Team Health & Safety - First Time Builder

[Zenith]

The European Championships 2017 Report - Part 2

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Originally, I'd planned to use as many setups as possible to see what worked and what didn't – as it was, I was treating this tournament also as a means of research for the next incarnation. So for the next fight, I swapped the big wedge for the two wedgelets and put on the Titanium lifter.

Afterwards, I watched some of the other fights and talked to the various other builders. It reminded me of the general sense of community amongst roboteers – tools are borrowed, people help each other with parts and/or repairs... it was awesome to experience it for myself. I also struck up a conversation with James Pearson who, with his machine Catalyst, was one of the few other lifters in the Euros. Seeing evolution after evolution online I love the thing for its simplicity, and little by little it has inspired me to evolve my own lifter as well.

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But for now, TINAD still had to do a loser's melee. I was pitted against 8-Bit Warrior (a 2WD brick) and The O'Neill (a 4WD brick). Originally Anvil 3 was also in the melee, but it was substituted with the K-Nex bot which was torn up during the first round. So no spinners? Alright then.

But that's when the Gremlins popped up. You see, right after the first round I ran TINAD through the motions to see if anything had stopped working... but it was fine. Both the weaponry and the drive were working so I only had to change the setup and charge the batteries.

So along comes the time to activate the bot in the arena, and the left side of the drive is dead. TINAD is moving in circles. I'm urged to take it to the pits and try and fix it in two minutes, so I run back, unbolt the top, and halfway through undoing the bolts I decide to give it another try.... and the drive works just fine.

With some screws still sticking out halfway I run back, put it in the ring under a stern 'Just in time' from the arena marshall and awaited the countdown.



The fight itself seemed to go okay and all, until the K-Nex machine engulfed TINAD and the lifter got stuck inside it. I was able to move my passenger to the edge of the pit,but with part of him resting on the top of my wheels I couldn't move.So basically, I lost because a K-Nex robot sat on my face.

I bet you've never read a sentence like that before. Whoo, a story of firsts!

TINAD was out of the main tournament, but I didn't mind it that much actually – it meant that I could just enjoy the day a bit more. I took the time to completely disassemble TINAD's drive, taking off the wedges, wheelguards and wheels to see what was what.

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After removing quite some hair from the axles I tested the drive again, and it seemed perfectly fine. I figured that maybe the receiver contact for the left drive just got squished a bit, which would explain why it worked again when I partially unscrewed the top.

But was I going to go without any more fights? Ha, ofcourse not.

You see, by this point Catalyst had been knocked out as well (epic fight with Tempus that was, by the way), so I figured it was as good an opportunity as any to square off with James. Together we put ourselves down for a whiteboard, being told we could immediately jump in with the two bots already in the arena – Kamikaze (I think it was at least – I haven't seen the fight back yet) and Disharmonic Motion. Seeing these were both spinners I almost felt guilty for dragging James into this, but we went with it anyway. I did up the final few bolts (I had added some groundscraping prongs atop the wedgelets for the Gladiator) and went on to experience which, for me, was the absolutely highlight of the day.



The fight started with me nudging DHM's belt off the weaponry, so that was already one spinner disabled. But then there was the beater of Kamikaze remaining... and soon enough, both me and James ended up upside down. What followed looked like two drunk people trying to get up from the ground, as both James's and my positions were awkward enough to hinder proper selfrighting... but after a few attempts and under a loud cheer, both Catalyst and TINAD eventually got right way up. Kamikaze was then disabled, so now it was down to me and James. Now, I knew I had NOTHING to threaten James with other then foul language, so I just started driving around and coax him into making a mistake.

The superiority of his machine clearly shone through though – he lifted me cleanly off the ground a few times, but wasn't able to get the wide bodied TINAD (no fatshaming here honestly) over. Eventually though he finally caught me in his trap, and with me riding atop his wedge he plunged himself into the pit. Great stuff.

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Lifterbros!

Then, there was the Gladiator - the glorious chaotic slugfest where everyone who is willing enters the arena, and the fight goes on until there's only one working robot remaining. I was amazed that after three fights, not only the bot was working without a hitch, but also mascot Tina was miraculously unharmed. Dammit, I brought that mascot so it could be splattered into a million pieces!

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Drastic measures followed.

The fight itself for me was all about survival. I knew that the ridiculously OP lipo aboard TINAD paired with the small drive motors would enable it to drive waaaaaay longer than just 3 minutes, so I was curious how long it could keep going.



As it turns out, quite long. Despite getting some proper hits it managed to get to the final four, when the fight was halted and restarted... but when it restarted, TINAD didn't respond. Once again, that cursed servo was rendering the robot motionless. I reckoned I was out at first, but then decided to try and disarm the lifter on the transmitter, and then turn the transmitter off and back on. Lo and behold, TINAD suddenly coughed back into life.

I was however up against The O'Neill, the very tough pushybot which had pushed me around during the loser's melee as well. I managed to escape its clutches for a while but before long, he had me where he wanted and suspended me over the pit.

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Second place out of 19 ain't that bad!

All in all, I absolutely adored my first experience as a builder on an event. Huge thanks go out to Kinematic for doing an amazing event, and all the teams present. Great people all around (too many to mention individually), and overall just a great laugh.

Me personally, I thoroughly enjoyed just taking the bot apart and doing it up again, with the fights being a bonus. I went to bring some entertainment to the event and I hope I managed to deliver – as far's I'm concerned, This Is Not A Drill will be back again next year, with possibly a second entry as well if time permits.

Rest assured that the new build will be fully logged in this very same thread. Peace!

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(Once again credits to John Denny's son for taping the fights!)