Servo - January 2013

one pound Insect class bots. Hosted by Western Allied Robotics (WAR), the event included seven teams with 12 bots from the Pacific Northwest.

Western Allied Robotics has been hosting robotic combat events in the Pacific Northwest for over 10 years; their first event was held outdoors in Seattle’s Gasworks Park. (Happy 10th anniversary, WAR!) Some members of WAR have competed in BattleBots and Robot Wars, and several have medaled at RoboGames and COMBOTS.

The Seattle Center Armory (a.k.a., the Center House) is a great venue for a robotic combat event. Newly remodeled, there is plenty of space for the arena, builder pits, and spectator seating. Cafes, shops, and diverse entertainment are all under one roof. Sharing the grounds are the Space Needle, Pacific Science Center, Experience Music Project, and Key Arena.

This year’s Bot Brawl included a good mix of newcomers and seasoned veteran builders. Several new bots were introduced at the event. Pugly (Figure 2) is a Beetleweight egg beater bot built by Matt Hall of Team Dawg; it’s his first robot. Pugly held its own in several rounds of stiff competition. Matt also built an Antweight wedge bot Chewtoy (Figure 3).

Chewtoy lived up to its name as saw-blade equipped opponent Velociraptor gnawed on the wedge and armor, but Chewtoy kept on going. Matt made a fine showing for his first event. WAR is always looking for more Antweight robots locally, as it is a much underused class here.

Joshua Beavers of Team Beavers Bots built Whitebox (Figure 4), a new Beetleweight wedge reminiscent of Raptor 2. 2. At one point in the fight tree, the two bots squared off and it was difficult to tell them apart.

Allosaurus (Figure 5) is a new Beetleweight drum spinner built by Doug Brown and Dawson Brown of Team DinoBots. Allosaurus was a scramble build from parts salvaged from retired bot T-Rex 2.0. Despite the short build time, Allosaurus performed well and placed third. Rob Purdy of Gausswave built a new robot called Scram — a Beetleweight four-wheel drive wedge bot.

The wheels were really flying in a fight between veteran builders Kevin Barker and Rob Purdy, with their respective robots Debacle and Wobble Wopper. At first, Debacle had his opponent on the run, tearing into his foam tires and throwing sparks off of his titanium wedge. About halfway through the match though, Debacle’s belt broke and became tangled around the shaft of Wobble Wopper’s drive. It was a close match, but after Debacle’s weapon failure Wobble Wopper took the match by a judge’s decision.