Competition: ARC Roborumble June 2023
Last year’s ARC was my first competition, so I was very excited to see how I had improved. My main goals for this event were to have functional drive systems that would allow me to practice strategic driving. I brought two robots, my full combat Antweight, Billet Bob, and my Plastic Antweight, Goober. Billet Bob is a milled aluminum billet chassis “wedge bot” and Goober is a horizontal spinner that was initially meant to be driven in the same style as Thagomizer, with the wedge being used to defend, while the spinner is dragged behind able to spin to attack the sides of the opposing robot.
Billet Bob vs Tsunami
My first fight of the day was against Nick Dobrikov and his vertical spinner, Tsunami. Unfortunately, Nick had been having issues with the receiver in Tsunami that would cause the robot to become entirely unresponsive for unclear reasons.
I struggled with how fast Billet Bob was in this fight, but I was still able to get some nice engagements with his weapon, and eventually, due to the aforementioned gremlins, Tsunami’s weapon spun down. Without an active weapon, we were into a pushing match and it turned out Billet Bob’s pushing capabilities were exactly what I had hoped. I pushed Tsunami into a good pin. After I backed off, Tsunami was entirely unresponsive and was counted out, giving Billet Bob its first win by KO.
Billet Bob vs Andrew’s Malice
I was very excited to get to fight Andrew’s Malice. It is a horizontal spinner that deals a lot of damage and is exactly what I built Billet Bob to fight. The fight started and I attempted a box rush, but Billet Bob’s steering was more powerful than I could compensate for. On one of the bigger hits, the axles for one of Billet Bob’s drive side pulled out. The axles were meant to be bolted into an aluminum plate inside the bot, but I ran low on time and did not have a chance to have them made. Instead the plates were just printed plastic, so the threads pulled out fairly easily. Other than that issue, Billet Bob functioned exactly how I wanted it to. The TPU wedge and rear bumper protected the chassis from bigger hits and allowed me to drive straight into the weapon of Andrew’s Malice.
Goober vs Trash Talker
Goober’s first fight was against Trash Talker, a horizontal overhead spinner. I attempted to implement my plan of driving with the wedge forward and spinning to attack. But in the first 20 seconds of the fight, it was obvious that the weapon was too heavy. As a result, Goober turned very slow. So I altered my strategy and drove backwards with the weapon in front.
After a big hit from Trash Talker, I discovered another major problem. The weapon on Goober was getting barely any bite. This meant the weapon exchanged very little energy when hitting the opponent. I suspect that the poor bite is caused by Goober being very slow, another symptom of the overly heavy weapon.
Trash Talker was much quicker as its weapon was right above its center of mass. This gave it the advantage on almost every hit. Midway through, the top plate that Goober’s weapon was mounted to cracked and the weapon started to angle while spinning. At the same time, however, Trash Talker’s overhead spinner broke off.
But due to the lack of bite, I had trouble capitalizing on this advantage. Even once Trash Talker was wedged into the wall, I still had trouble delivering the decisive hit. Instead, Goober just bounced off, nearly falling in the pit in the process. After an unstick, Goober mostly flopped around before being finally pitted.
Billet Bob vs Dust Devil
Billet Bob was next up against Dust Devil. Dust Devil is Viper Kit horizontal spinner with the spinner set at a 45° angle. In this fight, I was focusing on always squaring up my wedge to the opponent. Billet Bob held up well with every hit it took and the fight ended with Dust Devil stuck against the far wall and a win for Billet Bob. I think this fight included some of my best driving for the day.
Billet Bob vs Smushed Bread
Billet Bob was designed to be a brick that could be driven into a spinner’s weapon over and over until the weapon breaks. Smushed Bread, however, is a control bot that wins via control and aggression. Billet Bob did not have a very good answer to control bots, so I was very nervous about this matchup. I had two fully built versions of Billet Bob, a more control-oriented configuration with forks, and a “damage sponge” configuration with a big TPU wedge. I chose the wedge configuration because the chassis for the control-oriented configuration was having issues with the drive gears meshing. This made the fight far more difficult, as Billet Bob had no options for getting under Smushed Bread. I did get some good pins with Billet Bob, but Smushed Bread got more good pins and did a much better job of controlling the pace of the fight.
Goober vs Shuffle Go Brr
My next fight was Goober vs Shuffle Go Brr. Shuffle Go Brr was a shuffler drum spinner. It uses legs mounted to a cam to shuffle around the area, gaining it a weight bonus. In an earlier fight, Shuffle Go Brr had fought Axolotl Questions, where the drum and uprights were broken. In place of the drum, a spare fork from Trash Talker was mounted to the front of the robot. Goober started out the fight decently. However, the lack of bite resulted in Goober chipping away at Shuffle Go Brr rather than hitting it with more energy. Midway through the fight, one of Goober’s wheels fell off. From there, the mix of Goober’s weapon being too heavy, and the limited drive capabilities resulted in Shuffle Go Brr being able to push Goober around the arena. As I was moved towards the pit, I realized that the spinner of Goober was pulling it towards the pit. To avoid falling into the pit I tried slowing the weapon down. This made things much worse, so I tried spinning back up. But this just pulled me down into the pit. Shuffle Go Brr’s aggressive driving won out in the end, securing it 3rd place in the Plastic Antweight bracket.
This fight was one of, if not the, most fun fights of the day. The energy at the conclusion was amazing and is a perfect example of why I love combat robotics.
Grudge: Billet Bob vs Axolotl Questions
With no more robots left in the bracket, it was time for grudge matches. The grudge match I was able to setup was Axolotl Questions against all three of my robots, two Billet Bobs and Goober, all connected to the same receiver. This goofy idea was spectacularly fun and so difficult to drive. The two Billet Bobs were completely unscathed, but Goober’s spinner mount came undone and the motor ripped itself free from its wires. Goober’s wheel also fell off again, which leads me to suspect I cut the motor shafts too short for the wheel hubs to bite into.
Beetleweight Rumble
At the last minute I decided to add the control-oriented Billet Bob to the Beetleweight Rumble. It was a great time that was very fun to be apart of. Wumbo, a Beetleweight with a scary spinning peeled open the lid of Billet Bob, bending it into the wheels and immobilizing Billet Bob. Later in the rumble, Wumbo hit the immobilized Billet Bob and gutting it: entirely removing the lid and allowing all of the electronics to fall out.
Event Reflection
I was very happy with how ARC Roborumble 2023 went. Billet Bob exceeded my expectations and worked very well and Goober functioned decently with a lot of room to improve. I was able to work towards my goal of becoming a better strategic driver in all of my fights. Billet Bob went 3-2 and Goober went 1-2. The main changes to be made to Billet Bob is simply replacing the axle supports with the proper aluminum ones and printing the wedge more solid. I also need to work on developing a better answer to other control bots, possibly improved metal forks.
Meeting everyone at Roborumble was a blast last year, and this event topped that by a mile. I am excited to compete against the new friends I have made at this competition.
Footage courtesy of The Synshop Livestream Full video available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4ebaXLX5vE
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