Servo - January 2013

Mecha-Mayhem M ves to Cleveland

● by Dave Graham

The fall of 2012 posed a challenge for the members and supporters of the Chicago Robotic Combat Association (CRCA). The previous five years, CRCA had sponsored an Insect class fighting robot competition called Mecha-Mayhem at the International Hobby Exposition (iHobby) in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont, IL. This year, iHobby was moving their event 370 miles east to Cleveland, OH.

The CRCA was founded by Brian Schwartz and Dan Toborowski in 2004 in hopes of creating a midwest Insect class fighting robot venue. The CRCA formation was in response to the Central Illinois Robotic Club (CIRC) downsizing their combat robot events and movement towards expanding their thinking robot activities.

Dan left for school shortly after CRCA was formed, and Brian became involved as a robotics advisor in the science and technology course at Glenbrook North High School near Chicago. Students were working on a yearlong project to build Insect class fighting robots. Dave Miller was a student at Glenbrook North High School, and joined Brian and the CRCA in 2005.

Together, Brian and Dave built a high quality, state-of-the-art eight by eight by four foot steel arena enclosed with Lexan and sporting four 120 psi pneumatic hammers in the arena corners. They also designed and built computer-controlled driver start/tap-out buttons, sequenced starting lights, and a match timer.

The arena debuted in 2005 at Glenbrook North High School where

FIGURE 1. Group shot of Team CRCA: back, Jen and Brian Schwartz; front,

Erin Grondin; center Zoe Schwartz; and right Dave Miller.

the pair held a fighting robot demonstration for the school. Immediately following that demonstration, the arena was disassembled and moved to Minneapolis, MN for the Minnesota Twin Cities Mechwars 8.

The arena was also used for Mechwars 9 and 10 in 2006 and 2007, and for an event at the Mall of America in 2008. Early in 2007, CRCA was contacted by the Chicago Area Robotics Group (ChiBots) about bringing robot combat to their annual event held at the iHobby Expo in Rosemont. It was an opportunity too good to pass up, and a new partnership was formed.

As a result, CRCA’s new Insect class fighting robot event — Mecha-Mayhem — was born. Both the CRCA/ iHobby partnership and Mecha-Mayhem continue to this day.