Sept. 6-12, 2020
This might have been the most exciting week for us.
Sunday through Tuesday, we focused on setting up Robert’s 2-car garage. We broke down the insectweight arena, re-arranged the tables and made dedicated welding/CNC/drill press stations.
We expected the metal to arrive on Friday afternoon, but it came in WEDNESDAY! We couldn’t believe we were ahead of schedule thanks to SendCutSend. It was Metal Christmas!
First order of business Wednesday afternoon was to open everything up and clean it to fit together. To our pleasant surprise, the AR500 was clean (we opted to save 5% and forego their finishing service) and barely needed any grinding to snap together!
Jeff designed everything in JackPot to slot-and-tab fit together, so we got the first chassis “assembled” in record time. Jeff picked it up and gave it a good shake–the structure held! That was a good sign for us, but he still tack welded it right away to wait for Saturday’s thorough welding.
Thursday, Robert and Jeff got to work putting together the second chassis. That one was a little rougher going, but came together beautifully. They also assembled and tested the weapon motor/chain pod while Shea started painting the top plates.
Friday! The weapon blades arrived! This was extra exciting. We fabricated the weapon assembly. Everything was prepped and ready for welding; what wasn’t getting welded was painted and ready for sponsor stencils.
Saturday was another huge day. Jeff brought everything to a local friend to fully weld the frames, and we got a bunch of stickers, buttons and other fun things delivered. By the end of the day, team shirts were ordered, and we had two empty robots, all their parts, and swag for days ready to go!
