Robot Rebellion 2022 Event Report:

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. He unfortunately didn’t have much time to get much practice with the far more sensitive drive required at BW level, and a lot of the first morning was spent trying to troubleshoot an incredibly frustrating problem with the robot not responding with the transmitter after a restart (the problem ended up being an issue with capacitors in the BEC requiring a longer time between turning on and off). With all of that out of the way though, both bots finally ended up passing their tech checks, and the tournament was underway.

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!

Schnake: Fight 1 Vs. EMP


Fight starts at 41:31

Schnake’s debut fight was against EMP, a very unique four-bar electric flipper built by Felix Townsend. EMP actually managed to flip Schnake within the first few seconds of the fight and beached it on the wall, but through a mixture of sportsmanship and wanting to shake his own robot down more, EMP flipped Schnake back over, and so the fight continued. Schnake actually had some impressive drive power, and the forks at the front were able to consistently win the ground game, but what the robot really suffered from was control. All of the swapping of transmitters earlier gave me no time to properly adjust the trims on Schnake, and that combined with perhaps some issue with the chassis meant that the bot naturally turned to one side when going forward, and totally straight going backwards. I would struggle to drive this in the best of times, and my dad had far less experience at the class than I did, but all this meant Schnake really struggled with the ground game, and never really got to use its weapon. Both bots ultimately struggled with drive, but EMP ended up getting the win due to better control. Slightly disappointing, but this fight at least gave us a baseline on things to improve about the robot going forward.


Schnake going into its first fight. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find too many images from this event, so photos may be sparse.

Schnake: Fight 2 Vs. 7th Circle


Fight starts at 2:22:44

Schnake’s second match was against 7th Circle, a rather nasty vertical spinner by Dave Weston. Dave is an excellent driver, so we knew the danger going into this one, but fortunately he seemed to be struggling with drive on one side, and this gave my dad some time to pick when he wanted to engage. Considering Schnake’s continuing drive issues, my dad drove very well, getting around to the sides of 7th Circle, and generally able to push it around. Unfortunately, one nasty hit was all that was needed to send Schnake flying, upside down and near the pit. The robot was meant to be invertible, but manufacturing issues meant that I couldn’t get it to work reliably, and so 7th Circle took a well earned win.

Schnake: Fight 3 Vs. Swag Demon


Fight starts at 4:05:52

Not too much to talk about with the third fight unfortunately. Swag Demon had the speed and excellent control to beat nearly anyone in the tournament, and unfortunately control issues were once again to blame, seemingly unable to drive straight easily. After a few chunky hits Schnake was beached and counted out. One positive to take from this fight however was Schnake’s durability; the side armour survived many direct hits, and nothing on the robot ever really seemed to break.

Schnake: Fight 4 Vs. Step Up 3D


Fight starts at 26:19

Schnake’s final opponent would be Step Up 3D, a control bot that had basically been destroyed twice before this fight, and was certainly durable, if not a little past its peak. After some slow driving from Schnake to see how drivable the bot was, it seemed like we had both the ground game advantage and the mobility to control the fight. Unfortunately, Schnake ended up going into the walls at full force and ended up getting a wedgelet stuck. Being unable to move freely, the bot ended up getting counted out. A disappointing end for sure, but lots to learn from.

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


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

Now that both bots were 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:


Schnake and Babróg both tech checked (with some panic) and ready to go!

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. Schnake was far more of a mixed bag than Babróg, as is to be expected from a bot at its first event. The robot certainly had the speed necessary, and its durability was fantastic, but this didn’t make up for its issues. The biggest issue was its driveability, it seemed impossible to re-do the mixing in such a way as to make it drive slowly in a straight line, something my dad struggled with greatly. The new wheel hubs promised a lot, but unfortunately they started to come loose very quickly after fights as the event went on, hurting control even more. Finally, the robot was not able to drive upside down at all, due to the tight tolerances everything was under. A lot to learn from though, and I’m already considering possibilities for a Schnake V2.

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