Chill Guy (Robot)

Overview

Chill Guy is a Plastic Antweight combat robot built to participate in the 2026 Red Dirt Rumble event at LeTourneau University^[1]. The robot was driven by Repeat Robotics Mini Mk2^[3] motors; and features a 4 wheel drive setup, a vertical spinner with a 2600 kV Palm Beach Bots^[2] motor, and modular side armor. However, the robot lost 2 fights and got one bye.

Version 1

Version 1, and the only version, of Chill Guy was the product of a frankly inexperienced group. There was a lot learned from this robot, but also a lot of mishaps in the design and build which can be corrected. These include a weak inner frame; a weapon that was too small and mounted too high; wheels that were too small with a cord that was too loose, causing the wheels to slip; a lack of guidance for wires which led to some getting cut during a match; and a lack of threadlocker. While the robot did not go far in the competition, it was the result of a lot of first experiences in combat robotics which made up for it.

Drive

The four wheel drive was decided due to the larger power required for our relatively heavy robot. However, a major flaw in our design resulted in how we powered all four wheels. Two wheels, one on each side, would be directly driven by each motor, with polycord connecting them to the other wheels to be connected like a tank drive. while this is not a bad idea, our execution was poor, which resulted in the motor driven wheels slipping due to ill fitting 3D printed parts, and the other wheels to not move much because the polycord was too loose. For the wheels themselves, we originally wanted to cast wheels to make them small but grippy, however we ran out of time and had to shave down larger foam wheels that used Fingertech Lightweight Twist Hubs^[4], which can have the inner diameter changed for whatever use case.

Weapon

The weapon was chosen to be a vertical spinner with a sort of large tooth to help launch. We were able to use a larger sized spinner by lowering the weight in other parts of the robot, like the inner frame (which came back to haunt us). The overall design of the weapon was largely inspired by a different robot, with honestly not a lot of research into it, so the design was quite flawed. As a result, the weapon would slip on the motor shaft, and was set too high to hit anything 🥲. The weapon utilized a (I think) 1400 kV Palm Beach Bots motor^[5].

Durability

The robot was made entirely out of PLA Pro^[6] which should be a fine material for combat robotics; however, our design was flawed, which resulted in the frame cracking. To try to combat weight problems, we thinned out and even made holes in the inner frame, which after a hit snapped, resulting in the robot's wheels being torn out of line. All the fasteners for the main parts were m2 screws into heated inserts, with m3 screws for the weapon motor.

Competition History

Chill Guy competed in Red Dirt Rumble 2026 at Letourneau University^[1] on April 11, losing its fights against Raptor and The Stig V1, and receiving one bye. The lack of wiring channels caused the weapon to cut its own motor wires during the fight against Raptor, which was fixed and the body was cracked and deformed after receiving a very hard hit from The Stig V1. The robot did not compete in playoffs due to its disappointing performance. However, we learned a lot during this, and we will apply this in future robots.