Servo - November 2012

Robot" and "Best Engineered" awards; a multi-bot; and Gene Burbeck's returning

2011 champion, the undefeated wrecking machine called One Fierce Bush Wacker (Figure 13).

After two rounds of round-robin competition, both Threecoil and One Fierce Bush Wacker were undefeated, and Dead Metal and multi-bot Muttley and Dick Dastardly were winless. In the opening match of round three, Chris Atwood drove Dead Metal to a victory over the multi-bot securing a third place finish. Chris also received the "Best Driver" award.

The championship match pitted the raw spinning power of One Fierce Bush Wacker against the complex flipper of Threecoil. One Fierce Bush Wacker had already demonstrated that destructive power on the multi-bots by ripping the wheels off of Muttley and then seriously damaging the weapon assembly of Dick Dastardly (Figures 14 and 15).

After losing badly to Burbeck and the Bush Wacker last year at BotBlast with an innovative but ineffective flipper bot named Reclipso that simply failed to launch anything, O'Donnell again found himself facing Burbeck and the Bush Wacker in the final match. This time, it was his redesigned and renamed flipper bot Threecoil that would answer the bell.

Changes to O'Donnell's bot included the addition of a flywheel to the flipper mechanism making it an effective weapon that could repeatedly fire. But could Threecoil and its complex flipper mechanism survive repeated massive hits from Burbeck's proven killing machine?

The match started with the Bush Wacker heading straight for Threecoil, but the big spinning blade was deflected by Threecoil's armor. Then, Threecoil lifted the Bush Wacker and moved it — didn't flip it,

1st:

2nd:

3rd:

TABLE 1. BOTBLAST WINNERS.

Fleaweight Antweight Beetleweight Lolcat Little Box Ripto

John Parsons Richard Kelley Kyle Singer

Mantis Three Coil Zac O'Donnell Tracked Terror Chris Atwood Gyroscopic One Fierce Lawn Boy Sean McKeown Gene Burbeck One Fierce Bush Wacker Gene Burbeck Baby V Heath Hill Szalor Cody Bennett D- 12

Rumble: Baby Box Richard Kelley Kyle's Cutter Dave Graham Coercion John Parsons Dead Metal Chris Atwood

just lifted it and pushed it back a bit. It was a scene that would be repeated throughout the match — the Bush Wacker unable to get a bite on Threecoil, and Threecoil lifting the Bush Wacker pretty much at will.

About halfway through the match, it appeared the Bush Wacker lost one of its drive wheels making Threecoil’s job easier. You could sense Gene Burbeck's frustration toward the end of the match when the whine of the Bush Wacker's blade increased as Gene throttled it up.

The match went the distance and the judges awarded a unanimous, well-deserved decision to winner Zac O'Donnell and his engineering marvel — the 2012 BotBlast Mantis champion, Threecoil.

A list of the winners is shown in Table 1, and a list of the special award winners as either voted on by the competitors or selected by the event organizer is shown in Table 2. The winners shared a bounty of prizes, including custom designed sequenced starting lights for first place, trophies and plaques for second place, third place, rumble winners, and special awards, and tools and robot building components donated by sponsors.