Battle In The Burgh 4:

My final event for 2024 was one that had been on my bucket list for a long time, Battle In The Burgh. Any excuse to go to Scotland was always appreciated (helps to have family in Edinburgh to stay with!), and the idea of a multi-day event always appeals to me. Unfortunately this iteration of the competition had to be shortened down to a single day, but the field still seemed like a super interesting one, with a lot of heavy hitters and robots you usually don’t see as often in English events. Babróg went over almost literally untouched from BBB Champs, save for a quick once-over of everything to replace any cracked prints, clean out any pulleys, and to tighten or replace any screws needing attention.

The format for BITB 4 (or “Burgh”, as the cool kids would call it. Allegedly. Possibly.) was a fight night format, where every robot would compete in three 1v1 matches, drawn at random at the start of the day. Points were awarded for wins, and victories via judges decisions were worth less than KO’s. From there, the top 16 scorers would move on to a single-elimination bracket until a winner was crowned. There would also be a tag-team competition available for those who were knocked out before the top 8, so based on previous pedigree I was a shoe in for taking part in that.


Babróg ready for its first fight!

Fight 1 Vs. 3 Robots In A Trench Coat:


Fight starts at 00:00.

My first match was against my pit neighbour, 3 Robots In A Trench Coat, a modular design capable of swapping its internal components between three different armour and weapon configurations. I was actually asked by the builder Alys which config she should run, and I answered honestly that the wide TPU config would be the most effective in getting underneath and beaching me. This would also be a solid test for my new TPU wedgelets config in how effectively I could get underneath such a squirrely opponent, even when I may not have the reach advantage.




Some pretty intense back and forth between the two of us in this fight. Full credit to Reese from RBS Media for the fantastic fight photos!

This was a fight of sweaty palms for both of us I reckon. 3 Robots had an advantage in raw drive power, but this left the robot to wheelie quite a lot, even with a large magnet embedded in the central wedge. My main goal was to keep my front end pointed at 3 Robots at all times, as if they got around me, I could get pushed into the pit very quickly. Getting a solid lift on 3 Robots proved remarkably tricky due to its shape, as well as how often a wheel tended to be on the ground. This was one of my more boring drives, but control was the aim for me, and I felt like that was the major factor that pushed the fight in my favour. 3 Robots did manage some very nice slams on Babróg, and both of us danced around the pit numerous times, but ultimately it ended up going to the judges, and Babróg managed to start the competition off with a win.

Fight 2 Vs. Dearc:


Fight starts at 9:21.

My second match was against another control bot in Dearc, run by Chris Thompson, and designed by Ari Callister. Given that Ari’s other robot, Frenzy, had won the last competition I was at, I knew that Dearc would be a solid bot, and it’s a credit to Chris that he got the bot working as well as he did going into this fight after surviving a full distance fight against the nasty horizontal spinner Just a Wee Slice. Dearc would run its long forks in this match, so this would be another major test as to how well Babróg could perform against metal forks.


Me and Dearc coming together.

The start of the fight proved pretty cagey, I seemed to have a small advantage in the ground game, but I was unable to get a decent grab on Dearc, while they managed a single good grab on me, but were unable to convert it to anything major. I felt like I was starting to build some momentum in my favour, but unfortunately I seemed to lose a side of drive a little over halfway into the fight. All I could do at this stage was to keep my front facing Dearc at all costs, and this led to the one and only suplex I would achieve in the match. The fight ultimately went to the judges once more, and by a split decision, I had done just about enough to secure my second win.

After the fight, I was left with the time-consuming process of dismantling the broken drive side and to see what was the issue. I finally discovered that the failure was that the metal teeth on the pinion gear had been completely stripped, removing the connection from the motor to the gearbox. On one hand, I was happy that the failure was not in the same manner as previous failures such as plastic gears failing or the pinion coming loose from the shaft, but this did have me wondering how much I could use each drive setup before they needed to be replaced. I do also suspect that the gearbox may not have been entirely centered on the motor, and that may have been a cause of the increased wear, but I feel like I would need to get some more data before jumping too early to conclusions.


The completely rounded out pinion. Trust me, getting this out was a pain.

Fight 3 Vs. Medusa:


"Fight" starts at 00:42.

My final fight night match was meant to be against Medusa, a very solidly built horizontal spinner. I saw this as a perfect time to test out my new TPU horizontal setup, although with all of the repairs I needed to do with the motor replacement, I was slightly concerned that I would run out of time to make it to the match. The repairs were eventually completed however, and I was ready to complete. Unfortunately, Medusa has sustained too much damage to its electronics in its previous matches, and so with my proof of functionality, I took a third win via technicality. Not the cleanest run of fights I have ever had, but I was happy to have made it in a very healthy state to the round of 16!

Fight 4 Vs. Daisy (the Cow):


Fight starts at 00:00.

My top 16 match was against Daisy (the Cow), another lifter bot which interestingly ran a shuffler mechanism for drive, allowing the robot to be heavier than standard designs. From previous matches, I had noticed that while Daisy was invertible, it couldn’t use its lifter to self-right, so once I secured the first lift, I wasn’t going to go for another unless I knew I could take full advantage of it. I had one scary moment near the pit where my fork nearly got stuck on one of the lips of it, but I managed to free myself. Eventually I got another nice lift, went for the pit button, but instead managed to suplex Daisy out of the arena, scoring my first suplex OotA and making it past the top 16 for the first time in one move!