After some early morning welding and a long drive, I arrived at the Moorlands Leisure center, soon to be the scene of
a lot of broken robots!
After passing tech check, I was able to test out my new improvememnts on Satanix in my first round melee against
Team Terminal Damage's Drumroll, and Team Cyberon's pushbot, Cyberon.
From the start, I knew there was a problem with my robot, as it kept lurching forward and backward, rarely operating
under control, but what control I did have was used to take shots and Drumroll and Cyberon, and the spikes showed they were
useful against drum-bots, lifting up Drumroll off the floor on a number of occasions.
At the end of the fight, all 3 robots were still mobile, and judges desision favoured both Drumroll and Satanix, knocking
Cyberon into the Loser's melee.
After a bruising first round, a lot of the spinners were out, but there were still some formidable robot still left in,
like Beauty 2 and 3, Hanibalito 3, Little Flipper and Little Hitter, and Tiny Toon.
The second round draw was made, and I drew one of the big guns: Little Hitter. Oh Bugger.
After arming Satanix up I knew the problems in the first fight were evident again, and, dispite my best efforts, I was
slowly beaten into submission by repeated blows from Little Hitter; a grand total of 47 hits all over the robot, the worst
on the bottom of the robot.
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This is the damage to the underside caused by Little Hitter |
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After some intensive investigating, it was discovered what finally finished me off, my right hand motor had been taking
direct hits and the gearbox insides were all over the place.
During Day 2, Mark Lumb (Little Hitter), Kenny (Flow) and myself managed to put my gearbox back together, but shortly
afterward, other problems started occouring. To start with, my Ariel broke, which was replaced with wire kindly lent
to me by Rick of Team RRC. But that was just the start.
After a loose wire connection in the power wires, a broken terminal block and some hasty soldering by Mark, Satanix was
ready to fight again. And I did. Satanix took part in the 2 last whiteboards, and in the first one, after shoving Tuff
Luck into the pit, I didn't take my finger off the throttle and followed him in. D'oh! In the second one, I was doing well
until Will Thomas' Aftershock pinned Satanix into the corner and flipped me out of the arena.
On the plus side, Satanix stayed running that entire time, which shows reliability is improving.
So, in all, an enjoyable event, and a good lesson learner about robot reliability.
Congratulations on the Winners, Beauty 2, and to the runners up, Alpha, with 3rd and 4th going to Little Hitter and Wedgie.
Well done boys!
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