RC Ball Launcher Tank -Self Reloading

It looks like my tanks won't be making the cut to be an official LEGO set this time around either. I have no plans on giving up however. I'm already running the mechanics through my head to devise my next generation tank, as well as a few other projects I have in mind.

The design I featured in this project was made with the intention of optimizing the use of all IR frequencies to have the maximum number of players possible with LEGO's official parts (4 frequencies, 4 players). I had really hoped one day to have tank tournaments at conventions and the like, and wanted to provide the means to make it affordable and fun at a relatively low cost. My next tank I hope to feature, will throw that concept aside, and use four motor operation with the intent of direct one-on-one combat, moowahahahaha. The end result will be something higher priced, but will feature an independently operated cannon and height adjustment. The results will be something akin to my earlier NXT tank revisions, but using a power functions kit instead.

You can expect to see this and other mechanical shenanigans from me in the future. I give my supporters my thanks, and hope my future projects will also be worthy of your support.

I've got a large display of BIONICLE MOCs thats going on display at BrickUniverse in just a few days.

I'll also have four of my tanks up and running for the public to try out.

http://www.brickuniverse.org/#!raleigh/c1bfp

These details may be subject to change, but during the public hours, I plan to have players working together to shoot down up to ten targets before a timer runs out. The tanks were running last year, and things got a bit chaotic since the event was far more crowded than I was expecting, hopefully I'll have better crowd control going this time around. I might have to limit players by asking them to shoot down one target and pass the controller to the next player in order to give more people a chance to play. It's likely Ill have a volunteer helping me this time too, so if you don't see me there, look for the table full of BIONICLE stuff nearby if you want to talk to me.

I've been wanting to add a bit more functionality to my Bonaparte MK4 tank, and finished up the prototype earlier this week. This new version barrows the principles that my Ideas project uses to raise and lower the cannon when the motor turns one direction, and fires the cannon when it turns the other direction.

I also designed a telescoping bridge to carry the ammo back and forth to the reservoir at the top. When the cannon aims higher and lower, the bridge changes it's tilt so much that ammo has to go backwards, The tank stores 3-4 shots before the ammo rolls back. While the cannon is at it's lower angles however, it just continues to fire until it's ammo runs out.

Being somewhat fanatical of tanks, I've had my eye on the NEXO Knight's Fortrex, essentially a castle with tank treads. And what do I notice on the Fortrex but an addition to the hard plastic tank treads! As you know a major flaw with my tanks, and the hard plastic treads in general, is they don't play well with hard surfaces despite working great on carpets. They kind of rattle across the floor, and if the weight is not balanced properly, they travel much slower across it. If you check out the Fortrex on http://shop.lego.com/en-US/The-Fortrex-70317?fromListing=listing and zoom in on the treads, you will notice low profile rubber knobs on them! Someone at the LEGO company is looking out for their customers with hard surface play areas! I don't know who you are but THANK YOU SOOO MUCH! With these new pieces, and a little additional engineering to the bumper, the tanks should now be easily modified to work on all surfaces.

Also, if everything goes well I hope to have my tanks on display, and playable for attendees of the fan-run event Brick Universe in the Raleigh Convention center in North Carolina! I got some great feedback last year, and the event also pushed me to create the tank that would lead to this current design I have submitted to you all. The tank display I ran last year was so swamped I had to spend the entire time maintaining them, however the event has a more expensive four day event pass that gives you access to Brick Universe for the full event including a day or two just for other full event attendees(Among other great benefits the public day passes don't give you), and this would give you the best chance of playing with them for an extended period.

I also have a request of my supporters, I'm currently at a loss for working with social media(Trying to remedy that but I'm stuck in the forum age XD), if you guys with Twitter, Facebook, etc accounts could share a link to my tanks with your friends, I'd not only be grateful, but it could give me a significantly better chance to see the tanks hit retail!

Before I get too far into this, I don't have an exact list of parts or even formal instructions on how to put this tank together. This is to give you a rough idea of what you'd need to build one. Before you run around trying to buy any of the stuff I list below, I warn you that you might wind up not having all the parts you need to build it after all, and even then no instructions on how to assemble it. So, if you try to build it, you do so at your own risk of not being able to complete it.

First off, most of the tank's plastic parts came from one bulldozer set, this one in particular:

http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Bulldozer-42028

If you don't have a bunch of technic parts on hand, particularly the plastic tank treads and cogs they go on to begin with, you would be better off grabbing two bulldozers because I know you at least need more tread and two more cogs than the bulldozer comes with. You will also need a bunch of gears that do not come with the tank. Mostly its just the two big gears powering the cannon, 8 or more of the medium gears you see in the video (not to be mistaken with the newer technic gears Im seeing lately), and about 14 of the smaller gears. You probably need two or three 11 stud long rods as well. You will also need one of the earlier Zamor sphere launchers that came with the Piraka and Toa Inika sets. They have been released in other sets since then, but thats the element you want to look for to use as the actual launching mechanism. Part of the collection system also uses a flexible rubber element, the same that the original BIONICLE zamor launchers used to pull the launcher pin back in between shots.

Electronic components

 Two of these for the motors:

http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Power-Functions-L-Motor-88003

This is the IR receiver you need to control the motors:

http://shop.lego.com/en-US/LEGO-Power-Functions-IR-Receiver-8884

And the corresponding IR remote:

http://shop.lego.com/en-US/LEGO-Power-Functions-IR-Remote-Control-8885

Lets not forget the battery pack:

http://shop.lego.com/en-US/LEGO-Power-Functions-Battery-Box-8881

While the tank would cost about 120'ish by itself as a set, if you follow these instructions your looking at a cost of roughly $159.43, and thats not counting the additional gears and zamor/ball launcher and etc you will also need. That is including two bulldozers just to make sure you have enough tread pieces and tread cogs, so if you've already got some to spare that's fifty bucks less, not counting the other pieces you still need to find/order. 

I wanted to try and give everyone a better idea on how the tank actually functions.

If your not quite catching on from the video, what allows the tank to operate a feature in one direction and not the other, is a free swinging larger gear connected to a fixed gear where the power originates. The free swinging gear rests on another smaller gear about 3 studs away. Gravity pulls the gear down onto the gear we want to be powered in a particular direction. When the gear spins one way, it repeatedly pushes itself off of and out of alignment with that gear. when it spins the other way, it pulls itself into the gear and becomes aligned with it.

The first of these gravity locking gears is right at each motor. The second set is attached to the tread "cog" that is holding the tread up at that bump. A set of gears brings the power from the motor down to the front tread-cogs which pulls the tread over the other tread-cogs. This effectively improvises the tank's own treads as a motor belt in order to get power to the inner conveyor belt which lifts the cannonballs into the cannon's ammo holder.

Hello everyone,

Just wanted to pop in and and say a quick few things. First, the Ideas staff must be working hard, it took less than the 3-5  days of waiting they specify to approve my project for posting, thanks you guys!

Second, I didn't realize I could still see my previous expired project and it's information, I said I had more than 20 supporters before, I actually had in total 31!  Than you all for your support on my last project, and thank you again if you've found and supported this new one as well!

Next Goal For Project

Regarding my tanks, I've always wanted to make a competitive game out of them. I've seen LEGO Inspired sports like Jousting, Sumo, and (not sure what its called) mindstorms machines competing to collect the most soccer and basketball pieces in a time period. I'd be honored if others participating in these events would consider adopting RC tanks into their fan run conventions.

That said, there's not much the tanks can do to eachother, and the tanks need some sort of target out of the box for a complete play experience, so Im thinking a goal system needs to be devised, something to act as a way to declare victory. I'm sure I can do a cheap add on to the tanks that they can shoot at to knock a flag off the tank (How cool would custom battle flags be?), or detach to be used as practice targets out of the box.

What I'd really like to do is make a more substantial goal design however, something more satisfying to shoot at and encourage players not to improvise their cohabitants as targets. What I have in mind is a decorated box that catches cannonballs that are shot at it. When the basket inside gets full, the weight of the cannonballs pulls it down and raises a white flag. Then the player can drive a tank over to the goal and drive it into a lever to catapult the cannonballs out of the basket, and lower the flag to begin playing again, all without getting up to manually reset it. Or perhaps as it gets full, it automatically dumps them down a ramp to roll them into the play field?

Problem is, it would raise the cost of the tank a bit to include it. However, including it would make it much more engaging to play with out of the box. Perhaps it could be sold individually, but I don't know if The LEGO Company would buy into that idea. What are your thoughts on this?