Suzaku

It was a few months back when sensei asked us to plan and design our own robot. The materials were limited, Aluminum and plastic plates, together with medium size cardboard. For the circuit, only 3 meters of colorful wires and 3 motors connected with 3 switches.

My team was a perfect combo, me Alif & Farah. We use the name Suzaku, a legendary immortal bird from Japanese’s myth. Some might call it Phoenix in English. It took me a few days just to remember the Suzaku's kanji.

Eager for victory, I started my research earlier than the others. Our game concept was simple, to lift 10 ping pong balls for about 7 cm and score them into the goal. The main problem for my team was to create a system that can turn a circular motion [motor] to vertical motion. The only thing that came up in our mind at that time was engine's piston.

[I asked the teaching assistant about my problem and he gave me simple solution, use thread connecting the motor and scoop. I still think that it was the worst idea I ever heard. Using thread will consume much time just to roll the scoop up. This is not the ancient time where footmen roll up the bridge at the castle's moat. And of course it doesn't look professional to use thread.]

Using the same concept as the piston, but in opposite way, we started to create a simple model using soft board. Then we moved to 3D sketch. Finally came the real part where we need to create every part of our robot and assemble them together.

My group was among the slowest during the process. We spend most of our time repairing the scoop’s rail coz we failed to make the scoop move vertically. We tried everything from pouring oil to reshape the plastic plate. But still, the worm motor didn’t get enough power to hook the scoop up.

At last I decided to change the circuit from parallel to series. This may sound like a suicide for Suzaku. Series circuit will give extra power but the high voltage may burn up the motor. But we didn’t have any choice since there's only 2 more days to finish up our robot and everybody already started test running their toys.

[Again I asked teaching assistant about this problem and he told me that he already conducted an experiment where he connected the motor to battery using series circuit and the motor last only for 10 minutes]

Who cares anyway? I prefer to lose after 10 minutes fight rather than quitting the game. The series circuit worked well. Suzaku could eat about 6 balls perfectly. For a safety reason, I measured the voltage running at the motor and the multimeter gave me a reading of 3V [the max voltage the motor can get is 4V] although I supplied 6V of batteries in series. I guess that it was due to high resistant [my poor soldering skills :(].

But Suzaku still need fresh batteries to run. If not, she could not lift the scoop up. After a short discussion, Alif and I decided to buy rechargeable batteries for Suzaku. But then a miracle happened. A few minutes before the workshop closed I tried running Suzaku with used batteries but she still manage to lift up the scoop. She suddenly became too powerful and I'm afraid the joint will broke.

The next day we finished everything. Alif created red wings for Suzaku. Farah decorated the sharp beak. Me did the final touch, sticking a kawaii Suzaku sticker [thanks for Mori Sensei for giving us] [I was thinking about making the talons but no enough time]. Suzaku is now ready to fight. The night before the tournament, I couldn’t get myself to sleep.

Skip the tournament introduction, straight to the 1st game. Suzaku VS TamashiGuruma. At first Suzaku lead the game until the battery suddenly ran out. [Damn we just bought it last night].Suzaku lost in the 1st game. BTW it was just a bad luck. [I bought another 4 Enegizers to pump up Suzaku]

For the next 4 games, Suzaku crunched all the opponents, including Mugen, the bully in Group D. Summing up all scores, Mugen and Suzaku manage to step to another level.

1st game, Suzaku vs. Murasaki.[Murasaki means purple but the robot was fully in yellow :-/] Murasaki was fast but Suzaku was tougher. We ate all the white balls, increasing our possibility to win the game to 80%. There was a time when Murasaki tried to block us from getting the balls us but end up losing their own balls. Haha.

Just before the ultimate finishing, something wrong happened to Suzaku. The left motor failed to move. The circuit was BROKEN! Damnit! Suzaku lost again. No more chance to fight.

Writing this part makes me remember all those pain memories. Stop here. Finally, Mugen got the 2^nd place. Judging from all the games, Mugen only lost to Seriyu [1^st place] and SUZAKU!

We spend about 2 months starting from designing to building our robot. But the overall fight only took not more than an hour. [Suzaku: 6 games X 5=30 minutes only!!] Somehow I feel like Suzaku’s lost was my fault. Me still noob in making circuit. L

I wish one day I can resurrect Suzaku and revenge against the enemies.

the longest post ever