Servo - January 2014

Last month, I did a brief report about how my two sons and I built their first "real" combat robots — "Angry Bot" and "Scary." This month, I want to discuss how they did in their matches. You may be a bit surprised by the result.

Our first event with these robots was going to be the Battle at Maker Faire, which took place in conjunction with the Orlando Mini Maker Faire at the Orlando Science Center, in Albuquerque, NM (Just kidding. It was in Orlando, FL).

Saturday was the big robot fight. Both boys were very excited. Daddy was very nervous. We got to the event and I was already exhausted. The emotional fatigue of being proud, nervous, excited, and anxious easily took 10 years off my life.

We got to the space, and I started getting everything ready for the event. The boys went around and checked out all the robots that

"weren't as good as theirs." They especially enjoyed the robots that

"they were going to smash into the pit."

The two of them barely spoke to anyone during check-in at the Faire, but they were talking the ears off the other builders. We got both of the boy's bots ready and took them over for weigh-in. Ethan's Scary came in at 15. 3 oz and Cayden's Angry Bot came in at 15. 6 oz. Great! We didn't need to worry about drilling holes in our pretty robots.

We let the boys do a little sparring in the big arena and practice driving around the much larger 8' x 8' SECR-FL Insect ring. They had fun, and got a little more time on the sticks. We put both bots back on the charger to top them off.

The boys went out to explore the Faire, while I stayed and finished troubleshooting electrical problems in my bot.

Fight 1: Angry Bot vs. Cheese Wedge

Cayden was the first of us to get to fight. He had a very competitive fight going, but got flipped over onto his back and got stuck. I knew this was a problem, but in my haste to get the bot ready with the new spark gearmotors I forgot to cut the back supports so it would flip back onto its wheels. The driver of Cheese Wedge was an amazing sport. He pushed Cayden's robot back over, so he was able to continue fighting.