Zica

Zica is my first serious design for a 1 lb plastic combat robot and is also my longest running robot overall. It has undergone a long and continuous development process to reach it's current design and is still undergoing active development. Version 2.0 resolved major issues with the drive system and version 3.0 changed many design aspects including a significant chassis overhaul. Version 4.0 was by far the most significant change to the bot consisting of a complete redesign of all aspects of the entire bot from the ground up to address many issues I'd been taking note of over the past 9 months.

Nearly all design elements of this bot were conceptualized and developed by me from the ground up, some of which I have detailed here. Zica’s weapon is a vertical spinner mounted to a large battle hardened hub motor. This means that the motor running the weapon is situated inside the weapon itself, eliminating the need for belts that could snap. The wheels are made of cast urethane rubber, molded to the outside of 3D printed wheels. These are then bolted to aluminum hubs that are fastened with a single set screw to the drive shafts and supported by a small bearing in the outer wall of the wheel well. The roll bars on the back of the bot drastically decrease the chance of the bot getting stuck upside down, and in the case that it does end up upside down, the weapon is able to impact the ground to self right the bot. Zica features multiple front armor configurations including the large wedge seen on this page and smaller side wedgelets which can be seen in its image on the Combat Robotics and Home page.

For a little bit of background on the name, Zica was originally named Sica, after the the Roman short sword of the same name. Not long after its creation however it was discovered that another bot had held this name for many years, so it was adjusted to Zica out of respect for the other Bot. An effort was made to keep the name as similar as possible since it was already known in community so a simple swap from an S to a Z was a good solution.