Babróg - Beetleweight Lifter Build Diary

[Shooty]

Fight 3 VS. End Boss:

My third fight, and certainly the scariest challenge so far, was End Boss, a vertical spinner driven by Shane Lale. End Boss had already sent several competitors hitting the roof at this stage of the competition, and while the weapon wasn’t the hardest hitting of all the verts at the competition, it was certainly one of the most stable, a scary combination when mixed with Shane’s excellent driving. The one advantage I had going into this fight was how often End Boss tended to gyro dance when turning, allowing me a better chance to get around the front of the robot and avoid the weapon entirely, and hopefully allowing me a chance to get an OOTA or a pitting.


Me and End Boss trying to get a feel on who will win the ground game with their forks.


Fight starts at 1:11:41

The fight started out incredibly well, Babróg’s superior speed and evasiveness allowed me to keep out of the path of End Boss’s weapon, and when we did come face to face I seemed to have an advantage in getting under him. At one point I had managed to get End Boss high up onto the wall; flipping him would have been risky, though the twin grabbing arm setup allowed me to avoid his weapon, so my main plan was to run down the clock until I could get a pitting. Unfortunately, a third into the fight, one side of drive gave way, and this basically sealed the deal on the match. I tried to keep squared up with End Boss, but he kept getting to my sides more and more, and after some clever driving on his part, just one big hit from the spinner sent me out of the arena.


Babróg after the fight. Outside of some slight chewing on the side rollers, only one hit was scored by End Boss on the front corner of the bot.

It was certainly disappointing to go out in the tournament once again due to drive issues, but I didn’t mind as much due to how much better Babróg did in this tournament. It helped later on that End Boss, the machine I had been beating until my self-inflicted injury, went on to win the entire tournament, keeping up my streak of getting knocked out by tournament winners! The robot was in good shape after the fight; the wheels were still in decent shape despite the dragging, and the new side bumpers held up far better than the old 3D printed ones. What had gone wrong was that I had forgotten to change the plastic gears to metal in the first stage of the gearbox, once the gears shredded I had no connection to my drive. A quick swap of gearbox teeth and the machine was fully functional again in no time.


The gearbox failure in question. A little hard to see, but the top half of those plastic teeth are gone.

Fight 4 VS. Contradiction, Qry About It, Mini Spinny Mk III:

For the first time in a while, I had a robot that was ready to go again for more action, and I decided the best way to see if the new improvements had worked would be to throw the robot into an all spinner whiteboard and see how much it could take! I elected to go for the horizontal wedge to protect against Mini Spinny Mk3, and while previously I needed to use the static arm to make weight, I decided to assemble the grabbing arm assembly instead, and to my pleasant surprise it was now exactly on the weight limit!


The grabbing arm and the wedge both on the robot, making the weight limit right down to the gram!


Fight starts at 14:54

Lots of stuff to keep track of in this fight. I initially tried keeping away from the vertical spinners, focusing mainly on Mini Spinny, and letting the others wear themselves out for a while first. After Mini Spinny seemed to get beached, I elected to try and flip it back over the right way, leading to a semi-successful lift before getting hit from behind. At this point Babróg continues to get hit over and over again, but it’s here that I really got to see the improvements in durability pay off, as the bot continues to self-right and remains driveable well into the match. Finally, near the end of the fight, I try to self-right, but the corner of the wedge gets stuck on the side walls, and so I’m unable to make it to the end.


Damage to the side, you can see where a screw was ripped right through the baseplate.

Rather remarkably, the robot remained perfectly functional after all of the abuse. The new wheels I attached for this match seemed to have survived all of the tumbling and even one direct hit, the side bumpers got chewed up but kept broadly in one piece, the new plastic lifter arms didn’t shatter like the old 3D printed ones, the wedge took multiple direct shots with barely any damage, and the servo still showed no signs of any damage whatsoever. Of all the fights I had this event, this was the one that left me the most satisfied, as it told me that the bot was capable of taking multiple direct shots from dangerous weaponry and remain functional.


A weird hit. For a brief moment, it seems the bot flexed long enough for the power LED to come halfway out of the bot. Not meant to happen at all!

Conclusion:

In terms of success, this was probably the most satisfied I had ever been with one of my robots barring Barróg Doom’s 2019 FW champs run. It’s taken me five beetleweight events and three different robots to finally feel satisfied with both the design and functionality of a BW entrant of my own creation. Babróg basically did everything I wanted it to do: it was durable, the weapon was effective, and the drive was easy to control and very effective. The loss to End Boss was unfortunate, but the cause of the loss was swiftly addressed, and I feel now that with the right fortune, I now have a control bot that could be in with a shot to win an event for the very first time. The icing on the cake was being given the “best driver” award at the end of the event, which came as a bit of a surprise, but was some assurance that I had gotten my nerves that sometimes plagued me in the past under control.

Going forward there’s very little I’d change about Babróg. The next event I’ll probably go to will be Rapture this coming July, and short of remaking some of the more damaged parts of the bot it’ll be going in as is. I do intend to do a fourth BW design though, mainly so my Dad has something to compete with himself. Once again a huge thanks to all the BBB crew, this event was a blast, and I look forward to the next event I can attend with them. They work tirelessly to put on the lions share of events in the UK BW scene, and deserve far more praise than they get!


The chewed up bot after all the day's fighting. Not quite as shiny, but still perfectly functional, and ready for whatever the next competition will bring!

[Shooty]

Robot Rebellion 2022 Event Report:

With Robot Rebellion 2023 coming up rather soon, I'm just doing some housekeeping and making sure all of my build diaries are up to date.

Robot Rebellion 2022, also known to many of the competitors as “Rapture”, was a rather unique BW event for a few reasons. The first of those being that the format of the event involved robots in heats fighting in a round robin format, before the top scorers in each heat moved on to a single elimination best of 16 bracket, closer in style to a FW event such as those run by Robodojo or Robochallenge. The second was that along with me running Babróg, basically unchanged from Brawl 2022, this would be my dad's first ever BW event, running Schnake, a four-bar grabber robot that was only finished a few weeks before this event.


Babróg looking fancy going into the event.

All fights are taken from the re-upload of the official Robot Rebellion stream, though there may be some video issues due to it not being the raw footage. Special thanks to Nick DSC for the Herculean task of timestamping all of the fights!

Babróg: Fight 1 Vs. Aggro Wobba Smidders Edition


Fight starts at 2:34:48

Due to the format of the tournament, every robot had a bye for one round, and so Babróg’s debut was delayed slightly. I was looking forward to the first fight, as Aggro Wobba Smidders Edition was a great control robot to spar with and see if the robot still worked as well as it did at Brawl. Aggro was super well driven, and had good traction, but a speed advantage and my front forks were able to help me massively in getting underneath consistently and try to lift them up. There was one scary moment where I ended up near the pit, and Aggro forced me to go the long way around, but I was able to basically reverse our positions, and catching them when they tried to escape allowed me to get my first pitting, and the first win for the tournament.

Babróg: Fight 2 Vs. Zephyrus


Fight starts at 4:13:32

Zephyrus was an incredibly unique robot to fight, with its “face spinner” design easily able to reach some of the more vulnerable parts at the top of Babróg. I ended up going with my horizontal config in the end due to being able to meet the spinner with my wedge, and would take things slowly while waiting for an opening. Ultimately after a little testing of the water, Zephyrus managed to land a hit on the sides, but this hit would end up causing Zephyrus to go flying around the arena, ultimately losing a weapon belt and getting stuck on its face. A slightly anticlimactic way to end, but I was happy to have a second knockout under my belt.

Babróg post-Zephyrus. Some weird geometry, but Babróg seemed to take it well.

Babróg: Fight 3 Vs. Ultra-Violence


Fight starts at 5:43:37

Ultra-Violence was probably the scariest spinner in my heat, but I had seen in previous fights that day that they were struggling with the weapon hitting the floor and bouncing the machine up and down. Fortunately for Ultra-Violence, this was the fight that the issue would be solved, and thanks to the diagonal side forks on the robot, getting around and under was incredibly challenging. I was only able to get around UV once due to some fantastic design and driving by Ari, and whenever Babróg was flipped, they wasted no time in going for any vulnerable points while the robot self-righted. Not surprisingly, I would lose the judges decision, though there was still a lot to be happy about the fight. The weapon assembly took several direct hits but stayed functional, and the only reason I lost drive was due to plastic gears in the gearbox which I thought I’d replaced; annoying to suffer, but at least not repeatable with a more metal replacement.


Babróg post-Ultra-Violence. Mostly functional, and took the beating well, though several parts are quite bent up now.


Once again, my inability to spot plastic gears cost me. Grrrrrr!

Babróg: Fight 4 Vs. Sproing


Fight starts at 36:45

While Schnake was out of the tournament, Babróg was still gunning for the top 16, and following Ultra-Violence winning its last fight, I needed a KO against Sproing to guarantee a spot in the bracket. By this stage of the competition Sproing had been heavily rebuilt multiple times, and so I started the fight with a mindset of at least giving Sproing one shot to show it’s weapon still worked (I’m well aware of the pain springs bring). After that, I was able to push Sproing around pretty easily with my forks, and nearly lift him out of the arena. I had a few scary moments bringing him close to the pit, but ultimately a driving error allowed me to get Sproing into the pit, securing my top spot in the group and allowing me into the top 16!

Babróg: Fight 5 Vs. Bby Shrekt


Fight starts at 3:36:41

I knew that going into the round of 16 that the likelihood of fighting some really nasty robots would shoot right up, and that was proven when my next opponent was one of the favourites for the event: Sam Price’s Bby Shrekt. Sam was smart in how he fought by running his weapon slower for most of the fight, reducing the gyro effect that I usually depend on to get around opponents. I was never really able to get around, and while Babróg could take the hits, my front piece had been bent in such a way that I couldn’t get underneath Bby Shrekt as easily. Eventually we ended up in a position where Bby Shrekt had its back to the OotA zone with the weapon ramping up, so I decided for a hail mary and ran straight at him, hoping my opponent would recoil up and over the wall. It nearly worked, but I ended up getting sent across the arena, and stuck in a position where I couldn’t get my wheels on the ground, leading to my elimination from the competition.


Babróg post-Bby Shrekt. Another case of being very bent but still functional.


The fork mount which caused the bending at the front. It was less the front piece being bent up and more the base plate being bent down.

Bonus Fights: “Grabber” Melee and “International” Melee


Fights start at 4:51:38 and 5:50:57 respectively.

With both bots out of the main competition, we had a bit more time to get some more driving time and iron out any more bugs with whiteboard battles. The first whiteboard was going to be mainly a rematch between Step Up 3D and Schnake, but very rapidly evolved into a general grappler fight with a few lifters as well. Then right after, there was due to be a fight involving all of the “International” competitors, and as a result we barely removed our bots in between matches. These fights were great as a torture test for both bots, as we could see how they’d manage a variety of weapons with no real time to tweak or charge things in between fights. Schnake got some good charges in, and Babróg finally managed to actually land some suplexes!

Conclusion:

This was probably the most hectic event for us since the UK FW Champs in 2019, and there was a lot to learn for sure. For Babróg this had probably been its best event yet, with three wins, two losses against very good opponents, and even winning its heat with minimal damage sustained throughout the event! The wheels have proven to be much more durable than before, and the only true mechanical failure suffered was from something I thought I had swapped over earlier.

This was another really fun event, and I’d like to congratulate all involved! Both robots will be appearing new and improved for Robot Rebellion 2023!


Not the most suplex-heavy event, but there will be more!

[Upstart]

Nice design... Thanks for the information on Discord.

[Shooty]

BBB Beetle Brawl 2023:

After skipping out on any more BW events following Robot Rebellion, I was refreshed enough again to make my way over to the BBB Beetle Brawl 2023 event. Following on from decent runs in the last two events, there was very little I really wanted to change on the robot. Outside of printing and casting the usual spare wheels, the only other thing I did was to change the baseplate and improve the spacers underneath the forks so that the mounting blocks were less likely to bend back.


Babróg looking all nice and neat ready for its fights.

Fight 1 Vs. Nitrite, Ares


Fight starts at 11:31

This would be a fun first match. Nitrite was a vertical spinner originally built by Sam Price, which already tells you that the robot will be capable of hitting hard, and Ares was a front hinged flipper with a tanky front, decent drive, and some really good ground game. After a decent suplex and a scary moment near the OotA zone, Ares managed to get Nitrite out of the arena, turning the fight into a 1v1. After some delicate driving from both of us and an unstick as a result of me getting stuck over Ares’ open flipper, I managed to get a decent slam on Ares that took out its link, granting me the win and sending me straight to the round of 32.


Babróg Vs. Nitrite (left) and Ares (bottom)

Fight 2 Vs. Ray


Fight starts at 57:18

My second fight placed me against Ray, a positively adorable control bot built by Pip. From the start of the match I seemed to have the edge in the ground game, and was able to get Ray stuck up against the side wall. No one wanted the fight to end like that, especially me, so I freed Ray back onto its wheels, mainly in the hope of landing a proper suplex. In one of my attempts at a lift, I managed to get one of my lifter forks into a wheel guard, and was able to get Ray into the pit, though going in myself was not part of the plan. A fun match for sure!


Babróg Vs. Ray

Fight 3 Vs. Saw Loser: 2 Saw 2 Lose


Fight starts at 1:15:00

My next opponent was the most recent revision of Alex Mordue’s Saw Loser, a very nasty hammer robot. We last fought in 2019, back when Léim Thart couldn’t survive getting knocked on its back, but Babróg has so many aspects of its design taken from Saw Loser, as well as many other design quirks of my own, so I was feeling much more confident going into this one. The first half of this match was actually pretty back and forth, with neither robot being able to effectively win a head on battle, and so we were both reliant on getting around the other. I was feeling a little more confident going into the second half of the match once the pit had opened up, but unfortunately I lost a side of drive shortly afterwards. I tried limping around and keeping my front end pointed forward, but there was only so much I could do, and so 2 Saw 2 Lose was finally able to land some heavy hits onto the front end. I lost the other side of drive with about 30 seconds to go, and so looked to be counted out, but since 2 Saw 2 Lose kept engaging with me, the fight went to the judges, not that it would have changed the outcome. Babróg was once again out at the top 16 stage!


Babróg Vs. 2 Saw 2 Lose

Conclusion:


Babróg post-event, with most of the damage coming courtesy of 2 Saw 2 Lose.

It was hard not to feel a sense of déjà vu leaving the competition in much the same way I did last year, and it was initially disappointing to go out in the same manner as I did in 2022, but upon further inspection it was actually much better than that. In terms of armour, Babróg continues to take hits very nicely; 2 Saw 2 Lose landed some of its hardest hits on me, but none of them inflicted any damage to the internals inside. What’s more, for the third event in a row, the wheels weren’t what failed for me. On one of the sides of the drive, it was the pinion on the motor that failed for me, and on the other, the bolts holding the gearbox to the motor had loosened enough for them to disengage. These are all problems that are easy enough to fix from happening again, and I take it as a sign that things are always improving if my mode of failure keeps changing every time I compete.

Overall another really fun event! I’m looking forward to bring Babróg and a new version of Schnake over to Robot Rebellion 2023, which should be the next event on my schedule. I’ve also got some fun upgrades planned that should increase my odds against vertical spinners greatly, so watch this space!


Another hit from 2 Saw 2 Lose. Hammer bots tend to deliver hits in pretty funky ways!

[Shooty]

Robot Rebellion 2023:

Robot Rebellion 2023 would see both of us returning in a very similar manner to 2022, with minor upgrades to Babróg and an entirely new Schnake to test. The only major change done to Babróg outside of redoing the sides and front panels, was a change to the wheel hubs that used the actual hex Pololu hubs pressed into the 3D print instead of the dual square nut system I’ve used since Brawl 2022, which surprisingly didn’t increase the total weight all that much. To improve reliability, I redid all of my brushless motors and gearboxes to make sure I would have no more shaft failures, following as exactly as I could the instructions laid out by Alex Mordue (at this stage, who else?). Mercifully, tech checks went far smoother this year, and so both bots were ready to fight with minimal fuss.

This year the format of the competition was slightly different: each of the 12 heats would contain four robots in a round robin format, with the only rule to the order being that the winners in the first round would fight each other in the second. Points were no longer being used to score a heat by the method of winning or losing, merely if the fight was one or lost. The robot with the best record would go through in each heat, with the second place robot going to a three way playoff to determine the final entrants to the top 16. There was also the potential for “lockdown” melees to determine heat order should three robots have the same W:L record by the end. Finally, each heat would have a seeded robot competing. Remarkably, Babróg was actually the seed for its heat after making the top 16 last year, though it should be noted that we were the only team in our heat without an overall BW competition win!


Babróg and Schnake ready for the tournament!


Here is the heat Babróg took part in, which has all of its tournament fights.

Babróg: Fight 1 Vs. Chucky

Babróg’s fight was against Chucky, a 2WD lifter robot that was really more like a flipper, sharing most of its non-weapon components with Icebreaker, one of the most dangerous BW’s in the UK scene right now. With both our powerful brushless drives and aggressive driving styles, this fight promised to be like a cartoon battle in a dust cloud, and it basically was. Chucky definitely had the raw speed, and got Babróg airborne far more frequently, but Babróg’s wedge and more stable platform allowed it to profit off of the failed whiffs of Chucky, and nearly get it into the pit halfway through (incredible job by Chucky to get out of that situation by the way!). It looked like the fight would go to a very close judges decision, but ultimately Chucky ended up driving into the pit with less than 10 seconds to go. A slightly anti-climactic ending, but I was happy to take a win against such a strong opponent.

Babróg: Fight 2 Vs. Baby Dead Bod

Babróg’s second opponent was Baby Dead Bod, a horizontal spinner that already had an event win under its belt with Battle in the Burgh 2, and was a robot that had been refined across multiple Robodojo events to become an incredibly reliable and hard hitting machine. Babróg had sort of come across horizontal spinners before, but Baby Dead Bod was a real test, spinning up very quickly, and often able to hit above the protective wedge and dig right into the more conventional plastic armour. I was very happy that my more solid plastic grabbing arm was justifying itself in this match, taking direct hits but still able to hook an opponent. After about a minute of a solid beating, Babróg finally got the grab I had been hoping for, stopping the horizontal spinner at last. Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite able to suplex Baby Dead Bod out of the arena, and in my haste to go for a pitting before having to put my opponent down, I misjudged my charge, and ended up in the pit first. If this was antweights I may have gotten the win, but at beetleweight level the loser in a double pitting is determined by who hits the bottom first, so unfortunately Babróg lost the fight.


Babróg Post-BDB. Quite a few gouges out of the plastic for sure!

This was one of those really frustrating losses where the disappointment comes from knowing how close you came to a win, but there was a lot to be happy about with Babróg. Baby Dead Bod hit like nothing else Babróg had ever fought before, and despite all of the gouges and bending in the weapon, front, top, and side panels, Babróg remained fully 100% operational. All that was needed was to pull out one of my old side panels, and Babróg was ready to be converted to its standard config for its final fight.


A top-down view, showing the gouge taken out of the horizontal grabber arm, as well as how much the side has bent out.

Babróg: Fight 3 Vs. Oubley

Babróg’s final match would be against the robot to eliminate it at its first event nearly two years ago, Oubley. The drum spinner had suffered a much tougher run this time around, suffering from issues while also taking two losses in its first two matches, but still remained at its core the same robot that made deep runs in previous tournaments. I went into this match as cautious as I dared to be, trying never to engage head on with the weapon, and slamming the robot whenever I managed to get around it. Oubley’s wheelguards made for a great grabbing point for much of the fight, before I finally managed to stop the weapon from spinning. I got my lifter forks into the space between the beater and the main robot, and with some more careful driving this time around, managed to finally get the pitting I had tried for earlier. This was probably the most complete performance Babróg had put on in a fight yet, and the win meant that I remained in the competition with a 2-1 record.

Heat H 1st Place Playoff: Babróg Vs. Chucky Vs. Baby Dead Bod

Babróg had a far more explosive match coming its way with its heat being the opposite of Schnake’s, where one robot went 0-3 and the rest went 2-1. The winner of this match would move into the round of 16, while the runner up would take 2nd in the heat and go to a playoff rumble for another shot at a top 16 spot. Babróg ran its horizontal config, which slightly compromised it against Chucky in the battle for low ground, but we both seemed to recognise that Baby Dead Bod was the robot that was more dangerous to expose yourself to. This was very much a battle of choosing your fights, not wanting to expose yourself to too much damage, but also being careful not to lose points in aggression. Both me and Chucky were taking hits from Baby Dead Bod, and we both took it in turns to hold Baby Dead Bod whenever the other opened up a spot. Neither of much took any structural damage, but Baby Dead Bod certainly did a great job keeping the weapon going, landing hit after hit, and keeping as aggressive as possible, only losing a wheel in the last 10 seconds of the match.


Babróg following the melee. Very similar gouges to the first fight with Baby Dead Bod, that bot really has become super consistent when it comes to dealing damage.

The fight ultimately went to the judges, and after plenty of deliberation, it was decided that Baby Dead Bod took the win, while Chucky took second place, knocking Babróg out of the tournament. I feel like I put on a great performance, but I do think it was the right call looking back at the fight and seeing how Chucky had a slight edge in pinning Baby Dead Bod down. Definitely no shame in losing to either of these machines, and with minimal damage, Babróg was free to compete in other side competitions.


A side profile of the bot post-melee. You can really see how many ways plastic can flex in small ways that add up.

[Shooty]

This video should have all of the fights both Babróg and Schnake took part in during the competition. If you just want the non-tournament fights, then you can skip to 13:32.

Annihilator Playoff: Babróg vs The Chilli Daddy. vs Yomi vs Cryptomnesia vs Data Breach

With more time to play with now, Babróg was free to compete in a new side event for this year: the annihilator. The rules of an annihilator are simple: many robots enter (usually 6), and fight until one is knocked out. After a small time for repairs, the fight recommences, and continues like that until one robot remains. There was so much demand for a spot in the competition that play-in matches were organised to make the tournament, so Babróg was put against Data Breach, Cryptomnesia, Yomi, and The Chilli Daddy. (the full stop is important) with the goal of being in the surviving three. I mainly focused on trying to disable Yomi while The Chilli Daddy. made short work of many of the other competitors. I only really interacted with TCD for a short time in this fight, but the overcutter not only took some chunks out of my wheels, but also snapped a corner of my titanium wedge clean off. The wedge was already cracked from day 1, but it’s quite remarkable that after all the abuse it had suffered against robots like Daedalus, Mini Spinny, and Baby Dead Bod, that it would be TCD to finally break it. Babróg and TCD therefore qualified, as did Data Breach, which would unfortunately have to pull out due to damage sustained in this match.


The damage TCD dealt in just one fight. Babróg is really getting tested by horizontals this tournament!

Annihilator: Babróg vs The Chilli Daddy. vs Bop! vs 7th Circle vs
Brüg Deluxe vs Data Breach (Had to drop out)

There are four fights here, but instead of summarising them individually, I’ll just do them all in one go. In the first and second rounds I mostly focused on the control bots, mainly Bop!, while 7th Circle had its link sniped by TCD, and Brüg Deluxe lost drive after something inside it broke. The third round was a much more even affair, with each bot focusing on the other at different points, and despite some more damage taken to the wheels, it would be Bop! that would end up losing power.

The final of the annihilator had me up against The Chilli Daddy., a very scary undercutter by the same builder of fellow grab-and-lift Luchador, which had only just made top 8 at NHRL a few weeks prior. This fight went way better than I had expected from the previous encounters; TCD never really seemed to get some good connections with the weapon while running blade-up, and I was able to get Babróg consistently around the wedgelets and keeping TCD off balance. Despite a failed grab, I was able to keep TCD from hitting any dangerous parts on the robot, and finally managed to both hit the pit button, and get TCD into the pit. It had taken a while, but Babróg had finally won something, even if it was only a side competition!


A shot which shows the chunks taken out of my front wheels. Very happy with how durable they seem to be.

Whiteboard: Celtic Rumble

The final fight both Schnake and Babróg took part in was a Celtic rumble, consisting of (mostly) robots from the non-English parts of the islands. There wasn’t a huge amount to say about this one honestly, Schnake spent most of the time stuck under Cormoran (as did half the field it seems), and Babróg had some fun tussling with Arcticfurno and Chucky, but ultimately drove itself into the pit. Bit of an anticlimax, but they can’t all be winners.

Conclusion:

Robot Rebellion 2023 was certainly an event with a lot to teach us. For me personally, this felt like Babróg’s strongest event performance-wise, even if on paper it had done worse than last year. I had no losses as a result of damage, and the robot remained smooth to control throughout, rather it was driving errors on my part that resulted in most of my losses, be it from self-pittings to just not being aggressive enough. I left this competition feeling pretty confident that the robot, as it was, had a deep run in it somewhere, it just needed everything to come together.


A rather knackered Babróg following Robot Rebellion 2023.

So that was Robot Rebellion 2023! Apologies for the delay in posting this, it’s just been a challenge to find the time to sit down and properly write all of this down. I am unsure how much time I will have in July 2024 for what I’m assuming will be Robot Rebellion 2024, but I definitely intend to have both me and my dad competing at a BW event together at some point in the following year. Stay tuned in the coming days for some more event reports!

[Shooty]

BBB Beetle Champs 2023:

I arrived at this event quietly confident that I had gotten Babróg performing at the level which could make a deep run in a tournament, and so brought the robot over basically unchanged from its Roboriots configuration. Outside of replacing some worn down parts, I did one design tweak with the lifter forks. One issue I kept having was that the rubber was very easily torn off of them following a hit, or would break away, and there wasn’t really any pattern that would work on the mill that would fix this. My solution was to print off a pattern similar to what I use on my wheels, then screw that onto the flat lifter fork plane, and then do my moulding work. This was such a small batch that I didn’t even use the black dye I usually incorporate into my builds, but the final product was exactly what I was hoping for, and ended up weighing exactly the same as the original design.




The old and new forks side by side. I didn't have time to mix the normal black dye I use, so enjoy the transparent demo.


All fights can be found in this video, timestamps included with each fight.

Fight 1 Vs. New York Slice, Bonkers

Fight starts at 1:58.


All of the participants pre-match.

My first matchup was basically the worst case scenario matchup I could have for a melee. Bonkers was from the builder of Rudimental, a very impressively designed lifter, and Bonkers was basically that chassis design with a nasty vertical spinner. This would normally call for me to run forks, but the other bot in the fight was New York Slice, a pretty nasty undercutter which would easily bend or rip my forks out, calling for a protective wedge instead. In the end, I decided to go for the titanium wedge, and while it did provide some insurance against New York Slice, the lack of any good ground game and a proper grabbing setup would really cost me. An early hit from New York Slice somehow managed to get me stuck upside down, and Bonkers had pushed me up against the wall that made it impossible to self-right from. Thanks to sheer luck, I managed to get knocked back onto my wheels, and despite my best efforts against Bonkers, his drive and wedgelets were too good for me to fight, and after a few more hits I ended up stuck once again, and so started an event with a loss for the first time in a good while.


Babróg post-match, some small nicks, but nothing too serious in the end.

The damage from this fight wasn’t too bad in the end. Some nicks had been taken out of the front piece and grabbing arm by Bonkers, and the shaft connecting the grabbing arm to the lifter forks had been bent. The entire robot seemed to have been slightly twisted by some of the big hits as well, but these were easily fixed by just reassembling the bot into its standard config for the next match.

Fight 2 Vs. Autonomouse

Fight starts at 38:02.

My second match was fortunately much less punishing. Autonomouse was an ambitious beetleweight, in that it was a fully autonomous robot with a lifter, that had unfortunately just come from a fight starring Sniper and Stratus, mangling said lifter in the process. This meant that the robot I ended up fighting in the redemption round was reduced to little more than a Roomba, and was more of a chance for me to polish up my driving and lifting, which I definitely noticed were both rusty. The fight was over after a minute, but credit does have to be given to John Frizell for not only bringing in such a unique robot, but for also getting it back up and running in such a short space of time, and I am glad it got some time to drive around in the arena.

Fight 3 Vs. Digestive

Fight starts at 49:04.


Me and Digestive pre-fight.

My Round of 32 fight was against Digestive, a nasty and really quick vertical spinner from Robert Karpinski of Bourbon fame. The fight started strongly enough for myself, keeping mostly out of the way of the spinner, and managing to get under and flip Digestive once or twice, keeping the fight relatively in my control. Unfortunately, each hit the machine took at the front seemed to bend the baseplate further downwards, making it harder to get under Digestive, and eventually peeling part of the baseplate down, making it very hard to drive in a straight line. I was never really able to get the points back after that, and despite regaining some momentum when the pit went down, and nearly getting Digestive in there in the last 5 seconds, the match went to the judges, and Babróg would go out of the competition at this early stage.




Some tasty pics of the damage post-fight.

The damage to Babróg following this fight was among the worst it had suffered so far going against a vertical spinner. Most of the damage had been suffered on the left side of the bot, with large gouges in the side wall, some having bent some screws and barrel nuts. The baseplate had really become warped, especially at the front where it had peeled, and some of the fork mounting blocks had been pulled off of the screw threads. This had happened occasionally in previous fights, but this time really made me aware that the design may need to be redone. Finally, the 3D printed mount for my servo had actually ended up cracking at some point, though fortunately not in a way where I would not be able to self-right. To get the bot working again, I decided to just glue the mount back together, and replace the left side with a spare (the second time in two events I’ve had to swap that side out).


The baseplate post-event. The bit sticking up was the cause of the robot losing so much mobility.

[Shooty]

Fight 3 Vs. Gold Dust, Aggro Wobba, Delta V


Since I had gone out so early in the competition, I decided to sign up for a whiteboard. This match promised to be a fun one, with a fellow control bot Aggro Wobba, and two nasty spinners; Sam Elliott’s Gold Dust was a drum robot I had been wanting to fight for years (weirdly we keep getting eliminated from competitions at the exact same time), and Delta V, a really nasty new build which had already won the Subterranean Showdown event this year. The highlight of the fight was the opening, where despite being unable to right Aggro Wobba and get them back in the fight, I was able to drive both Delta V and Gold Dust into a corner, before lifting Gold Dust up by its drum. Eventually though I had taken a hit which bent my front baseplate down again, and from there I had to deal with the usual control issues.




Babróg post-final fight. Some rather choice chunks taken out, and one of the fork blocks totally ripped off of the baseplate.


Conclusion:



Another piece of damage I only picked up on a few days later. No idea which fight the bulkhead cracked, though it doesn't seem to have been anything serious.

This was yet another fun event for myself, though it was pretty disappointing to have to deal with another low placement in a competition. I’m at a point where I do feel like most of Babróg’s failure points have been ironed out; nothing in the drive system fails anymore, the armour can take hits from every type of weapon and remain effective, and the lifter is nearly indestructible and can control opponents somewhat reliably (shout out to the new rubber mounts which survived an event with barely a scratch). This event definitely made some issues with the design stand out more than ever however, and these are much deeper problems to solve. Self-righting is slow enough to leave the machine vulnerable to free hits, the robot can get caught against the arena walls in positions where it is unable to self-right, and there are times where, whether down to the weapon belt slipping or the servo not having enough power, I just can’t get a good lift, and suplexing an opponent out of the arena seems near impossible. I still like the machine, and feel like it can do well if everything lines up, but I definitely feel like the opposition has greatly improved since 2021: in six events, Babróg has never done better than a top 16 finish at a competition, and meanwhile, control robots such as Boom Zoom, Luchador, and Grab Crab have all finally started to win events. I would like to continue to mess around with control bots, but I have now gotten to a point where I would like to re-do the design of Babróg to try and get some of that competitiveness back into the design.


By far the best lift I had achieved during the competition. Glad that Babróg got to go out on somewhat of a high note at least!

[Shooty]

Babróg V2

In 2020 I designed my third and, by far my most successful, beetleweight Babróg, a scaled down version of my featherweight Barróg Doom. Despite numerous updates to the components within the bot to improve reliability (the wheel hubs being redesigned twice, the servo hacked for continuous rotation, milled HDPE components), the actual design has remained relatively static since I initially competed way back at BBB Beetle Champs 2021, with basically none of the internal components changing. Last year's champs however left me with a lot to think about regarding what needs to be improved going into the future, and while I did attend BBB Brawl 2024, it was only in a commentator role, while I worked on the first proper redesign for Babróg!

The mostly completed CAD done in Fusion 360. Learning the new workflow could be painful at times, but I am very glad I persevered.

Going into designing the CAD (my first fully done in Fusion 360 after being finally unshackled from Solidworks), I had three main goals for improvements coming from my previous experiences:

• A more powerful lifter motor to replace the Robostar servo (as well as the large dual UBEC), capable of lifting greater loads far quicker, and without any fear of slipping mid-lift.

• A design that would, at the very least, be far less vulnerable to getting caught in positions where it could not self-right. This came down to having a lifter that could reach further backwards, as well as wheels that could grip the floor even if the robot was not completely flat on the ground.

• A link system that would instead mount to the main bulkheads of the robot as opposed to the top panel, which would make assembly and disassembly far less finicky.

For the lifter motor I could have gone for something more state-of-the-art used in some of the best current lifters, such as the SHV800 servo used in Luchador, or the Strangbox used in Grab Crab. However, these both came with an additional cost investment as well as minor reliability risks, and since I already had two 37mm 80RPM Pololu motors from running Schnake, I decided to use them as they had plenty of power as well as having a fantastic track record in BW robot combat. These motors however presented two significant technical challenges, that would shape the packaging of the entire build:

• They are big.

• They are heavy.

I also wanted to move my rear wheels back further out of the rear of my robot, which would mean going past the 5mm backplate as well as the rolled parts of my side panels. While I was somewhat tempted to upgrade my drive to something more powerful such as Repeat Maxes or Ranglebox Mars’, I had finally gotten the 1806/Robostars running 49mm custom cast wheels to a point where their reliability was perfect for my needs, and any upgrade would have required more internal space as well as being heavier, two things which were at an absolute premium in this design.

The new 37mm motor installed, alongside the smaller and lighter 380mAh 4S battery, down from Babróg V1's 500mAh.

Since the original Babróg with the motors in the rear already had its wheels as far back as they could go, the only way I could push the wheels back was to move the motors to the front wheel, so that the driven wheels could have their drive axle positioned far enough back to stick out of the back. This also gave me more space to play with concerning the lifter motor, with one caveat; no matter what I did, the 37mm motor would need to stick out of the bulkheads somewhere due to its size, and with the robot already being shorter at the rear, it would push into either the wheels or the drive belts somewhere. My solution to this was to make the belts longer, and place tensioners at either side to create a U-shape, allowing the motor to fit in the newly formed gap. Technically I only needed to do this on one side, but for tensioning and driving consistency I decided to mirror this design, which would also in theory create a greater area of contact between the pulleys and the belt, reducing the risk of slipping further!

The new drive design, reusing the old wheels and with very simple tensioners consisting of 3D printed rollers and a small amount of Vaseline.

The wheels hanging out of the new design. This keeps some of the roller protection design, but also provides a major boost in mobility.

With the distance between the lifting motor and the lifter axle being even shorter than before, belts were no longer possible or necessary to reduce and transfer the necessary torque, so I decided to upgrade to gears instead. With some advice from Jack of Luchador and The Chilli Daddy. renown, I was able to design some double helical gears with an overall reduction of 11:16, and while I had a batch printed in some PLA-ST on my recently acquired Prusa Mk4, I was able to get a friend to print a batch in Onyx, which would stand up to basically anything the lifter could throw at them, as well as several type of weaponry. Outside of the redesigned lifter gear, I basically lifted the entire rest of the lifter assembly wholesale from the original Babróg, with the exception of properly milled antler grabbing arms (now with nails hammered into them for extra grip), and replacing the main 8mm steel lifter rod with a titanium shaft, a surprisingly cheap upgrade that saved a whopping 12g, which is more of a statement to how much weight I was chasing nearing the end of this build.

The new lifter design, as well as the new position for the motors.

For the front of the robot, things remained conceptually similar, but with small optimizations. The fork mounts were totally remade on the CNC mill, and the hardox forks were redesigned to be lighter while maintaining the same functionality. While the front panels were basically unchanged and interchangeable with Babróg V1 (plus a tiny bit of additional weight saving), the baseplate and side panels were redesigned to not stick out as far forward before, to prevent scenarios where they would warp the front of the bot following a hit, as happened in my matches against Ultra-Violence and Digestive. I was also finally able to experiment with TPU for the first time, which allowed me to print a thick TPU wedge I could use against horizontals in place of the titanium wedge. This wasn’t quite as durable as the titanium wedge, but it was wider, scraped the ground better, and was easy to replace provided I made enough spares.


The new TPU config, coming in at around the same weight as the old titanium config.

A pretty good comparison between the positions of key internal components between the two bots. From the outside you'd never know how different they were internally.

Fitting the same fuse/link hybrid into the robot proved rather tricky with the space provided with the new design. With the back of the bot lower down and the wheels now at the same level as the link, I barely had enough space to squeeze the link in near the top of the bulkhead, still relatively far away from any nasty hits (and also with a brand new TPU link door). As for the rest of the electronics, I needed to buy a new smaller 380mAh battery to barely fit underneath the motor, and what can only be described as a shelving unit was designed to fit the drive ESCs as well as the new lifter ESC, with a small BEC just floating around on top. Getting all of the wiring to fit was somehow even more of a challenge than with the original Babróg (with a special shout out to the lifter motor wires and the transmitter), but eventually all of the components were fitted, and to my absolute relief, it all worked!


All of the electronics packed in to the robot, somehow in an even more compact state than before.


The new TPU link door at the back, just barely able to fit.

And so this is the condition Babróg V2 was declared good to go. The initial tests of the bot proved promising, being easily able to lift the weight of a beetle and more with a good amount of speed, and this combined with the increased range and grippy spikes should make suplexes easier than ever to achieve. The drive meanwhile controlled just like before, and should keep everything that made the original drive so effective at controlling opponents. Barely making it into the weight limit with all of its different configs, it was ready to start competing at events again, and hopefully make the step up the original bot never managed, even if I was already aware that there was likely a long road of iteration ahead of this new Babróg as well!


The new Babróg, ready to compete in Robot Rebellion 2024!