Background:

Our team of 5 engineers was tasked with engineering a battlebot to compete in the 2022 Sacramento Bot Battles competition. Our team of Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering Computer Science (EECS) majors at UC Berkeley had experience in CAD, manufacturing, and electronics. With a constraint on resources, weight, and time, our team had to design and build a competing battlebot.

Problem:

With a weight limit of 15 lbs and a budget of $1,500, our mission was to design and build an innovative robot that could battle (and survive) against competing teams at the event. This included designing an effective weapon, optimizing its shape and moment of inertia, prototyping components for fabrication, and collaborating with manufacturing sponsors.

Solution:

To meet our goals, our team used Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and Fusion 360 static analysis to optimize the shape and moment of inertia of our weapon.

We also prototyped and fabricated components for our robot using laser cutting and waterjet cutting. To ensure quality control during fabrication, we collaborated with manufacturing sponsors using Design for Manufacturing (DFM) principles, Fusion 360 CAM software, and Geometric Dimensioning & Tolerancing (GD&T).

Results:

Our robot won all three fights in the competition that we competed in
We won 1st place for the Design Award among the 27 competing teams

15 lb. Battlebot Competition - "Fatal Error"