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!