30 SERVO 05.2015
went 4-2! It lost in the semi-finals to
D- 12 — a BattleBots toy — due to the
weapon belt coming off mid-match
and the excellent control of D- 12's
driver, Brandon Nichols. ED then
competed in Motorama 2013 (Figure
5). It ended up going 2-2 (I believe),
and ended up getting destroyed by a
horizontal spinner named Traumatizer.
The main issue — in addition to
the belt coming off — was that the
frame rails were made of a softer
plastic called Delrin as opposed to
UHMW (commonly found in Weta
kits), which made the frame more
brittle and prone to cracking — which
is what happened against Traumatizer.
Also, the BaneBots motors I had in El
Destructo were beginning to fall
apart, so I ended up selling them to
fellow battler, Chris Olin.
To prepare for Bot Blast, I
replaced the black Delrin with white
UHMW, changed the drive to 1,000
RPM motors, and used thinner
BaneBots wheels. After all this
preparation, I ended up with the
robot shown in Figure 6 for Bot Blast
2013.
At the event, El Destructo faced
Robo-Rooter — a horizontal spinner
that uses a wicked hub motor as a
weapon — in its first match. It ended
up worse for wear, even though I
won. The chassis was warped, the
drive motors became less reliable (the
brushes inside the motor were bent),
plus the weapon bar lost a tooth and
suffered a bent shaft which made it
greatly unbalanced.
While it went 2-2, that initial
destruction ruined the robot and I was
forced to retire it. Now, two years
after it has been retired from
competition, I have decided to
resurrect it once again. I have always
liked it because of its extreme width,
which is great for defense. The key
difference I made with this robot was
to change its shape. Instead of the
frame rails having such large
wedgelets and a thin profile, they
now have a much thicker profile and
much tinier wedgelets.
These wedgelets will also be able
to be bolted into the frame and can,
therefore, be replaced if destroyed (a
lesson I learned after fighting against
In the Margins at Motorama 2015
with PK).
Figures 7 and 8 show how El
Destructo sits currently. Hopefully, El
Destructo v2 will be a beneficial
creation to the Bone Dead Robotics
fleet. SV
Figure 5.
Figure 7.
Figure 6.
Figure 8.
