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Getting parts together |
Building the Chassis |
Installing the Drivetrain |
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Electronics |
Armor |
Weapon |
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Located just close enough to the wall that I was missed by ALL the aerial crane shots. But it was a really nice location. I liked having the extra space from the "wall" of tables, which became the display area for the Giant Screw Award candidates. This was enhanced by the fact that the team on the other side of the U didn't show up. |
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The BattleBox under construction. One of the last steps is peeling the protective layer off the lexan. |
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The Hammers, or "Pulverizers", to use the TV term. They remain taped up until the prelims are over. |
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A pallet full of Spike Strip segments. (I was gonna write something cheesy like "Sugar and Spikes and everything nice." Gee, I could work for Comedy Central. The Season 4 writers sucked.) |
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Muahahaha! The source of all evil. Pete's control panel. Notice none of the buttons are labeled. That's Job Security. :-) |
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Strike Terror safely parked in its Pit area... before one of the casters broke off the hand truck under its bulk and I had to run out to Home Depot and buy another one. |
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Cara (Pteryxx) and Rob (Escher). Cara worked at Safety running the computers, and Rob did the announcing for the preliminaries. We drove down together and shared a room at the Sheraton. |
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BattleBots isn't going to allow this any more. Queen Bee and Yellow Jacket showed up as a pile of parts. But you hardly ever saw anyone trying to assemble them. "Pit Pass Bots" are going to be a thing of the past starting with Season 6. Queen Bee was scheduled to be the first opponent of my second opponent, so they got a forfeit and a pog as well. |
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A couple of the Refs looking at some videos someone set up on their table. |
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The first time after building it that I got to spin the weapon with the wheels on the ground. I'll have to see about getting some video of this online. It was COOL! Photo courtesy Don Sarver. |
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My first fight was supposed to be Tuesday night against Tenderizer. I arrogantly took a "Before" picture, since I thought he'd be an easy mark, what with oscillating spikes in the back that seemed higher than the bulk of my robot, and 1/4" lexan sides. Apparently he was never able to get through safety, and I guess shouldn't have been scheduled. At the event I was given a Pog and credit for the forfeit, but depending on where you look, and when, I either have the credit or not. |
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Arrogant Before Picture #2. THIS led me to a major strategic error. I didn't know that Little Blue Engine was not fully assembled at this point, and I figured another lightly armored lexan box, and a real POS as well. But underneath that thin, shoddy lexan and poorly welded scrap metal frame were some big ass golf cart motors and some serious speed. And not installed at that point was the frame around the perimeter that carried the long thing titanium rods that could slide under and lift robots like a spatula. |
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Not having seen the lifter on LBE before and not knowing what it did, my biggest mistake was trying to go head on. My wheel, with its very slow 20 second spinup time, was only up to maybe 1/3 speed, when we collided. Still, it packed a whollop, the lexan where it hit was permanently deformed, and the weld in the frame behind it was cracked apart. This deformed some of the support for the lifter, and the left front wheel, which threw a chain. Unfortunately, that was about all the damage I got to do, since the rest of the match consisted of him smashing me into all four walls of the arena. (My damage shots will be in the next report). Of course, being such a crappy bot, he did mess himself up a lot beating up on me, like the other damage to the lifter you can see here. |
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See what I mean by crappy welds? Apparently be being overweight, the builder had to go in and cut out major portions of the square tube chassis and weld in lighter bicycle frame tubes. Those are Chromoly steel though, and without proper heat treatment, well, look at the crescent shaped break in the tubing itself. |
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Of course, not all of the damage to the Bot was inflicted by beating Strike Terror up. This pillow block had been broken earlier during Team Circuit Breaker's illegal "driving practice" session in the box at 2am that morning. In fact, when the girl on the team (whom I call Hillary) came over asking for the delay, they said they needed the time to fix the damage caused during "Driving Practice". At the time, I briefly wondered where they'd managed to get in some practice, but I was too nervous. Here's the whole rotten story though. In order to sneak into the box and practice, they needed their radio. Rather than check out their radio from Impound, they decided to circumvent safety by turning in a bogus radio and retaining the one to their bot. Then, late at night, when virtually nobody was there, they took LBE into the box for a little driving. One witness said they claimed to have permission. In the process they damaged the bot and scratched up the spike strips (Pete was pissed). It's said they also did a little Bot Riding in the Pits, and at the same time, they "visited" my pit and slapped a "Scheduled for Destruction" sticker on my bot. Every one of these things is very un-Kosher, but it wasn't really all put together until it was too late. (Scheduled for Destruction wasn't even their bot, the builder of SfD was annoyed when he heard about the use his stickers were put to.) Seeing the sticker on my bot, I was afraid it had been messed with, and spent the morning going over every inch of my bot making sure it was okay. I missed every fight. Josh (whom I call Bill) even had the gall to come to my pit to make sure the sticker was still there. They also tried the same stickering stunt with every opponent they faced. They made a LOT of enemies there. |
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LBE had the easiest cruise to the Semi-Finals. A Bye, followed by Phere - who had an electrical failure (The bottoms dropped out of two of three Hella switches.), Dreadnought - who had an internal battery short, Iceberg - who lost a close fight, but with two pushybots, the one with the bigger motors wins. Finally Toro gave him the lesson everyone was cheering for in the Semis. In the SHW rumble, which I'm so sad I missed, Toro and The Judge teamed up. LBE was between Toro and the Judge, while Reason and Jascha were standing next to each other. They formed an alliance, and at the starting bell, while Toro and LBE were feinting at each other, The Judge swung into action and in short order flattened Little Blue engine. Here's an after picture Cara snapped. Sure, I could have denied the delay, and maybe I would have gotten the same easy ride to the Semis, or at least the Quarters, but at the same time I would have lost the respect of my fellow builders, and that is far more important. |
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This is the line to check in the first day. It pays to get there early. Or else really late. |
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Showing off Strike Terror to Steven Felk. Photo courtesy Cara Plata. |
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I got to talk to Gage Cauchois and help a little with assembling Vladiator one night. Photo courtesy Cara Plata. |
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Mechavore was here. While Comedy Central made a big deal about the chunks of lexan Shark Bite took out, Mechavore actually cut through BOTH layers during the Heavyweight Rumble. That red thing is a cable tie someone stuck through the hole. |
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Every night after fighting, one of the best places to be was the lobby of the Sheraton. They kept the bar open late for us. |
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Here's Carmen Electra at work. I love my Mavica. I love its 10x Optical Zoom. I took this from my pit table. |
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