BattleBots

Post by **rpollack** » Sat Feb 07, 2015 4:54 am

Read today that BattleBots may be coming back this summer. If you've competed, please post about your experience.

Rick

insta · Post by **insta** » Sat Feb 07, 2015 6:44 am

Oooh oooh oooh I can talk to this!

I competed in 2000, in the Heavyweight class. I was the youngest builder at the time (at 14), with my friend Kyle. I saw a lot of things, very quickly. I don't remember much of the event. I do remember that we lost horribly in the first round, and won an unofficial award for "most spectacular death". Carmen Electra is pretty, TV cameras are scary (although the combination of the two being sprung on me unexpectedly cured my public speaking phobia right then), Bill Nye is an asshole. Our match is on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDhnfMInKis, I'm the kid with the glasses.

As far as the revival ... right out of the gate: I don't think they'll pull it off. By the time we were competing, the event had lost most of its "garage flavor". We were starting to see sponsored robots in the several thousands of dollars range. Sure, most builders stuck to the 2-5k range (we were $4300), but it takes the fun out of it when you lose to somebody with deep corporate sponsorship. Our lead-acid batteries, stick-welded tube-steel frame and starter motor spinning weapon are no comparison against lithium polymer batteries, TIG-welded titanium frames, brushless motors, and a dozen spares of everything in the pits. That, and reality TV (and over-dramatized styles) are the norm now. I just see it coming back as staged fights in the pits, 8 commercial breaks to see the fight, etc.

I'm not terribly optimistic, but hopefully I'm wrong.

Bratag · Post by **Bratag** » Sat Feb 07, 2015 9:47 am

Ok I gotta know about Bill Nye. I have heard him interviewed before and definitely got a whiff of arrogant dick. What specifically was it?

Ok that out of the way.

Yay BB coming back. Just hope ABC don't sanitize it so much it loses its appeal/

Post by **rpollack** » Sat Feb 07, 2015 4:41 pm

insta - that is outstanding!! 14...wow.

I did not realize they were looking to do a reality show until you explained it...hmm...

Please be civil regarding bill nye.

Rick

Bratag · Post by **Bratag** » Sun Feb 08, 2015 12:51 am

Don't get me wrong. I think BN is a force for good add far as science goes. I was just interested.

Wonder if the new carbon fiber filament will be useful with the new BB.

insta · Post by **insta** » Sun Feb 08, 2015 7:05 am

rpollack wrote:insta - that is outstanding!! 14...wow.

I did not realize they were looking to do a reality show until you explained it...hmm...

Please be civil regarding bill nye.

Rick

I don't think they're planning to make it a reality series, I just see it happening (see: what happened to TLC, Discovery Channel, etc).

Re: Bill Nye, I'm guessing he was just tired. He'd been my childhood hero and inspiration and all that, and by the time I finally got to meet him, he couldn't be less interested in my starry-eyed wonder. He literally had this posture the entire time we were talking, and every answer was a grunt.

It was just a bit of a shell-shock is all.

JohnnyRobot · Post by **JohnnyRobot** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 5:44 pm

Yikes, that Tazbot is a mean looking machine. It looks like you got hit by the pop-up saw blades too.

I see what you mean about losing it's "garage flavor". You can totally tell that they had a lot more invested into that Tazbot. Decimator looks agressive and hit him really, really hard. Perhaps the Decimator, decimated his battery level... (depleted 10%)

insta · Post by **insta** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 6:50 pm

JohnnyRobot wrote:Yikes, that Tazbot is a mean looking machine. It looks like you got hit by the pop-up saw blades too.

I see what you mean about losing it's "garage flavor". You can totally tell that they had a lot more invested into that Tazbot. Decimator looks agressive and hit him really, really hard. Perhaps the Decimator, decimated his battery level... (depleted 10%)

Our robot, Decimator, used two 12v winch motors and mostly gokart parts after that. We had a pneumatic ram fed by a 40oz CO2 tank, and that ram is what made the whole match so interesting. The winch motors had a serious timing advance on them (since winches need to be much stronger in the retract than the let-out), so we had to modify one to reverse the timing advance. Power was provided by a pair of Hawker Odyssey dry-cell batteries in parallel (although we had a contactor to switch them to series if we wanted to turn the whole electrical system into 24v and propel a cloud of robot plasma at our opponent).

Tazbot had barbs around his base that were spring-loaded to the floor sharpening them as he drove. Our wedge was not designed for that combination (we had a 3mm gap or so). We were going about 30mph at impact, and the half-inch polycarbonate just gave up immediately. All the M8 bolts holding the shell sheared & flexed, and the skin started rubbing against the tires. The winch motors ended up staying damn near stall the whole time, and the batteries dutifully provided the 2200A they said they would (I think each motor drew 600A). This liquefied the insulation on the 8awg wiring to the motors and is what caused that cute little curl of smoke a few seconds into the match. Due to the enclosed design, most of the smoke stayed inside the frame...

Except after about a minute or so. When the wedge sheared off after the first impact, it took our antenna with it (since we cleverly taped the antenna to the backside of the wedge...). The driver lost the ability to fire the ram, which was something we needed to do every 30 seconds or so, since the regulator would freeze because the CO2 tank was on its side. The air system was regulated into a recycled fire extinguisher, which held air at 200 PSI with a huge orifice until it was ready to fire through the ram. When the radio gave up the ram signal thanks to the antenna loss, the whole thing eventually overpressured and blew off a hose, and that's when all that smoke trapped inside the frame came billowing out. Interestingly this helped to cool the insulation on the wiring and let us keep going for awhile longer, until the modified motor gave out and melted the insulation again.

My best takeaway from that whole thing: Hawker Odyssey batteries are awesome. You should get them.

JohnnyRobot · Post by **JohnnyRobot** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 8:56 pm

When I was 14, I tried to make a go cart frame using a car battery as a stick welder. Life on the farm.

jsc · Post by **jsc** » Tue Jul 14, 2015 2:59 pm

So, now that the first few rounds have taken place, any thoughts?

I think the commentators are unobjectionable, although it is a little weird to see Kenny Florian in this context. I wonder if the designated heels are really like that, or playing for the cameras. I'm slightly annoyed that the MIT contingent just had to be the most aggressively oddball group of geek eccentrics you could find (the mouse ears were a bit twee). And holy cow are lithium ion batteries powerful, although we've already seen several almost-fires already.

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