Metal AM Used on BattleBots

Metal additive manufacturing (AM) is being used on the television series BattleBots, a show where engineers from around the world build robots for combat tournaments. Team Sawblaze, a team of MIT engineering students and graduates, uses metal AM to efficiently create components for their battle-winning robot. The 2018 BattleBot season only allowed for a month of build time for their robots, which is what caused Jamison Go, team captain and primary driver, to push for metal AM. A CNC machining company would have taken 2–3 weeks to produce their custom components; however, with help from Desktop Metal, Burlington, Massachusetts, the team produced components in three days at a significantly lower cost.

Overall, metal AM technology allows the team to spend more time fine-tuning custom parts for the robot’s assembly. According to Go, “working against a limited development timeline, our process must be extremely efficient in order to achieve an optimized and consistent strength-to-weight ration as the robot moves and comes into contact with the competition.”

In a competition where brute force is the favored strategy, Team Sawblaze seeks to use precision damage through a controllable rotating arm with a saw attachment. Their robot also emits 350°C degree flames in the same direction as the saw attachment for a “slash and burn” strike.

A key component affecting the overall performance of the SawBlaze robot is the backstop—a sub-assembly structural part that straddles and protects the saw blade. The backstop must be stiff, strong, and corrosion and heat resistant as it absorbs multiple blows during battle.

The team fabricated two low-alloy steel end pieces for the backstop which were fastened onto a metal cross-bar. The custom parts were also designed with “cut-outs” and a closed-cell infill pattern—which are sealed at the top and open at the bottom—to create a more lightweight design.

Team SawBlaze credits the implementation of metal AM technologies with helping them to create a stronger and more durable robot. They’ve won 75% of their battles throughout the tournament.