It is the day after a great weekend at Robots Live in Grantham, so here is a quick write up on my, and the robot’s first event.

I had 3 melees over the weekend, the first of which was the second fight of the first day with about 8 other feathers in the arena. It was exactly as chaotic as you would expect and I can’t remember a lot of the details from the fight. Overall I was happy with how the robot drove and I was finding it reasonably controllable despite many driving mistake from me, such as lifting the jaw up when I had someone on the wedge instead of bringing it down – doh! A few of the flippers were having fun turning me over and over. When it landed on its back, it flipped back forwards on to its wedge as designed, so I was happy with that. However when I was flipped on its side and I went to self-right, the axle that the self-righter pivots around popped out of its housing. From then on I was dragging the righting arm around with me and occasionally getting hung up on it. Still it lasted the full 3 minutes and with the exception of the self-righting arm, it was still working at the end so I was well chuffed for a first time out.

Back in the pits I put the self-righter axle back in its housing and secured it in place with screws to stop it popping out again, then I charged the batteries and it was on to melee 2……

There were a few more feathers in this time, probably 11 or so, so even more chaotic than last time. This fight was 3rd on the second day and one thing I hadn’t thought of was the condition of the arena floor with all the chunks the heavies take out of it and the debris from those chunks. My side armour is low to the ground to try and stop flippers getting underneath. Unfortunately the flippers were still getting under it but I was also getting high cantered on the debris or hung up in a divot. Therefore the driving/handling this time was awful and after only half a minute or so explosion saw me struggling near the side and swiftly threw me clean OOTA.
In the pits again I decided to cut off some of the overhang on the side armour to increase ground clearance. I was getting flipped anyway, but I figured at least this way I could drive around better. Then charge the batteries, no damage to fix and off for melee 3….

With the higher ground clearance driving was definitely improved over the second fight and I could at least mix it up a bit. The fight was going pretty well until around half way through when I was flipped onto my side and it again failed to self-right. I knew the axle had stayed in this time but I didn’t know what was wrong. I was stuck on my side any only able to spin around in circles, and the fight went downhill from there. I was flipped across the arena to the house robot who kindly hit me few times with its sledge hammer. Then it put me under the red arena hammer controlled by someone from the audience who gave it some more hits. Still on my side I was able to spin away but the house robot grabbed my again, then did the spin around the in the middle of the arena, release and throw a robot to the side routine. Annoyingly it threw me right into the recess where it sits so it came over, grabbed me again, gave me a few hits from its hammer and put me on the arena floor flipper. The floor flipper had already thrown one feather up to the roof net, and I think it was Hatchet that it threw clean OOTA from the other side of it. I didn’t quite end up OOTA but had a direct hit into the arena wall. Then just for good measure and to collect the full set of hazards I finished the fight with a few smacks from under the blue arena hammer.

Back in the pits and I was amazed to find the drive and weapon were still working despite the damage to the other parts of the robot. A few pictures below show the damage. One wheel took a lot of the hammer hits, its cracked but still in one piece. Likewise I think it was the house robot that was hitting the armour over the oil tank which was bent out of shape, but the tank underneath was fine. The failure of the self-righting this time was down to the cable that pulls the arm snapping. I don’t know why it snapped, it should have the strength to turn the bot back over, but when I went to use it there were other robots around so maybe I was hung up on another robot as well. Either way I’m going to have to replace it with something stronger.

Armour Damage 1.jpgWheel Damage.jpgArmour Damage 2.jpgFront Wedge Scrapes.jpg

I have a number of ideas for tweaks and improvements that I’ll detail with some more posts in this thread when I get round to them. However I have to say the biggest one is probably lots more practice driving the robot. It’s amazing just how good some of the other roboteers are at driving their machines.

Finally I have to say that it was great to meet everyone who I spoke to and a big thanks to those that helped me out and answered all my questions. I had a fantastic time, the whole event was great fun and I’m already looking forward to the next one.