Servo - August 2012

From Near Chaos Robotics, one pound Kobalos is a horned wedge design. It took home second place in the Antweight category this year.

Another entry
from Near Chaos
Robotics was
Featherweight
Moros, using
a horizontal
spinner weapon.

Bring Back the P gs

● by Dave Graham

I've been involved in combat robotics for a number of years as both a competitor and an event organizer. One of the things I really enjoy about the sport is the variety of mementos created by the innovative minds of robot enthusiasts. I attend many events and normally compete in the Insect class of fighting robots.

Cracking the top three at a competition can garner you a reward ranging from nothing to a custom designed trophy. While I've enjoyed my share of top three finishes, many times that was not the case and I came away with nothing. As a result, I really liked the competitions that offered pogs to match winners. Even if I didn't make the top three, the odds were I'd win a match or two along the way and pocket a few pogs.

My first win at a big competition was February 2007 at the NorthEast Robotics Club's (NERC) Motorama. The match pog was a simple metal disc stamped with "NERC WINNER" that looked more like something you'd find on a dog's collar (Figure 1). I won my second pog in April 2007 at the Upstate New York Robot Battle (Figure 2). The competition was held at the Carousel Mall in Syracuse, NY (Figure 3), and as it turned out it was the last year the event was held. The match winner pog is the only memento I have of that event.

The last addition to my pog collection came from Dave Wiley who runs the California Insect Bots competitions. I met Dave at RoboGames this year, and eventually the conversation got around to match winner pogs. Dave offered me a set of the Insect class match winner pogs he used for his Bot Gauntlet event (Figure 7).