Servo - January 2013

FIGURE 3. Announcer Jen Schwartz.

On Friday morning, founder Brian Schwartz, his wife Jen, and their younger daughter Zoe posed in the arena in Cleveland with CRCA partner Dave Miller and his girlfriend Erin Grondin (Figure 1).

Meet the Mecha Minds

Brian (Figure 2) is 29 years old and has been involved in designing, building, and competing with fighting robots for the past decade. He still competes, but now favors organizing Mecha-Mayhem which is one of the best Insect class fighting robot events in the country.

When not tending to CRCA, Brian works as an engineer for Automated Manufacturing Solutions

FIGURE 6. Fourteen month old toddler bot Zoe Schwartz eating pizza at the builder‘s dinner.

34 SERVO 01.2013

FIGURE 4. Handyman Dave Miller cleaning the arena after the demo bots destroyed all the junk electronics.

(AMS) in Chicago.

As the CRCA founder, he provides oversight of all CRCA events, coordinates logistical support with the iHobby event organizers, arranges transportation for the arena, transportation and lodging for Team CRCA, engineers systems in support of the arena, and designs and manufactures Mecha-Mayhem trophies.

He and his wife Jen enjoyed a long courtship and tied the knot two years ago. They have two daughters: eight year old Adrianna (who couldn’t make it to Mecha-Mayhem because of school) and 14 month old toddler bot Zoe.

Jen is also 29 years old and is employed as a social worker in the

FIGURE 5. Handywoman Erin Grondin working the brackets during the competition.

Chicago area. At Mecha-Mayhem, you’ll find Jen making supply and food runs during the arena set-up, and in a headset during the event working the crowd and providing live commentary of the matches for the audience (Figure 3).

Dave Miller is the 26 year old head of applications and tech support for ShopWare Incorporated — the MasterCam reseller for Illinois and Wisconsin. Dave built his first robot at age 17 and is the CRCA handyman responsible for ensuring registered robots meet safety requirements, the arena is clean and operable, and for the design and manufacturing of the Mecha-Mayhem trophies. Dave spends a lot of time in the arena taking