Hi, I've been neglecting this thread for reasons unknown. Since my last update I've built two robots and retired one of them. Here's an update post of sorts. I apologize in advance for how long it is.
NEW FAIRYWEIGHT -- Telefrag
Telefrag at DARC Robot Rebellion 1.2
Telefrag disassembled for repair in hotel room. (DARC Robot Rebellion 1.3)
Telefrag is a fairyweight robot that weighs 149.4 grams, building it was almost a nightmare. Before we feverishly started hacking it apart to save weight Telefrag weighed approximately 200 grams, 33% overweight. It's a wedge with tank tracks, similar to our beetleweight Kill Switch. We were originally going to name this robot something to the extent of "Micro Switch" or "Kill Switch Jr." but nothing really stuck. Due to the size and shape of its chassis we also felt the robot didn't look enough like a scaled-down Kill Switch to carry the name. We settled on Telefrag, a DOOM video game reference, and gave it an appropriate matching paint job (the teleport effect from DOOM).
The robot was built from a small RC hobby tank, stripped down to its bare bones. The robot is extremely powerful as it's running motors identical to what you'd see in a Tamiya gearbox or RC BattleBots toy from back in the day. It's quick, it's powerful, and you can easily beat it by rolling it onto its side (we're working on that but we only have .6 of a gram to work with).
NEW BEETLEWEIGHT -- Full Auto
Full Auto at DARC Robot Rebellion 1.2
With Kill Switch currently being rebuilt into it's 6.0 edition we wanted to put together something in the interim to compete with. I bought four motors of unknown make from AliExpress to make a 4-wheel drive pusher/rammer built around a metal desk organizer I found at a thrift store. That and a galvanized shutter brace that we'd sharpen to a point and use like a train plow. I had recently come across a Facebook page for "demo derbies" with scrap RC cars and this inspired me to make my own with a combat twist.
Unfortunately the motors we bought for Full Auto were garbage and were slow as hell, even though they were rated for 6V and we ran them at 12V, and put our transmitter on its "high" setting. Still, we'd come this far with the build and we wanted to see it through regardless. We gave Full Auto a great paint job and brought it to the event.
(PS: Those wheels on the outside of Full Auto are fake and are there for show.)
DARC ROBOT REBELLION 1.2Here's a video of me gabbing about my robots with some fight footage and recapping in the middle of it.
Telefrag went 3-1 and finished in second place. We got a neat little trophy for it.
Full Auto went 1-2 and did not place in its division.
Damage done to Full Auto during Robot Rebellion 1.2.
HURRICANE HARVEY
Twilight Foundry HQ, post-Harvey.
On August 25th, 2017 hurricane Harvey made landfall as a category 4 hurricane smack dab on Rockport, TX. This sh**ty little fishing town just so happens to be where I live, and the destruction was incredible. According to the city, approximately 30% of the buildings in Rockport were destroyed by Harvey. Another 35-40% of them were damaged so severely that they have been condemned by the city and will need to be demolished and rebuilt (assuming the property owners want to do that, otherwise they will just be demolished). That's 70% of the city
completely destroyed.
We did not do so well during this storm, as the photo above shows. That's the building where I lived and worked. That's where all of our robots for the past 17 years have been built, and it's gone. Damages are in the tens of thousands of dollars each in regards to property damage and personal losses. I lost most of my music collection, movie poster collection, collection of herpetology/paleontology books, video game magazine collection, and much more. We nearly lost our collection of old bots as well; some were severely water damaged but when all was said and done everything was eventually accounted for.
With no workshop however, bot building has come to an end for now.
DARC ROBOT REBELLION 1.3
Twilight Foundry Robotics at Robot Rebellion 1.2.
Robot Rebellion 1.3 was set to take place just a couple of weeks after Harvey hit and once I saw the damage done to the workshop I posted a photo to the DARC Facebook group and said "that's it, we're done". I had no plans to attend RR 1.3, however I quickly grew sick and ****ing tired of the drama and bullsh** taking place in Rockport and after getting an earful of BS from some asshole at work over something that was out of my control I just up and left and decided at the last minute to drive up to Dallas the day before the event.
I only had one robot, Telefrag, and it was only going to be me present at the event since everyone else was busy dealing with clean-up and rebuilding things. Thankfully we suffered very little damage to Telefrag at RR 1.2 so repairs were easy enough for me to carry out in the hotel room I was staying in and after tightening some screws and cleaning the tank treads Telefrag was ready to go. Worryingly Telefrag and its radio got some water damage during the story but everything still worked.
Some changes were made to the fairyweight arena that didn't sit well with me because they basically invalidated Telefrag's design. Walls were added to ALL pits in the arena as opposed to just half of them, and because of this Telefrag's effectiveness in the arena was greatly diminished. We had moments were we'd be on the verge of winning by ring out had the new walls not been there, and then ended up losing the match in the end.
Telefrag went 1-2 at Robot Rebellion 1.3 and finished 4th of 8 robots.
NEW BEETLEWEIGHT -- WILD RIDE // THE PHOENIX
The Phoenix, post-Harvey.
When Harvey hit, we were in the process of working on yet another new beetleweight named Wild Ride. We'd gotten as far as assembling the base parts (drive motors, weapon motor, battery, etc) and left it on the workshop table. When the building collapsed the robot was knocked off of the table and crushed underneath a window air conditioner unit. We recovered the parts, tested them, and decided that it would be appropriate to rename the robot to The Phoenix.
Phoenix's design is similar to Robot Wars competitor PP3D, two wheels out to the side with an undercutting horizontal blade. I wish I could give you better insight as to the motors and parts we're using for this robot, but they're all salvage parts that I know nothing about! Phoenix's drive motors I believe are Chinese knock-offs of the popular "B-series" beetle motors and the weapon motor is driven by an RC car motor attached to a propeller gearbox taken from a crashed RC plane. It all works and looks good on paper, but we're expecting it to probably break in battle.
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So I've got a full extra half pound to work with now. This is really going to help out a ton as I finish up the robot because I had some concerns that as it stands we'd be weighing in at approximately 1.25 pounds in the robot's current state.
