Final: Beauty X VS. Barróg Doom VS. Flippin Hell:



The final would put me against Flippin Hell and the winner of the first rumble, Beauty X, the tenth iteration of the legendary featherweight flipper line. The fight started alright, the bot was able to stay nimble while I waited to get a few good grabs on the opposition. Unfortunately, following a charge on Flippin Hell, my forks got stuck under the arena walls again, and in trying to reverse and escape, I managed to blow a fuse for the third fight in a row. All I was left to do was to crab walk around the arena, with really my only goal being to keep Flippin Hell in the game for as long as possible, but eventually the bot got stuck despite my best efforts, and so, despite two Irish machines making the final, it was the English flipper that took home the trophy. This fight was massively disappointing for me mainly due to how the bot failed the way it did, combined with how close a title was in my grasp. The wheels on the dead side of the drive managed to survive despite the strain they were taking with the crab walking, which was further confirmation that we’ve finally sorted the drive out, but my faith in my drive system overall has been massively shaken.

End of Show Rumble:



This was just your standard FW sized rumble, with nearly every machine competing, and for their part, both Barróg’s performed nicely. The forks would occasionally get stuck in the walls and, at one point, on each other, but no fuses were blown in this fight thankfully. Both machines are quite easy to push around if you can get under them or around the sides due to low ground clearance, but I’m not too concerned with this outside of rumbles. Both bots drove well and got some good lifts in, which at this stage of the event was all we needed.

Conclusion:

Overall there was quite a lot of good and bad with both machines after this event. We’re finally running on just the new wheel mounting setup on all wheels across both Barróg’s, and there hasn’t been a single failure since swapping over, even through all the crab walking, which is always great. The new forks are a massive upgrade for Barróg, and the new mounting is rock solid, works perfectly on both bots. We also got a lot of testing done in fights after the show, as well as got some really excellent photos, and while Barróg’s self-righting wasn’t as reliable as I’d hoped, it only needs a small amount of iteration to work, which is promising for sure. The major disappointment however were the ESC’s. This event had significantly more failures than any other in the past, and while none of them have burnt up thanks to the fuses, this just tells me that the 30A ESC’s just won’t cut it anymore for running both drills on 5S. We intend to upgrade to the 80A equivalent once we can afford them (on the same topic, we intend to sell some of the old ESC’s in a post here, the offer is still up: https://www.fightingrobots.co.uk/thr...938#post475938).

Outside of these failures however the event was great. Talking to the audience and other builders is always fun, and I really got to see how a heavyweight works with all the time I spent with Immersion and the team behind it (first heavyweight I’ve gotten to drive as well!). We were able to make a lot of good contacts as well, and I’ll definitely be making use of what I’ve obtained at the event for my upcoming robot projects, including some in collaboration with other builders. The Irish events are always a highlight for me, and I look forward to the event next year! As for myself, I am finally up to date with this build diary which is certainly a relief! I hope to announce my latest projects shortly, as many are quite far along. In the meantime however, I have finally made a team page for my robots on Facebook, linked to here: . I still intend to update this build diary (despite the difficulties in using this site), but the FB page will feature other aspects of the builds and event reports not seen here, so give it a shout: https://www.facebook.com/TeamBarrog/




Some great shots taken of the machines after hours, with a Regicide cameo.