Alright very late update but technically within the month of the event so not too terrible. Here's how Manchester went for Barróg.

DAY 1:


A shot of Barróg loaded up into the car

We ended up taking the Dublin/Holyhead ferry early Friday morning, which gave us a little free time in Manchester proper that day. We arrived at the event and were stationed next to two other FW teams, Team Kaizen (The Honey Badger) and Quantax Dynamics (Destroy It Yourself). Barróg passed another tech check (always a nervous time due to the grey nature of the weaponry), and most of the time leading up until the first fight was spent making sure everything was secured in the machine, as well as looking around at some of the other bots. The build up to the fight was particularly nerve-wracking due to it being the first fight I (and I assume many other teams) would be fighting a spinner. The first fight could have been a whole lot scarier though, as of the three "verts of the apocalypse" (Shrapnel, Blunt Force Trauma, and Get Shrekt), only Shrekt was rolling this fight.

FIGHT 1:



Some observations from this fight:

  • The new FW house robot that has replaced Oll-E (to what seems like to no ones remorse) was unexpectedly awesome looking, and I only found out it had a flamethrower after entering the box. That was fun, both in the terrifying way, and the fun way.
  • After 20 seconds of driving around, I suffer what I can only describe as a series of unfortunate events. Barróg gets flipped by the flipper into the only position it can't self-right from, proceeds to become the first machine to be effected by the CO2 jets by way of getting blasted around, and finally get toasted by the house robot before finally getting back onto my wheels.
  • At I proceed to get my first good lift on another machine, however it seems that I didn't leave the throttle stick in the neutral position completely, and once they slip out, the front proceeds to spring up, something it is not supposed to do. it takes another few attempts for me to figure out that the back of the lifter is rising instead of the front when I get underneath opponents, signalling that something has gone very wrong with my defining feature.
  • After being reduced to a wedgebot, I go for one final push on an opponent, before becoming completely dead, the first time to happen to me, before being pitted in the dying seconds of the rumble.


POST-FIGHT:

So obviously, there were some points that needed addressing with the machine. The front wedge was mangled a bit, some bolts on the wheels needed tightening, and it turns out that the reason I was dead in the water was because of the battery connection came loose, so that was easily remedied. I would be remiss to mention the most important casualty though, which was the lifter.


Ow

As it turns out, the lifter kept raising long after grabbing its target, and while I don't know exactly how much of a load it took, I so know that it was enough to completely snap the HDPE front into two pieces, where the part of the lid connected to the linac came completely apart. In hindsight, the area was not properly reinforced for how far it was back, and will hopefully be fixed for future incarnations. So while I worked on getting the wheels and wedges back in order, my dad and cousin worked hard on assembling a support bulkhead that would restore functionality to the lifter, and reinforce it greatly. With this new support Barróg was reborn now, presumably, with the power of Christ on its side.


The new setup, certainly more durable

Barróg was in full working order for fight two, which featured the three verts, as well as Blinky, another vert who made a surprise appearance. You know, the "that wasn't a fart" kind of surprise.

​FIGHT 2:



Some observations from this fight:

  • This fight was actually pretty passé for me compared to the others. The lifter wasn't used much, whether that was down to caution on my part or technical failure I cannot remember.
  • much of the fight was just me trying to avoid the spinners, whom seemed to not be causing as much destruction as usual, which was a pleasant surprise.
  • I'm starting to realise that even with a broken lifter, the design of my wedge coupled with the claws stopping machines from driving over me, as well as a 4WD make Barróg a pretty nice pushbot, which comes in handy when necessary.
  • Personal highlight for this fight was unknowingly ending up behind a still quite dangerous Blunt Force Trauma, where I proceeded to ram it into the wall, all while screaming loudly.


​POST-FIGHT:

After the last fight, I was pretty chuffed to survive the full three minutes in a spinner rumble, and aside from the wedge, the machine was still fully operational, the lifter hadn't broken, and I even got to fight in an off event "test", though after that, I noticed that two of my wheels were shagged, and so both spares I had needed to be used up.


Barróg sustaining only cosmetic damage, an improvement over last time

Day two post to follow shortly as I've reached a character limit.