Sunny Robotics

01/28/2026

Rickety Cricket is getting some big upgrades. Hopefully, we can get all the upgrades implemented for the Mass Destruction event this coming weekend.

Upgrades:
-Upgraded hub motor with 2x the power for faster spin-up.
-A thicker, heavier body for better weight distribution. A glow-in-the-dark top so we know which way the body is oriented.
-A steel butt tail for stability when hitting opponents and better weight distribution.
-An improved TPU shock isolator gear on the servo that should prevent gear slippage.
-Bidirectional weapon for hitting down, or switching spinning directions if needed.
-Saw weapon for slicing up all those plastic opponents.
-Adjustments to the weapon uprights to prevent the robot from nose-diving into the floor.

11/03/2025

Finished. We got the robot built just in time for the Golden Tech Tussle event this past weekend. We'll do a quick event debrief in another post. For now, here's some build pictures from the past week.

10/25/2025

Parts are coming in. Hopefully we can put it all together in the next week.

08/07/2025

We have a new beetle weight gyro walker in the works. Rickety Cricket v2. This new gyro walker attempts to fix the poor self righting issues we previously had. This new symmetric body prevents the robot from getting stuck in a compromising position. If the bot is flipped to another set of legs the weapon can be quickly rotated to the correct position thanks to the 360 degree servo. An added benefit to this design is the robot can attack in a horizontal or vertical position at will. Pretty cool!

We're also trying out a cantilevered weapon. There's less stuff for an opponent to hit and more weapon exposure to hit an opponent when it's only supported on one side. The downside to this design is the weapon uprights are more likely to bend into the weapon and the weapon shaft running through the hub motor is weaker. This might turn out to be a mistake, but we're willing to give it a try.

Other cool features include a direct power servo that doesn't use BEC power, the hub motor phase wires are hidden away and the weapon is machined with the impactors sticking out axially, which should help in getting weapon bite when hitting at odd angles.

Name: Rickety Cricket v2
Weight: 4.5lb
Weapon: machined 1-lb 4340 steel disk
Weapon Motor: repeat-robotics 2812 800kv hubmotor
Weapon ESC: NeutronRC 70a or similar
Battery: 2x Dogcom 560mah 3s in parallel
Receiver: ELRS Lite
BEC: iFlight 2-8S Micro
Power switch: FingerTech Mini
Frame: 6061 aluminum
Body: unibody 3D printed TPU
Servo: 900LP SMART 17V
Gears: TPU/Nylon
Upright: 1/8 inch Titanium
Feet: Bike tire

04/12/2025

Pepe got some new parts for the upcoming Robot Combat League 2025 Championship event on May 3rd. All the parts have been upgraded.

-Drive gears are now steel vs aluminum.
-Shuffler support rods now have a fl**ge to better disperse load on the drum caps.
-Drum caps now use stronger sleeve bearings on the shuffler hex shaft.
-Weapon retainers now have integrated weapon spacers vs carbon fiber spacer rings.

03/07/2025

Pepe punt at Motorama 2025

12/01/2024

We've been playing around with different one motor bristlebot designs. Our 150 gram bristlebot Implication is being redesigned to only have bristles on one side of the robot. We hope the torque reaction of the weapon will allow the robot to drive straight ish when needed.

We also have an 18lb bristlebot that uses the same electronics as our 45lb robot Pepe. We likely wont build the 18lb robot till we do more experimenting at the smaller scale.

09/12/2024

Later tonight you can watch NHRL Teams event that was shown on ESPN last month. Looks like Pepe made it on the thumbnail image. Cool!

It’s here! If you didn’t have a chance to catch us on ESPN, our NHRL Teams Championship TV show premieres Thursday September 12th at 9pm EST on this YouTube ...

08/10/2024

Rickety Crickets all set for the 2024 Rocky Mountain Robot Showdown event. Cricket is our first gyro walker and it's mostly unchanged from when it was built back in 2019. It's got a fresh set of batteries and we're still experimenting with different self righting attachments on the top of the robot.

weight: 4.5 lb
weapon: 1.2 lb ar500 blade
battery: 2x DOGCOM 560mAh 3S in parallel
motor: PROPDRIVE v2 4238 750KV
esc: DYS Aria 70a blheli_32
servo: D845WP
bec: castle 10a

08/07/2024

Is Pepe an alien robot?