Balloon Battle Bots at Trinity College Beenleigh

Last year supported by ACS and the Gateway to Industry Schools ICT program Trinity College and Micromelon started their first Balloon Battle Bots Competition.

Using the Micromelon Rovers students learnt to program their robots in Blocks and Python, before moving onto 3D modelling and printing to design their battle bots. Most designs were done in TinkerCAD but some used Fusion360 and Blender.

After around 10 weeks of learning, designing and practicing they were ready for the final battle. The school hosted the Battle Bots event at lunchtime, for students to participate and battle their robots against others, including a handful of teacher designs.

To kick off the program and get the students started, Adam and Tim from Micromelon visited the school with their own creations. Micromelon provided base files for all designs including toothpick holders, balloon & ping pong ball holders, and some motor mounts on top of the base shell with mounting holes for all attachments. In this session students drove the robots around the desk in remote control mode, trying to pop each others balloons.

As the term went on students designs got more and more elaborate, including spray painting and extra skewers to pop balloons from all angles!

For the final event there were over 10 teams competing, including a few from different teachers around the school. The rules for the competition were fairly simple with points awarded for each accomplishment.

Rounds were timed and ended at 2.5 minutes or when one challenger is defeated (both balloon popped and ping pong ball dislodged). Robots leaving the arena are replaced into the arena once, otherwise eliminated. If the robots become attached or make no progress, robots are returned to opposite corners and the round continues.

1 point - Knocking off ping pong ball

1 point - Popping opponents balloon

Want to run this program at your school? Get in contact and we’ll help!

All the 3D print files are available on Printables to get you started with your very own Battlebot.