What is FelTip Warrior game?

It is a robot-fighting game, buildable with recycled materials, that does not require electricity and batteries!

It is ideal in this period in which even leaving the house is limited, and which stimulates creativity. It is inspired by an old Chinese game, revisited in a modern and DIY key. Wherever you are, as the materials used are available everywhere in the world. With schools closed in many countries, having a game that children (but also adults) can use, and build, is a very nice activity to do, and it also helps to let off steam - and then why 'robot fights are always cool!

Why with this style?

Trying to make a robot fighting game, I wanted the possibility to make fluid, slow or very fast movements, and finding compact actuators with these characteristics is very difficult, at a good price and then impossible! With the hand-operated string system, the movements are very natural.

If you like it, please contribute!

My name is Davide, I am the founder of Lumi Industries, a small Italian 3d Printing Startup, that now is facing hard times and is forced to stay closed due to the Covid19 situation in Italy.

I have been working in the past in numerous open source and humanitarian projects (Molbed, text - object converter with Braille in 3D printable relief).

I have started a Patreon page https://www.patreon.com/madaeon to collect all my DIY projects, including new ones that you can build at home. I will also give explanation on how to build some of my projects or advice if you want to build yours. Every little helps!

Step 1: What Do You Need to Make the FelTip Warriors

You will need:

Felt tips, even exausted ones will work. You will need 2 felt tip pens for each warrior.
Cutter
Hot glue
wire/rope
scrap cardboard
small tube (can be brass tube, carbon tube for RC models, or wooden sitck)
Acrylic, or plexiglass, or thick cardboard, or MDF / Wood for the feet of the warriors.

Step 2: Preparing the Warriors

Once you have collected the parts, follow the instructions as shown in the above picture.

To recap:

Cut the 2 foot discs out of acrylic, plexigalss, thick cardboard.
Remove the felt tips, inner sponge, rear cap.
Cut the felt tip pens as shown.
Cut two wires about 25-30cm long.
Make a pass-through hole in the cap.
Each wire should have a small loop at one end (to attach the "weapon")
make each wire pass trough the foot, the 2 parts of the leg, through the body-cap (enters on the bottom, exit on one end of the pass-through hole you made), then through the 2 parts of the arm.
Make a wider loop at the "foot" end of the wires.

Step 3: Making the Weapons

You can make them in many different ways.

Option 1: a long wooden stick (about 16cm long).

Option 2: 2mm carbon tube for RC modelling. In this case, insert the felt tip you removed previously into the tube, it should fit perfectly. When not in use, insert the inner sponge over the felt tip to avoid that the tip becomes dry and does not write anymore.