March 7th 2012

“It should be driveable by tomorrow”

-Alex Horne

Yeah… about that….

I spent the weekend working on helping to get the Metal Moose ready for its competition this coming weekend. So I did not have a lot of time to work on TourBot…

I began by mounting the motors to the drive pods which was as simple as drilling four holes…

When I designed the drivetrain and decided to stick it inside a 2.5″x2.5″ tube I did not take into account the fact that I would have to fit a chain in there…

It worked fine when I wrapped the chain around the sprockets outside the tube, but that was because I could see what I was doing and reach everything.

I first had to put the sprocket, key and shaft collar on the shaft inside the box tubing. Which involved a magnet and 3″ long needle nose pliers. (because my hand didn’t fit inside the box tubing)

After the sprocket, came the chain

(which was harder to get in than the sprocket)

and then the wheels…

I had to repeat this process for the other drive pod too.

I then assembled it the pods to make sure everything lined up.

And then took it apart to add gussets to support the bottom more because the lexan bottom sagged with the weight of the internals on it.

After adding them, I reassembled TourBot The Tourmentor again…

it still doesn’t drive…

Things left to do

• finish arm
• paint it
• wire it
• get it to Ben to program it