Babróg - Beetleweight Lifter Build Diary

[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 Robot Rebellion 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.