Woot a semi... Woot a review

OK, thank you to whoever made the blue rinse intro, showing us Tornado fighting Gravity. Thank you VERY MUCH:angry:

Tornado vs Raging Knightmare

Tornado on top for the entire fight... Raging Knightmare got broadsided once and never recovered. Flipping itself over twice certainly didnt help, especially when Tornado rammed it hard into the wlal while upside down, which is probably what broke the flipper. A quick and efficient dispatch if ever there was one. Shunt got tipped over though, so I enjoyed this fight:proud:

Winner: Tornado

Gravity vs Dantomkia

...Gravity caught Dantomkia with the ultimate sucker punch, not only flipping it OOTA, but destroying the record of fastest OOTA, previously held by Dantomkia. Thanks to the blue rinse into, the only surprising thing was the speed of the fight.

Winner: Gravity

X-Terminator vs St. Agro

St. Agro never stood a chance. They got in a couple of failed attacks, but took some vital blows as they did so, and never got in a good position after that, taking numerous attacks from X-Terminator and the house robots, eventually bowing to the inevitable.

Winner: X-Terminator

Bulldog Breed vs Tough as Nails

Flipping, shoving, clamping, pulling... It all went on in this fantastic fight! Bulldog Breed was on top for just about the entire fight, and thanks to their thick armour didnt take much, if any damage from Tough as Nails, and managed to out-shove it as well. The judges made a good call, and seeing there was no contraversy to spoil it, this has to be fight of the night:proud:

Winner: Bulldog Breed

Tornado vs Gravity

Ooh, Tornado go back to the spinning toothpick:proud: ...Sorry. Chain flail. At least this time I actually noticed some motion blurs so I take back my coment from heat E/A about Is there a weapon there. And its probably what gave Gravity the eventually fatal punctured tyre, although Gravity still managed to get two very impressive flips in on Tornado... They didnt manage to finish it off while it was inverted though, so down the pit they went.

Winner: Tornado

X-Terminaotr vs Bulldog Breed

A bit of a rehash of the St. agro fight... Bulldog failed to get one good attack in, and their flipper plate got knackered RIGHT up meaning they couldnt get under X-Terminator at all, who then proceeded to batter the dog all over the arena. Owchies. But then the bulldog team should know not to take a pooch up against an exterminator:proud:

winner: X-Terminator

GRRRR

WHO DID THE ****ING NEXT WEEK CLIP?! It went and spoiled every single first round battle for us!!!

i no i saw that its a big spoiler i wish i had my eyes closed now

Thanks for the warning :)

Cheers, wont watch it now, have sky + it and as bulldog v X-terminator is foregone conclusion i have decided to read the reviews now

X-terminator knocked St Agros link out of the back of the robot, thats why it wouldnt move.

You dont HAVE to watch them clips you know...

Did look a bit silly at work though, face down on the table and fingers in ears... :proud:

What an Excellent Semi, and waddaya know, all but one of my predictions were proved right! Heres my view:

ROUND 1

Tornado V Raging Knightmare

Well, thanks to some pisspoor editing at the start of this show, we all knew the outcome before the fight even began. Pretty boring way to start if you ask me, and very one-sided. A few mistimed flips by RK and some hard shoves against the arena wall, and they were down the pit. The outsome for this i believe was thoroughly predictable. However, shunt was flipped and that was cool, so it was fairly enjoyable. Seems as though even if Tornado use the disc, they can still push opponents around.

Gravity V Dantomkia

Again, editing decided the outcome before it even began. This fight was basically my prediction in action, that Dantomkia were flipped out in record time. How high did they go?? Also very one-sided, but fun.

St.Agro V X-Terminator

OUCH!! Awesome display by what must be for my money the most powerful UK disc ever. Never a chance for St.Agro, and i didnt think there would be. Once the flipper was bent out of shape, that was the end. They launched a few failed attacks and then XT let rip totally. A very impressive display overall.

Bulldog Breed V Tough As Nails

Not just the best fight of the semi, but what must be for me the best fight of the entire series. The only fight of the semi that was not all one-sided. Absoulutely awesome entertainment, TAN looked good as they came zooming out but from then on in Bulldog proved that TAN is pretty useless if it camt easily push opponents about. There was a moment when I thought Bulldog would be pitted, but i thought the judges made a good call. Ive watched robot wars ever since it first began and this is one of the greatest fights ive ever seen.

ROUND 2

Qualified: Tornado, Gravity, X-Terminator, Bulldog Breed

Tornado V Gravity

The only fight I hadnt guessed correctly, Tornado were soon all over Gravity like a bad rash. As soon as a wheel was punctued, the end was in sight for the dutch machine. A somewhat ignominous end for what i thought was going to be the series champ, as they wee outpushed and out controlled by an impressive Tornado machine. But to their credit they did find time to chuck Tornado sky high twice :)

Bulldog Breed V X-Terminator

As has been said before, basically a longer version of the St.Agro fight for XT. Bulldog failed a couple of early charges and then had the flipper bent and it was all over. XT then proceded to rip the metallic heart out of the dawg. But kudos must go to Bulldog, they lasted nearly to a judges and they took all XT could throw at them before ending up stuck on the arena wall. I thought that XT went a little OTT attacking Bulldog but the flipper did seem to be working on Bulldog near the end, so who knows? They put in a good show I thought despite being thorougly outclassed.

Through to the final: Tornado, X-Terminator

High points: Bulldog V TAN, Dantomkia going OOTA in 6 seconds, Shunt being flipped.

Low points: None really, but seeing my all time favourite robot of series 7, Bulldog Breed, being mauled repeatedly kinda hurt.

Next week: Semi 2.

I wonder how many people are going to watch it, basically as they spoiled most of it on the preview.

dont worry guys and thanks for the good words ,Bulldog is dead, long live the Bulldog !!!
a new tougher ,more powerful Bulldog is now completed, and looking to repay a few old scores ,,:)he will hit you so hard even your ancestors will get bruised,:proud: ,but he already has a bit of a attitude problem,I suppose its being born in the Black Country,and coming from a long line of Bulldogs ,a combination of 4mm Hardox,
with Titaniun on top fixed to a 3mm one inch box section chassis this one promises much, 7000 lds
of thrust in the newly designed flipper,and a new upgraded double reduction chain drive for more pushing power,rrrrrrrrrrr Rumble young man Rumble.

Good news Tony... well, good news for those not potentially fighting it next Sunday, anyway :)

Titanium and hardox armour
Brick thick chasis
Better flipper
More pushing power

...Sounds great, but Id hate to be your accountant:proud:

LOL Frank :proud:

I thought XT went over the top on the Bulldog too. OK, they said its flipper was still working so you cant stop or words to that effect, but the flipper is no use if it cant move is it? Keep out of the way, let the ref count it out - no need to destroy a beaten bot is there?

So the new one is coming to Preston? Ill look forward to that then - as long as its fighting in the 12-2 show :proud:.

-- Kev

Sound good Tone, just hope it doesnt come up against XT.

Frank: Im pretty sure what got the wheels on Gravity was the horns on Tornados wedge. Certainly a tyre was being pushed around by a horn when Tornado had them against a wall, but they already had one flat by that point.

Im a bit confused about the original flat tyre. Might have been the flail, might have been Sir K (I was trying to work it out, watching the video). Ill be a little surprised if the flail can do much, but then if its a protest against the need to fit active weaponry Im 100% behind them... Ive always felt that Tornados spinner didnt do all that much damage either (good at superficial scratches, but needs larger teeth) - but maybe thats unfair. Very good at flipping robots up into the air so Tornado can get under them, though.

Great driving by Andrew (although a bit reliant on getting under Gravity when meeting head on, on a couple of occasions); teach the Gravity guys not to be cocky about not fearing any robots other than Dantomkia, although they deserve respect for a very impressive showing.

What on earth were they doing in the arena with pneumatic tyres, though? (Or did they just *behave* like pneumatic tyres?)

--
Fluppet

I think having stuffed or solid tyres makes the wheels heavier, so maybe Gravity didnt have any weight to spare?

True, but its one of those things Id expect to design in (call me a novice, but...) at a fairly early stage. I thought stuffing them with some kind of foam (possibly inflating them afterwards?) was the usual light weight technique to allow them to run flat. Id gladly have a few holes drilled in my armour (in the right place) in order to stop the wheels being so vulnerable.

But then, what do I know? Just a bit surprised that such a proficient robot was vulnerable in so simple an area.

--
Fluppet

exactly, what do you know ? :)

Both tires were punctured by the horns on the wedge off tornado. The flaily thing didnt do shite, as we all know. We lost againast a sharp box on wheels, so be it.
Why not fill up the tires ? Same answer as on the question why only 4 mm of polycarbonate armour ? No time, no weight, too lazy. Dont forget, Gravity was built in 4 weeks, and hadnt had a fight before series 7.

And its true. I dont fear any other robots. Why fear a robot ? Simple fact is, tornados wedge was lower than mine. that was the end of it. Im not gonna say if this or if that. Tornado won, fair and square.

But it still is a weaponless box on wheels :)

And in the new bloods, storm 2 proved that weaponless boxes on wheels can kick arse. Whats your point? :P

:-) Thank you for setting me straight, WJ. I hope you took no offense at my comments.

To be fair, it didnt look like your tyres were punctured so much as partly pushed off the wheels by the horns (in the small amount of coverage where you could see it) - or possibly punctured *in the process* of looking like they were about to come off the wheels, anyway. Any type of tyre would have struggled. Interesting tactic, and a detail of Tornado I hadnt really registered in the past (learn something new every day).

But still, thanks for the demonstration of why I need to make time and weight available for puncture proof tyres. :-) I appreciate (even as a novice) that the weight is always a struggle and, although I think I knew, I *had* forgotten that Gravity was built so quickly - so you have my sympathy when it comes to time consuming details like sorting the wheels. I commend you for your building pace, and hope I get as proficient someday when I have to rebuild the bits of my robots that others leave scattered over the arena.

The fearing thing is tongue-in-cheek - goodness knows your performance means that you have the right to be confident, but I did think that you were jinxing yourself the moment you said that. I guess your level of fear can be lower if you can build the things in four weeks (rather than, say, six months) anyway - less time lost if you get trashed! Oh to be so handy with a MIG welder.

I look forward to seeing the next version of Gravity (with puncture proof tyres) in the future.

--
Fluppet

soz, but the next version of gravity will be back to basic. Im using a 67 mm bore x 320 mm stroke ram (old one I had laying around) and 2 fire extinguisher valves to control it. Drive will be powered by wheelchair motors. The sport is costing me waaay too much money, and to be honest, the sport isnt that big here in Holland.
Could be true that I jinxed myself there, but hey, what could I possible fear from a box on wheels ? only 1 thing I see now :) and its not the puncturable tires, its the heigth of the wedge. Take a robot like Big Nipper, this has 2 points sticking out of the front of the robot (doubling as lifter and cruncher) which are impossible to get under, once he has em fully down... To be able to get under another robot equals to be able to control a battle.

And by the way, it didnt run that bad on 2 flat tyres, now did it :)

and @ Frank: I just dont like something weaponless. And dont get on about its a weapon by itself blabla, I just see it differently.

Just seen heat 17...

Gooooood show !!!
Didnt realise just how high Dantomkia flew !!!
And saw the footage of the interview previous too the fight against Tornado... and it wasnt me talking them down ! It was one of my so called teammates. I dont have a team, just had these 2 guys along for series 7, to help me carry the robot around and stuff.

Tornado did drive me around the arena a lot , Gravitys never moved that fast :)

Was indeed - good loft on that upswing. :-) And sorry I maligned you about pooh-poohing Tornado - with friends like that...!

Still, Ill look forward to the next Gravity, now youve got a bit more experience and feel you need the challenge of a cheaper design! The flat tyres did remarkably well. And Gravity does, indeed, drive backwards and sideways very quickly when perched on Tornado.

Still think you might want to proof the tyres as well with the next one, though.

Without having paid it much attention, are Tornado the only robot to have been thrown more than three feet into the air by more than one robot? (Gravity and WBC.) Odd statistics of our time...

--
Fluppet

Sorry about your budget William, I really would have wanted to see an even better flipper on the next Gravity...

But still, the weapon alone doesnt make a good robot? The ability to get under your opponent is just as important, just look at http://www.robotbooks.com/biohazard.htm>

Good point Christian.
But a decent weapon certainly disorientates (is that a word?) your opponent if it makes you do a 720... The next robot will have a Big Nipper style wedge, so should be as low as possible. And a 67mm x 320mm full pressure ram still puts out quite a decent punch :)

What about buffertanks?

yes, 1 2litre buffertank.

Nice to hear that youre building from scrap WJ. Were 75% scrap, reclaimed or own built componants. I tried cutting an ex helicopter (big red Hawker)scrap battery in half this weekend to see if that would get them into our weight allowance. It worked. I need to find a decent epoxy to reseal and then some more tests. If all is OK Ill post on TIPs.
St. Agro

But WJ, what about the 140*120 ram you had planned to use earlier? Have you sold that?

The main problem with that fight was that the front of Gravity was too light. Is this due to the removal of a buffer tank?

One question, will the new Gravity prove to be even more powerful than the last version?

The removal of a buffertank did cause him to make more wheelies due to weightloss in a significant place.
And the new Gravity ? Who knows what that crazy Friesian will come up with ?

Friesian? Like a cow?

Yeah, dont they have their own language etc.

Cows? They just moo dont they? :proud:

-- Kev

moo.


New version of gravity will be simple. Nothing fancy, just a 67mm bore x 3200 stroke full pressure flipper powered by 1 2 litre buffertank through 1 fire extinguisher valve.

:proud: Hehe (feeds WJ a handful of grass)

Shouldnt that be 320 stroke tho rather than 3200? :proud:

-- Kev

Is it just me, or did Gravitys front tend to skip upwards? I noticed this when they fought Lightning, but it didnt cause any problems there. However, when they fought Tornado, it seemed like this had a detrimental effect on their ground clearance, making their flips more difficult. Any idea what caused this?

Not enough weight on the front end wil do this. The wheels sort of want to drive away under the cassis. A lower centre of gravity should fix this, but thats dificult to do in most cases.