Team Kaizen Build Diary

[Ocracoke]

Extreme S.T.E.M - Jibril, The Honey Badger and Ikari
The S.T.E.M event was interesting. Nice laid back atmosphere but it was getting a bit confusing over which fight was due when. Anyway, the main reason I was there was to compete in the MW championship with Jibril. Thanks to the power of YouTube and Team Ironclads, videos a plenty.

Before the event started properly, I noted I might refit the forks. I did and fitted a 15mm HDPE front wedge with 1 and 1.5mm thick polycarbonate for floor scraping goodness. I could have done with slightly longer polycarbonate sheets to get a curve on the floor but as it was, the wedge was what it was. At least it didn't get stuck in the floor during the event.

Qualifying heat - Jibril vs IronStrike vs F7
F7 (the eventual champion of 2019) was a robot I had been hoping to fight for a long while. It just looks... so good. IronStrike, on the other hand was a robot I wasn't all that keen on fighting but those be the draw. Anyway, video.


So the fight started with F7 and IronStrike fighting with each other and I tried to get in to line up a shot. However, IronStrike hit me square in the wedge and upside down I went. To make matters worse, the pinion gear in the Scythe failed and I was upside down. Now, the next hit blew a sizeable chunk out of the bottom plate, right by my batteries. Left a big mark in the steel as well. In hindsight, a HDPE panel there might have saved that from happening but there we are.

I was then drawn to fight in the redemption melee against Sweet but I received a bye from that so was in the quarter finals... against the then 2nd in the UK Crackers.

Quarter Finals - Jibril vs Crackers
This was... oh boy... urm... a disaster. Right before the fight started in the loading pen, the pin I was using for the dodgy drive fell out and the robot was on one wheel again. I tried to ask for the fight to be switched around to get me time to fix it but I was told as the fight was a competition fight, that wouldn't happen. So either I went in on one wheel or I get disqualified. Yeah... no. Fight on.


This went as well as you would expect. This was, however, the fight where finally we have positive proof the Scythe works. According to one of the judges, it made an impact when it hit the arena floor.

So I was out. There is a bit of vagueness as to where the robots are ranked below 4th but since this was the first fight of the quarter finals, I don't think it'd be too inaccurate to say 8th place is mine, which is down from 6th last year but TBH, I'll take what I can get.

There was also a funny whiteboard fight between Jibril and Backflip which ended up with the former stranded on top of the latter by the end of the fight. I am calling it a loss for Jibril but that was a funny fight.

In the other weight classes, The Honey Badger did OK. It won a few fights amazingly but definitely wants a bit more work to be truly competitive. However, Ikari won me my first podium finish ever in a robotics competition, coming 3rd in the Antweight class. I wasn't expecting to do well in the AW class, I just went in for fun. Funny how that works. :P

Extreme Robots Cheltenham
With the success of yesterday, I went into EXR Cheltenham quite happy. I was signed up for all weekend and the first MW melee of the weekend was amazing. The Scythe fired repeatedly and did leave some marks on Raphael. Video!


The tangle between Jibril and Raphael was something I've wanted for a while given the name origins and it was only the battery wire popping out what killed it. However, after the fight, where it was thrown about, the base plate split some more around one of the drive bearings and although I thought I fixed it, it broke in the loading pen again for the next fight and consequently did not enter. Since the robot was broken, I went home early which I felt a tad guilty about but I wouldn't have been able to fix it during Sunday.

So from this, all the effort I've put in all year in Jibril did pay off, The Honey Badger was moderately successful and Ikari pulled off a surprise. I am, however, calling it with Jibril 1.6. It is done and will be parted out. Jibril 2.0 is in the works and will hopefully debut at EXR Portsmouth next year.

Next event is, in theory, RoboDojo with Azriel but I've decided to skip that. I am down for another event after that with Azriel but first, I need to (re)build it.