Complete Control Upgrade 2001 - Part 1 In Las Vegas, Complete Control's weapon showed considerable might, and a lot of people really liked the robot. It seems to me that this one is a keeper. For the next event certain upgrades needed to be made, specifically strengthening the drive train and improving the armour and chassis stiffness. The weapon forks also needed repair and upgrading. Behold the process for your enjoyment!

		I managed to tie Battlebots into another school class project. This time for my CAD/CAM/CAE course. I designed a 12.5:1 gear reduction unit that uses twin Astroflight Cobalt 40 motors to replace my destroyed Pittmans. This setup would be a huge improvement, with more than triple the power of the old setup, and reliability previously unattainable, while gaining minimal weight. Here is a transparent drawing of the assembly. I also have an exploded view of the assembly.
		I designed the cases to be CNC machined, so I paid to have the cases machined from a large block of 7475 aluminum. I had fly-cut the block to the appropriate thickness in advance.
		After cutting out the gearbox sections and bringing them down to size, bearings were installed. Too bad the guys who CNC'd it used a worn out bit and the bearing holes were 3-thou undersized, which required me reboring them, kind of countering the point of having the cases CNC'd.

Complete Control Upgrade Special Feature: Comedy Network Media Tour 2001

		All this gearbox design and construction actually took place in the winter of 2000-2001. The reason for the rush was that Battlebots was premiering in Canada, and as the sole Canadian on the show, was slated to do a bunch of media appearances with the robot in Toronto. At the request of the Comedy Network, the robot had to be able to move, so I put the push on and got the gearboxes together and working in January. At this point, I only had a single Cobalt 40 in each gearbox, and I ended up running them at half voltage (12V) with my Vantec RDFR22 as my one of IFI Victor controllers wouldn't work when I finally had the robot assembled at 1am the night before I was to fly out. At the same time as getting the robot ready, I had to build a crate to ship it in. Luckily my friend Jeff at work is a master of building crates (after he moved his art studio across the country), and he whipped up this slick box.
		I suppose I've gotten soft living on the west coast and forgot how to drive in the snow. Here, Gillian digs out my dad's pathfinder where I got it stuck in a snowbank at my friends' house in Guelph.
		One of my appearances was at quite possibly the worst radio station in Toronto (KISS92). Jordan Knight? NKOTB in the house.... I felt dirty afterwards.
		Here is my pit setup at the Masonic Temple (used to be the Concert Hall) where Open Mike and many other CTV/Comedy Network shows are filmed. I brought very little support equipment as I didn't expect to have many problems. Luckily I didn't until the final spot when my Superwinch X1 keyed drum broke and rendered the forks useless, I am still investigating this failure and since then have decided to replace the Superwinch all together (see my season 4 upgrade report in about 6 months :)).
		Yes, Masonic Temple for sure. Not every room was a studio. This was some of the crazier woodwork that was going on there.
		The fruits of my labour. Gift baskets rule. Especially when they have 12 cans of beer hiding inside them. Other items included gourmet potato chips and turkey jerky. Thanks to everyone at the Comedy Network for giving me the opportunity to help them out with the launch of Battlebots in Canada!
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