Back from this year's event of robot wars - with a very good result. All the hard work and late nights spent this week paid off as Liftoff made it to the finals and won the event

Now I need a break, tomorrow I'll be on the plane for a well deserved holiday!

The machines are getting better every year and is nice to see the competition evolving from simple rambots and wedges to more elaborate machines with movable weapons, having said that our level is still far away from you guys over here - we had the opportunity to see first hand a proper machine brought over from the Uk by Will Thomas - Inertia - it was really impressive to see it shredding a wooden beam, with no effort at all.

Some pics of the finalised build, and some from the event this afternoon:

Mostly finished here, added titanium armour to the sides



and some more no the flipper arm, just an extra precaution as I know one of the competitors has a bar spinner which might get stuck in the HDPE



Top cover installed - now it looks almost complete.
A planer blade at the flipper tip gives us a high probability of getting under everything. It was a nightmare drilling through it as its 3mm HSS, but a couple of spade drills and a lot of sweat later I managed to put three holes through it



Liftoff and Inertia side by side, Flipper tip covered after someone cut his hand against it





Final match, bar spinner Pacman could not reach us with the blade, it got flipped and that was the end of it




General view of the pits




First time I seen it snowing in Malta!!



Will and his machine Inertia





And the winner after the battles were over - still like new hardly scratched
Will try to put it on a diet now as it weighs approx 17kg, and if I could get it down to 13.5Kg I could one day bring it over...who knows!