Team Fission Combat Robotics

 We made the long trip down to Bristol last weekend to compete in the annual BBB Beetle Brawl. We took Exposure, and a brand new robot in Photon. Both robots passed safety checks, and then we went into the fights! Photon Drawn against Icebreaker and Abracagrabra, the first ever fight for Photon was going to be tough. Hit by Icebreaker on several occasions, I was really pleased Photon was able to get back on its wheels using the hammer-saw arm. Photon fought on getting some good pins but things started to go wrong after a hit from Icebreaker which damaged the arm gearbox. The fight ended with a KO for Icebreaker. Photon was mobilised and Abracagrabra ended up in the pit. https://youtu.be/kNDo-p7mI_M?t=1062 Photon arrived in the arena without the hammer-saw arm due to damage from the 1st fight. The plane was to use the long forks and pin or push Jackhammer. Veering off the to the left right from the start, there must have been some damage to the drive I'd missed from the 1st fight, D...

 We went down to York for our first event of the year last weekend. This was the first event for my new antweight, Isotope. It uses a lot of the parts that Fallout (now retired) used, and is a 2WD vertical spinner. Exposure Exposure went into the event mostly unchanged from Burgh. It had a new, slightly lighter chassis but was otherwise identical. The first fight was a rematch of last Dojo's final against Shuv-it 2. Unfortunately, the weapon belt problems returned for no real reason, so the weapon was dead and the fight became a driving battle. Due to the design of Exposure, it is very fast in a straight line but the weapon normally slows the turning down. However due to the lack of weapon, it was very twitchy and hard to drive and I ended up being pitted. The second fight against Sweg Demon and the third (another rematch) against Bash were similary disappointing. We forfeited the final due to having issues with the drive motors that all decided to happen at the same time. Repulsio...

 We competed at Battle in the Burgh on Sunday! Here's how it went... My first fight with Exposure was against Wee Twosers, a two-part cluster armed with vertical spinners. This fight was fairly simple, I picked a target and hit it, then they both ended up upside down. However, both outer forks were damaged, so they were not used for the rest of the event. Fight 2 was against Ultros. The first hit exposed Ultros' internals, so I backed off until I got the confirmation that we could carry on. The second hit left Ultros stranded over by the pit, where it was counted out. Exposure's final fight night fight was against Speeny. From the start I managed to smother Speeny, and give it lots of good hits before it stopped moving. This is one of the best, most consistent flurry of hits I've given out so I was very happy! On to the round of 16, I would be facing Limiting Factor. The left side drive was binding a bit, so when I got the first hit I was unable to capitalise and got st...

 Due to flexible nature of the TPU bulkheads we have used at Dojo, they allowed the weapon to flex which melted parts of the bulkhead. This led me to design some 8mm HDPE bulkheads to resolve this issue. However, this gave us another issue: where to get them made? Thankfully, the computer science department at the University of St Andrews was able to help us, and these parts look amazing! Many thanks to them! Because of how many horizontal spinners are going to Burgh, I now have a total of 4 wedges, one of which is solid TPU! The robot also weighs in 7g under the limit with four forks and a TPU lid, and spins up with the new weapon ESC. Spare wheels have been cast, and we’re pretty much ready for the weekend. Let’s hope it goes well!

 I promised a full event report, so here it is! Upon arriving at Dojo, we unpacked our stuff and got the robot set up in its heaviest configuration. This weighed at 1.496 kg, a whole 4g underweight! Good start! Before the final fight list was drawn, Baby Dead Bod was forced to drop out of the competition due to a broken weapon motor, meaning we wouldn't have to fight it for once!  Exposure's first fight was against Boom Zoom, a well-driven and aggressive lifter. As it was my first time fighting with the new version, I was nervous about fighting such a well-controlled robot. At the start of the fight, I span up and spent some time trying to get a good angle and also avoid being pinned or flipped over. I managed to hit his forks, inverting him, and after he self-righted I got round the back and pushed him into the wall, which caused him to be launched over the divider wall! I wasn't expecting anything like that to happen! (Thanks to Thomas Yau for sending us this footage earl...

 What? Somehow we ended up getting second place with the new version of Exposure! I will post the event write up later this week...