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.