Wow!!! What a weekend!! After 1½ years of off/on building, I finally got to compete.
Friday night was check-in and safety inspection. The weight limit was 12.9 lbs. and Kram weighed in at 12 lbs. 15.2oz. That's actually a tad over, but close enough to slide by.
Saturday morning the competition began. I got drawn for the very first match of the event, against Tangled Marionette. At 10:15 we finally got the start signal and we both went full throttle head-on. Both bots bounced off each other and spun around for the next hit. At this point I realized how slick the steel floor was, as I over-steered constantly trying to control Kram. Tangled Marionette backed into Kram and knocked it's left wheels off the edge of the floor. You see the arena floor used 4" I-beams around the perimeter as a barrier, but there was a 2' gap on the South side and that's where Kram got pushed off. So there it sat with two wheels over the edge, and the other two up in the air, stuck! Not even 9 seconds into the match and I was stuck. Mike Herbst was kind enough to slam Tangled Marionette into Kram several times, trying to free it, but Kram was stuck and the match was over.
Fortunately BotBash is double elimination, so I was still in the running. My next match was scheduled for 2:30 so I had lots of time to watch the other matches. The match between Hyperactive (a walker with a horz. spinner) and Saki, (a 4-wheeled wedge), would decide who my next match would be against. As it turned out, Hyperactive removed 3 of Saki's wheels, so I would be facing Saki. The match time was pushed out to 4:30 as delays and breaks occurred, and the Saki team was not ready. I had Kram on the stage and was ready to go, then they called a 45 minute dinner break. At 5:15 the Saki team was ready and our match started. Well at least this time I went the full 3 minutes, but Saki's wedge could get under Kram's scoop, so I spent most of the match riding around on top of Saki. The judges awarded the match to Saki and I was out.
We returned Sunday to see the rest of the matches and let my son drive in the rumble. We had about 9 robots left for the lightweight rumble and we had a blast. Kram banged into most of them, then drove under Hyperactive and carried it across the box. While sitting up there, Hyperactive spun up it's blade, Kram reversed, Hyperactive fell off and took a big chunk out of one of the wheels. That chunk jammed the wheel and Kram could only do circles. Then Hyperactive whack Kram again, the chunk flew out, and Kram could drive normally again. Well as normal as you can with a chunk of your wheel missing. After about 9 minutes with 4 bots left, the batteries ran down. Tangled Marionette was the eventual winner, ending the weekend that he also started. Great job Mike!!
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And here we are, just one day before the event starts. I estimate the weight to be 12.7 lbs., but the scale showed 12.95, yikes!! |
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Here's a couple of pictures I took real quick after the event. |
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Most of this damage occurred during the Lightweight rumble, from the spinning blade of Hyperactive, Jerome's walker. |
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Here's the wheel after Hyperactive was done with it. |
Well what's next. I'm hoping to add an active weapon for the Feb. competition, but since I'm right at the weight limit I will try removing two of the drive motors, and milling more material out of the frame, which should save me 3 lbs.