FIGURE 11.
Fleaweight
bot Berserker
internals.
FIGURE 12. Antweight
bot WhipperSnapper.
FIGURE 13. Antweight
bot Low Blow.
FIGURE 14.
Antweight bot Firag.
Flea in the competition.
There was one other innovative
Flea weight bot — Zack Witeof’s
Chairman Meow (Figure 9). Zack
also uses a Baby Orangutan
controller connected to a standard
RC receiver. The Baby Orangutan
controller has two bi-directional
motor ports that drive Pololu metal
gearhead motors. The code is
Pololu’s 3pi RC program, which is
available on their website
www.pololu.com. The beauty of
Zach’s bot is the cost — Baby
Orangutan controllers cost only $20.
That’s a cheap dual channel
electronic speed controller!
The Antweight competition saw
several of the 21 Ant combatants
distance themselves from the rest of
the field and fight it out for the
gold. Andrea Suarez of Team Busted
Nuts and her bot “WhipperSnapper”
(Figure 12 — shown with the blade
in the horizontal position, but by
design fought with the blade in
both the horizontal and vertical
positions) fought their way to the
final match after sending high
school freshman Warren Purvin’s
bot “Low Blow” (Figure 13) to the
loser’s bracket in what can only be
described as a fluke match. After
Low Blow ripped a wheel off of
WhipperSnapper, the wheel got
stuck under Low Blow and raised
him up so his tires weren’t touching
the arena floor. It was a count-out
for Low Blow for non-movement
and another victory for Team
Busted Nuts.
FIGURE 15.
Antweight bot
Kyle's Cutter.
FIGURE 16.
Antweight bot
Meerkat Mreow.
FIGURE 17.
Antweight bot
Meerkat Mreow
after fight with
WhipperSnapper.
32 SERVO 01.2012