As usual I am way behind in my robot building for RobotBattles at DragonCon. I am trying to get the 12lb Probulator updated a bit with some new anti pushback changes and minor upgrades to the pneumatic spike. My 1lb Rippy is getting a nearly complete rebuid, the foam core armor did not stand up to the competition at MegaCon in march. The 3lb robot Family Joules needs a major drive train overhaul. And if I have the time, my 30lb robot Vorpal Bunny Fu Fu needs a weapon rebuild and upgrade.
Lots to do, and very little time to do it.
I have long been a fan of the Battletech game and universe, and I loved the Mechwarrior games and the Virtual World Battletech simulators. Obviously this led partially to my love of robot combat. With all the amazing advances in the last few years to bipedal robots, a “Battletech” style competition is now possible. And it will be at Robo Games in 2009: Mechwarfare. I personally hope that this particular competition takes off. There is a tremendous amount of room for innovation and creativity in these designs. Since the competition is scored on “Hit Points” and not real physical damage, the ongoing cost issues are not quite as high as a traditional combat robot competition. Although, without the violence and mayhem, I fear audience support and enthusiasim will not be quite as high.
If I get some time (Yeah right), I might start working on one of these. Sadly, RoboGames is in San Francisco, 2446 miles from my house.
The photo below is from the best looking Mech I have seen for this competition so far at Trossen Robotics.
Hagetaka, Trossen Robotics
Tomorrow, I become the third person in Chattanooga testing the new EPB fiber to the home services. I will be testing a high speed synchronous net connection at 10 Mbps. Rumor has it that EPB will be offering service up to 50 Mbps!!
I will also be testing their TV and phone services, all delivered over the fiber connection.
They say their DVR has. “really cool features” so I will be testing it. I doubt that it will be able to compete with my MythTV setup though. We will see.
I have changed the site software to WordPress and imported my old posts.
Now I need to start updating again.
In the past I have restricted my posts to robotics related material but now I am going to broaden the scope to include more of my interests and hobbies.
Also this is my first blog post from my iPhone. I am waiting at the bank.
I attended the Robot Battles at Chattacon 2008 this year.
This is the first time we have had a Robot Battles event at Chattacon in over 10 years.
The same arena we use in Atlanta at Dragon Con was brought up for the competition, and we held a small event with 1lb and 3lb robots.
I brought Rippy’s Revenge, an antweight based loosely on it’s namesake Rippy, using the same weapon blade. Rippy was destroyed at the Dragon Con Robot Battles 2007 by the arena hazard.
Rippy’s Revenge did not live up to his name and was also destroyed by the arena hazard.
I also brought a 3lb beetleweight robot called Ringo to the competition. There was only one other team there with 3lb robots, so we really just made it an exhibition match. I still lost, mostly due to the track system I stole from an RC car having horrible traction on the painted plywood arena floor.
Both Rippy’s Revenge and Ringo used brushless motors for the weapons, but I was not terribly happy with their performance. The brushless motor controllers are too smart and shut down when a heavy load like hitting another robot is introduced. Brushed motors will just keep on trying to spin. I think I prefer that behavior. Also, brushless motors require a separate motor controller, which takes up space and adds extra weight.
I have uploaded a few pictures to the media gallery. Hopefully I will have some video from Kelly Lockhart next week.
Evil Robots Inc attended the Dragon Con Robot Battles again this year.
I am hoping to obtain the full competition bracket information soon to post for everyone but the most important part is our 1lb robot Rippy took first place in the antweight competition. Rippy was later mostly destroyed by the arena hazard in the Battle Royale. The audience loved it, and so did I!.
Probulator did well in the 12lb competition but did not win.
Vorpal Bunny Fufu also did well in the 30lb competition but was out when the Vantec motor controller died while fighting Stewie Bot.
I have a lot of videos that have been sent to me that need some editing and compressing. Hopefully I will have those up in a few days.
Update-I am obviously a slacker about posting the videos. Go see some of them at the Robot Battles website.
I recently got a new HDTV and I wanted to hook up my Xbox properly, but the only inexpensive HD output cable I could find had an optical TOSLINK audio output instead of the SPDIF Coax that I needed to hook into my sound system. It also had standard stereo left and right, but wanting the best output I could get. I wanted digital audio out.
After a little research, I discovered that the signals for TOSLINK and SPDIF are pretty much the same, and I ran across this site: http://wrongcrowd.com/staticpages/index.php/xboxspdif .
HAH! I have you now! A quick dig in my electronics inventory came up with a female RCA jack. A couple bits of wire and some solder later I have my Xbox hooked up with full digital sound.
Xbox spdif output
Dragon Con Robot Battles 2006 Highlights Dale Heatherington’s video hosted by Google Video.
Dale always has the best footage. I have a bunch to edit and I will try to post it eventually.
Atlanta Robot Battles 2006.
I just returned from the Robot Battles in Atlanta. Here is a quick run down of how things turned out.
We won 1st place in the 12lb category again with Probulator!!
Dale did some amazing damage to Probulator with his new bot Omega Force. I will have some pictures and video soon.
Ugly Pancake fell flat. But, we built him in just a few hours from junk and we did not expect much.
Joe Torre took the 30 lb championship again this year.
The 12lb Battle Royale had to be fought twice since ALL robots wereeliminated. We ended up losing the second time around too due toelectrical failure. A battery tab broke loose due to a bad solderjoint. Dale Heatherington won the 12lb Battle Royale.
The 30lb Battle Royale was won by Stewie Bot. I drove Ugly Pancake off the stage pretty early in the fight.
An interesting note, the 12lb, 30lb and 12lb Battle Royale had exactly the same winners as last year.
In the Antweight fights, Rippy lost quickly but did do significant damage to his opponent and to the arena itself.
There will be some video soon of Charles Guan literally tearing anotherbot to shreds. It was removed from the arena with a broom and carriedaway in a shopping bag.
Here are some pictures of the robots for the Dragon Con Robot Battles 2006.
Rippy 1lb
Probulator 12lbs
Ugly Pancake 30lbs