Despite going to a ton of events the last couple of years, I haven’t written an Event Report in awhile… so let’s fix that! This event followers my 1 pound PLANT “Asuka Lotta Questions” and my 150g fairyweight “Gimli” in Las Vegas, Nevada. Thanks to BattleBots, this is now my 4th trip to Vegas in the last 5 weeks. I certainly need a break from this place after this event haha.
“a good event” is ran by my good friend Alex Price and was located in everyone’s favorite makerspace, The SynShop! After a month of exhausting heavyweight work, I’m looking forward to a more laid back event with tiny (yet just as fun) robots!
Asuka Lotta Questions
I didn’t really make enough changes to warrant a new version of the robot. So we can consider this to be Asuka Lotta Questions V2.5.
Upgrades:
- Better containing features around the drive motors
- Faster weapon motor KV (now 2522)
- Improved weapon teeth geometry for better bite
- Fixed the issue of the drum melting into the chassis
- Looser fit of the drum around the motor
- Larger washers between the drum and chassis
- New wedge attachment for fighting horizontals
Asuka Lotta Questions VS Fault Line
Fight Video: https://www.youtube.com/live/v2rbUfsJR70?si=wAvgSPKLUKbPsnZy&t=2432
Asuka’s first fight is Fault Line, a drum spinner built by Jeremy of Level 5 Robotics. Fault Line and Asuka are both 2wd bots with yellow drums, but there can be only one!
Within seconds, Asuka was able to rip off both of their forks thanks to its wider drum. After that, the next hit removed one of Fault Line’s wheels. He tapped out shortly after.
Asuka Lotta Questions VS Squirtle
Asuka’s next opponent is a meltybrain named “Squirtle”! Melty’s are already super cool, but this one is extra special because it doesn’t use any sensors to calculate its rotation. I’m a little fuzzy on the details, but I believe it uses signal strength to determine if one side is closer to the driver’s radio or not. That combined with some math allows it spin and drive. Very cool!
The first hit of the fight was a huge one! Both bots were sent flying across the arena. It also took out a drive side on Asuka and I was left crab walking for the remainder of the match.
However, Squirtle’s big drive wheel started to take more and more damage as well and eventually the tread started to peel. This greatly hindered Squirtle’s ability to drive and he eventually tapped out, giving Asuka the win.
Asuka accidentally emoting on Squirtle at the end of the match:
I took Asuka apart to investigate the drive issue. The left side drive was super crunchy so I swapped out the motor, but it still didn’t work. Looks like one channel on the Repeat DESC was also dead. Not sure if that was also from that first big hit, or if it trying to turn the crunchy motor is what killed it. After soldering in a fresh DESC, we’re ready to roll!
Asuka Lotta Questions VS Mini Twister
Now at 2-0, Asuka faces Mini Twister. MT is a 2wd midcutter that knocked Asuka out of the tournament last time we fought. However, I’m armed with a brand new wedge and was excited to see how it hold up against such a powerful horizontal!
The first hit of the match was in my favor thanks to the wedge and my quicker tip speed. On top of that Mini Twister’s weapon was struggling to spin up after this big hit as well.
The rest of the match was me getting hit after hit on Mini Twister. Their robot was not only extremely durable, but well driven as well. I chased Mini Twister to the best of my ability all around the arena scoring hits where I could. When it became apparent how durable MT was, I decided to ease off the throttle to prevent any risk of melting my drum or killing my battery.
In the end, Asuka won by JD!
Asuka Lotta Questions VS Black Knight 2000
Black Knight 2000 is a front-hinged flipper built by Toby, another Arizona builder đ
The first engagement made it apparent that BK2K’s wedge was perfect for getting under my drum thanks to its narrow profile and durable construction. Despite getting a solid hit here and there, I spent most of the match getting flipped over and having to self-right myself.
The match went the distance and BK2K won by JD, sending Asuka to the loser’s bracket.
Asuka riding up Bk2K’s wedge the first of many times:
Asuka Lotta Questions VS RikkiTikkiTavi
RikkiTikkiTavi is a 2wd vertical spinner. Winner moves onto the finals and loser gets 3rd place. So at least we’re both guaranteed a podium spot!
Asuka has a lot of trouble fighting wedges, and RTT was no different. They were able to get under me and land the first hit, sending me upside down. I had an unusually hard time self-righting, but when I was finally back on my feet, I delivered a nice big hit that damaged the front wedge of RTT a little bit and disabled their weapon, at least for a moment or two.
After a few more big hits, RikkiTikkiTavi was knocked upside down. I let them be but they started to move so I went in for another big hit. We went weapon to weapon and they’re entire robot seemed to be disabled.
RTT was then counted out. However, right when the KO was declared, I was shocked to see my drum EJECT itself from the robot entirely!!
Whoops! Turns out the screws had slowly backed out and the entire weapon fell out. Luckily this was an easy fix and Asuka is now in the finals!
Asuka Lotta Questions VS Black Knight 2000 (Finals)
Asuka is once again fighting BK2K for all the marbles! The match began just like the first, BK2K flipped me over and I struggled to get any weapon purchase on him.
Around the 2:30 mark, I decided to change up my tactics. Instead of spinning slow, I tried giving it the beans and going full throttle into him. This actually seamed to work and I got a few nice shots on the front of his robot.
We actually began to have a pretty decent back and forth this time. I’d get a nice big hit and Toby would flip me over. Around 1:30 I got a nice big shot that sent BK2K flying backwards.
BK2K then took control and got in a few more flips and even a pin. However, at 0:40 Asuka lands a critical hit that completely ripped the front off of BK2K’s scoop. This allowed to me to get in a few more last-second big hits and take more control of match.
However, BK2K’s weapon was still fully functional, allowing them to get another flip or two on me before the match finally ended and went to a JD.
I won’t lie, I thought I had this match in the bag, but the judges didn’t seem to see it that way. You know what they say, if you don’t want to lose a JD, don’t let it go to the judges to begin with. Oh well, I’ve certainly been on the other side of JD’s similar to this where I know for a fact I should have lost but ended up getting the win. The judges give-ith, and the judges take-ith away.
At the end of the day, Asuka still podiumed at a respectable 2nd place! I’m extremely happy with how well the robot performed and I already have a few ideas to help with fighting narrow wedges like BK2K and Rikki in the future, so be on the lookout for V3!
Gimli
This is Gimli V12. Geez, I’ve been running this robot for nearly a decade now. A bit of background, about 2 hours before I was supposed to leave for Vegas, I realized the bot was 10 grams overweight. This is a pretty significant error in fairyweights. Should I have just given up and let it at home? Probably. But instead, I ended spending the next several hours redesigning, reprinting, and rebuilding Gimli to be lighter. So instead of driving to Vegas and spending the night there, I got about 3 hours of sleep and then hit the road.
Oh boy, 4:30AM, let’s drive to Vegas and fight robots!
Gimli VS Mirage
When I think “fairyweights”, I think Jeremy of Level 5 Robotics. He is easily one of the best fairyweight builders in the world and one of my personal favorite fairyweight builders. Because of this, I was both excited and worried to be fighting Mirage right off the bat.
The new version of Gimli drives very poorly. The chassis is too floppy because of my last second weight reductions. Because of this, There’s usually only one wheel on the ground. On top of all that, it also turns very slowly because of the immense gyro forces.
After a few good back and forth hits, Gimli actually started to drive much better. I’m not sure why this is, maybe he bent me back into shape or something.
I was slowly able to bring Mirage down, taking out forks and eventually a side of drive. The match went the distance where Gimli won by JD.
Instead of using regular 95A TPU, this version of Gimli is using a stiffer durometer, 64D TPU. The downside of this material is that it seems much more likely to crack, as shown here where Mirage hit my fork and cracked the mount.
Nothing a soldering iron can’t fix though. I did my best to stir weld the plastic back together and get Gimli ready for its next fight. (Forgive the blurry photo)
Gimli VS Ditto
Gimli is fighting Jeremy once again, this time against Ditto, a double horizontal bristle bot. Gimli and Ditto had fought in the past with Ditto taking the one. It was time to try and even the score.
The first hit of this match was an absolute explosion that sent Ditto flying into the roof of the arena. Gimli was actually driving decently too. The next hit though was the opposite, and Gimli was sent flying backwards.
We continued to trade blows in a pretty crazy back and forth. Gimli actually ripped one of Ditto’s standoff’s up and out of the robot, causing Ditto to grind against its own chassis.
Then Ditto landed a nice hit that began to tare up one of my top plates. This caused the robot to warp and I was back to tripod-ing. At this point, my weapon wires were sticking out of the robot and I was expecting them to get sliced at any second now.
During one of these weapon on weapon hits, Ditto shattered the epoxy that holds the weapon to the motor can. He shoved the blade off to one side where it rubbed against the chassis and I couldn’t get it to spin. This led to me getting stuck upside down. I tapped out, giving the win to Ditto after an action-packed match.
While Gilmi was still electrically functional, the chassis was pretty beat up. Forks were missing, top plates were destroyed, and the uprights were cracked. I needed to do a full chassis swap. The reason Gimli is so compact is because it uses no connectors and everything is directly soldered. This comes back to bite me in situations like this though, especially since I can’t simply lift the electronics out. Wires need to be desoldered, then snaked back through the chassis, and then pulled out. I ended up having to use my postponement and just barely got it working again for my next fight.
Gimli VS Torpedo
It’s 2wd vert VS 2wd vert! One of my motors was soldered in backwards, making the robot even more difficult to drive. Luckily for me, Torpedo was having a lot of trouble moving as well. This… was certainly one of the fights of all time. Neither robot was really able to do anything at all. If it wasn’t for a wheel randomly falling off of Torpedo, this match could have been decided by a coin flip. However, luck seemed to be on my side, and Gimli lives to fight once more.
“Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good”
Gimli VS Saloon Sweeper
Saloon Sweeper is a pretty neat horizontal. It uses the vibrations of just one motor to move using bristles but then steers using the torque reaction of the weapon. After my match with Ditto, I was worried about the epoxy failing on my weapon while fighting another horizontal.
Once again, Gimli can’t drive because of the warped frame. I just kinda crab-walked around the arena getting hits where I could. After a few solid smacks, Saloon lost weapon control and the robot came to a stop. Gimli wins by KO.
Gimli VS Red Rocket
Red Rocket is one of Jeff Water’s more unusual builds. It moves by using a large metal propeller that is also the weapon. Then a tiny wheel in the back steers the machine.
The match began with Gimli immediately flipping itself onto its back with its own immense weapon power. After self-righting, we exchanged a couple of big hits before one of the legs of Red Rocket was bent forward, entangling its own weapon.
This fight was now heavily in my favor, however, after landing another big hit and bouncing all around the arena, I landed in a funny position I didn’t have enough weapon motor torque to self-right from. I was counted out and the win went to Jeff and Red Rocket.
Gimli is now out of the tournament and tied with Much Yolo for 5th place, not bad for a last second panic redesign!