Carlberg Creations

Super-Heavyweight Minion Minion Gallery Minion Damage and Repairs!	Name: Minion 2000 Type: Wheeled Weight: 325 lb Power: Electric Weapon: Gas powered blade Sponsors: C2 Robotics, Roemotion Status: Still the champ!
The Story of Minion
NOTE: Minion uses two Pacific Scientific 3/4 HP motors along with a Vantec speed controller. You can get a cheap Pac Sci 3/4 HP motor (the same used in Mauler) from C&H Sales 1-800-325-9465. Minion won the first Super-Heavyweight Championship in Los Vegas back in November 1999. Another competition was scheduled for June 2000 and I wanted to make some major improvements on the original Minion.
I wanted 1. a better, stronger frame 2. a more reliable drive system 3. a more powerful engine to drive the saws
The Frame I completely put aside the original Minion frame and began designing a whole new chassis. I decided to move the wheels inside the frame and I replaced the original store-bought pillow blocks with custom, lighter pillow blocks. I made these new pillow blocks on Patrick Campbell's (Team TMZ) CNC mill. Thanks Patrick! I placed the pillow blocks inside the steel tube and then welded the tube into a three-sectioned rectangle, each space reserved for a wheel. With the left and right side completed, it was off to Brian Roe's garage. After Brian's involvement with the first Minion he generously volunteered the use of his garage and time for this brand new build. He welded the two drive halves together and he bent tubing to make up Minion's new roll cage.
The Drive The first Minion had too many chains. As my team-mate Luke Khanlian likes to say, 'Chains are the work of the Devil' (old German saying). The new Minion was going to be different. Although it didn't look very 'cool', by moving the wheels inside the frame I was ensuring a much more reliable drive train. I also went with a direct drive from the DC motors to the wheels. All in all I eliminated half the chains from the original Minion.
I also created spacers for the drive axles. These spacers ensured that no matter how hard of a hit I took on the side, the axles would run smoothly.
The Weapon The weapon was always last on my list of priorities. You can still win as long as you are moving, which is why the frame and drive train will always be a higher priority for me. However, I still wanted to cause major pain to another robot!
I replaced my old Briggs and Stratton with an emergency saw equiped with a vari-cut saw blade, the same blade Jason Bardis used on the Missing Link. Brian made a separate roll-cage for the engine so we could position the blade vertically or horizontally.
Meanwhile, Brian and I used what little weight we had left to build the rear-end wedge. I'm not a huge fan of wedge robots, but they are effective and should be incorporated into any robot design –just in case.
The Finished Piece Brian Roe was instrumental to the building of Minion v 2.0. He cleared out his garage so we could have a building space and put in a lot of time finishing the frame and roll-cage. His dedication to the project gave me the time I needed to actually practice driving Minion a whole week before the competition. One night Brian and I loaded Minion into the back of his truck and drove to the local Supermarket Parking Lot. There we tested Minion's full capability by cutting into some of the concrete parking stops. We were ready for San Francisco!