesnest Robotics will cherish this build for our students.

[marc.cryan]

Nice!