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Slippery Strana's Spikes |
You might say that our weaponry was minimal. Simply a pair of spikes bolted through the front of our extremely tough shell.
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But they were not just ordinary steel rods. We had them made for us in a very short timescale by Dave Edgell of-
Sorry that the chisel-sharp points on our 10 inch spikes are hidden behind the protective plastic balls. |
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I called on Dave Edgell late one afternoon as he was closing up the shop, but he was happy to stay and show me samples of steel bar that might serve as low-tech weaponry for our robot.
I asked him to make three steel spikes (so we had a spare), with chisel-shaped points which we would mount with the cutting edge horizontal. I explained our "resilient construction" theme, and asked for steel that would not snap or break, even under severe impact or pressure. Bending a little was OK, but 'tough' steel was better than 'hard' steel.
Hurry With Mark 2 Spikes Please
Our battle was only a few days away and we needed to finalise our design and building ready for painting and weighing.To my relief, Dave agreed to make them within 24 hours ! When I collected them the following evening, Dave had even cleaned and painted them. Now that's what I call service. (Sorry Dave, but before our battle we decided to replace your excellent metallic-silver paint with glossy black paint, but many thanks anyway.)
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The Old Spikes. A Good Idea - But . . . As you can read on our "shell" page, we had to save weight by removing the steel angle-iron rim onto which we'd welded the "mark 1" spikes. These shiny spikes were cut from a bar of EN8 steel and welded three at a time onto the angle-iron. Sadly, the welding didn't survive through Charlie's field trials, and there are scratches and chips on Bath's kerb stones to prove it !! The spikes fell off one by one, but we had already decided to re-think. |
Dave Edgell had threaded the new Mark 2 spikes with M12 threads, so after they'd been re-sprayed with gloss black paint by Team Mate Alex, we soon had them bolted onto Slippery Strana. The nylon lock-nuts and large load-spreading washers made sure they'd stay in place during battle.
They even survived a few hours of Charlie's ruthless field trials !
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Page updated 24th August 2001
