Hattington Link: A more reliable safety link for combat robotics

thingiverse

A system of securing a safety link to a robot combat that almost eliminates the chance of losing power in combat while remaining FRA compliant! This means that this can be run at any competition in the UK and the rest of Europe, and is much less failure proof than prior solutions. For my most recent Featherweight combat robot, I needed a link that was removed from the path of the weapon, but I also wanted to try to make one failure-proof that also fully complied with FRA regulations. As such, I began modelling a housing for the standard XT60+ connectors for my plan. In the first two pictures you can see how things come together inside. The "body" holds the female end in, which is then attached to the top plate of the bot through some bolts. The "head" meanwhile has a channel where the link wire can push down into to be flat with the top of the head. This is where the trick of the design comes in. When mounted onto the 10mm top plate and fully inserted, the head would be totally flush with the top of the machine. This way, I can have a door on top that can be moved by hand, but during combat, should remain firm, preventing the link from moving upwards during combat. Given it's unusual design, and it's resemblance to videogame character extraodinaire Hatty Hattington, I've decided to call this setup a "Hattington Link"! Finally, the door setup. It's held in place with a nylock nut underneath, and a bolt at the front prevents it from feeding into the weapon. The door also won't catch on the wheels during normal operation, and there's plenty of room for the link cable to feed down into. This is something you'll have to design yourself to match your own unique combat robot, but I'd recommend doing it in a similar manner. My bot uses 10mm top armour, but I've included variations to suit the following thicknesses: 1.5, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 15, and 20mm. Just find the relevant .stl for your top armour. The link cap should be universal. I've also included an LED holder (or as I like to call it, a backpack) that I use to hold a LED taken from a dismatled Argos drill I used for drive, and that can act as a power light for the robot (as seen in the fourth image).