Featured This Month:
Features
26 BUILD REPORT:
Trilobite – a Tough
Beetleweight Brick/Wedge
by Pete Smith
29 BUILD REPORT:
A Team Building Exercise
by Pete Smith
36 PARTS IS PARTS:
Fingertech ‘Silver Spark’
Gearmotor Review
by Thomas Kenney
38 PARTS IS PARTS:
Susie’s Saga Continues –
The Beginner’s Guide
to Motors
by Morgan Berry
40 END OF THE ALKALINES
by Pete Smith
41 CARTOON
Events
31 Upcoming and Completed
32 EVENT REPORT:
Clash of the Bots 2
by Pete Smith
33 EVENT REPORT:
BOTBLAST Rocks
Columbia Mall
by Dave Graham
26 SERVO 10.2011
BUILD REPORT:
Trilobite — a Tough Beetleweight
Brick/Wedge
● by Pete Smith
Ihave long held the opinion that a good wedge/brick is the best
type of bot for most beginners in
the sport. Too many people try to
build a complex bot
with a weapon before
having acquired the
experience and
knowledge required to
make one work at all,
let alone well. Often,
they end up with a
bot with an ineffective
or non-functioning
weapon on a slow
weak chassis. The
result is usually a
boring shoving match
if two such bots meet
— or worse — the
rapid and total
destruction of that
first bot when it meets
one of the more
seasoned teams. This
experience is not likely
to encourage them to
stay in the sport!
The best first bot is probably
also the cheapest: hack a RC toy.
That’s what my son and I did
when he wanted his first bot way
FIGURE 1.
CheepShot damage.
FIGURE 2. XI.
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