All Tow Up to Loco Mow Tow

I set out to come up wtih a design for a robot that could be competitive in the Tug O' War competition. I decided that I would try to build a robot that was hard to move, and would barely inch its way along while the other robot would pull in vain. I decided I would call the robot "All Tow Up"

I came up with a way to mount tires on the bottom of the robot, creating a surface that would cling to a smooth table.

I wanted the robot to be firmly planted, with a means of locomotion that would just barely inch along. I assumed I could get some kind of strength advantage with some plodding legs.

Using a design such as this allows flexibility in gearing. You can try different gearing combinations without totally redesigning the robot.

Here is the completed robot, hooked up to the tow rope. Cleverly, the wheels did stick to the ground, and the little legs did clumsily shuffle the robot forward. It was, however, so clumsy that it could barely move itself and couldn't tow anything- even after several gearing changes and other modifications.

I decided I would have to rework the robot, and as I did so, I found very little that I could use again. It was time to tear apart "All Tow Up."

I decided I would would put two motors together to power a single axle with a pretty strong gearing.

I built it into a sturdy box, leaning forward on to the drive wheels. The weight all came down on the drive wheels. The Tow bar would be the rear axle, preventing any tipping. It seems that no matter what happened, the drive wheels would have traction.

It began to look like a locomotive. I named it "Loco Mow Tow"

The finished "Loco Mow Tow"

It easily towed a large riding truck of my son's across the room.

After only a few challenges with a robot made by students, Loco Mow Tow was torn apart. Some students built a robot with lower power and more speed- but with power distributed over several racing slick type tires. Even after several attempts with worm gears, Loco Mow Tow went into the scrap heap. Next, I'll work on worm gears and tractor treads...

And it didn't stop there. I had to go with Worm Gears in an all new design: