DAY 1

Overall, there were 12 heavyweight machines and 6 featherweights at the event, mine included. For the other featherweight machines, there was Beauty 2, a legendary pneumatic flipper, Carcinus (Car-sin-us), an electronic crusher from Team Coyote, Cicatrix (sick-a-tricks), a 4WD pusher from Team Scot-Bots, Red Hot Tilly Pecker, an axe bot from Team Tilly (some of you may recognize the FW as the robot formerly known as Hatchet), and Node, the only other Irish FW, which was meant to be a Shockwave/style lifter, but was effectively still in construction at the event. It was a pretty nice variety of bots, basically everything except a spinner, so perfect for testing out a new machine.

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Each event that happened roughly hourly would feature two fights, usually between heavies. On the feather end, two 3-way rumbles were scheduled for each day, and my first one was scheduled for the end of the day against Beauty 2 and Cicatrix. I had a lot of time to kill, which I spent talking to roboteers, taking advantage of the food vouchers provided by the expo (roughly £9 per day), and explaining to those waiting for the show to start about the robots, their weapons, and explaining to them how to build an antweight. I even made a makeshift arena for my antweight to drive around in, giving the controller to various audience members.


A crude arena for driving my flipper AW, Sioc, around.

Eventually it came time for my first fight, and I was pretty terrified of Beauty, as while I could self-right on my back, there were certain positions that I could not come back from. I brought the machine down to the arena, armed up, and drove over to the end.

​FIGHT 1:



Some observations from the fight:

  • ...I have no idea what that enterance music was, we were told we could make requests for what to play (mine was Dearg Doom), but that apparently wasn't the case. In retrospect, a lot of the other intros made a lot more sense with this in mind (Thor had "Do You Like My Sword" as it's music).
  • Most of the first minute was getting used to steering Barróg; the machine was backheavy by design so as to be controllable with a robot on top of the front, but the downside to this was that it powerslides quite easily.
  • Beauty 2's flipper had problems throughout the event, and as a result never fired once. I didn't realise this until after the first minute, and so played it very safe when driving around Beauty 2 until then.
  • Cicatrix had traction problems throughout the event, leaving it stuck for large portions of fights. This is probably why when Cicatrix tried to push me at the 2:05 mark, I was able to push them right back.
  • The 1.5mm steel strip performed quite well in the fight, mainly as I was able to keep it off the ground when driving normally, and lowering it when going for a charge. This meant I could get under Beauty 2 fairly consistently, while having enough ground clearance everywhere else so that getting beached was not an issue.
  • Getting Barróg directly in front of other robots was an issue, as was getting a grip on them. I tried not to put more pressure on the front then what I thought was necessary for fear of self-damage, and as a result a lot of potential "grab" opportunities slipped me by. I did however manage to get one grab on Cicatrix though around the 3:50 mark!


POST-FIGHT:

Safe to say, I was feeling pretty chuffed after that first rumble. On trying to push Cicatrix back over to the arena entrance however I noticed that my pushing power had greatly diminished. I brought the machine back over to the pits and took a look at the damage.


The state the steel strip was in at the end of the first fight. Easily removed and hammered straight before the next fight.


Some of the scuffs along the front of the robot. Mostly cosmetic.


The rear left wheel. It was not supposed to be spinning freely.

DAY 2:

My main focus for today was to figure out what was wrong with the rear wheel and to try to fix it. As you can see from the image below, there were several problems with the gearbox. The first were the visible cracks around where the ball bearings were (they were simply held in place by the tightened torque limiter as opposed to grub screws, I paid for this by losing a few bearings), clearly showing signs of stress. The second was that one of the metal pins that held the planetary gearbox on the inside together had slipped out, removing any contact the motor could make with the wheel. Fortunately, Team Node had written off on of their drill motors, and I was able to salvage the metal pins from it to restore functionality to the gearbox.


The damaged gearbox

With all four wheels working again I was able to enter by second fight, between Beauty 2 and Carcinus.

FIGHT 2:



Some observations from the fight:
  • This fight was originally going to have Red Hot Tilly Pecker fighting, but unfortunately they had burnt out a motor in the previous fight, and so Carcinus was brought in as a reserve.
  • The introduction was the first time I really drove the machine with the lifter all the way up, and I discovered that it was impossible to control like this. That hit on Beauty 2 at that point was a total accident.
  • Slower movements seemed to allow the machine far more control then last time. over-correcting was still an issue, but I was definitely getting more "good lifts" then last match
  • At the 3:05 mark, it wasn't caught on camera, but at that moment I decided to spin wildly just for the attention of the crowd. The machine actually started shaking back and forth while spinning at this point! Pretty sure I lost a wheel here as well.
  • At 3:20: another good lift! Probably the best one I got at the event.
  • From 3:30 onwards I lose a front wheel as well, and at this point the machine's mobility is greatly reduced, a fact both Beauty and Carcinus capitalize on.


POST-FIGHT:

So after this fight, Barróg was limping pretty badly. As well as the dents to the front strip, I had lost both the front left wheel and the back right wheel. one of the wheels was fine, but the other was cracked, and the gearboxes were an unknown for me at this point. I decided to purchase two drills on the way home (one of the gearboxes was more damaged then the other, I thought the other could be salvaged) and elected to fix everything tomorrow.

(This post has reached the character limit, the rest will be posted shortly)