Winter was doing its best again to make life tougher on the East coast, but
fortunately it did not have the same
effect at Motorama (organized by
NERC; www.nerc.us) as it had last
year when only two-thirds of the
competitors made it. The roads were
clear and even the record cold ( 2°F on
Friday night) could not keep us away.
There were 120 bots registered, and
114 passed safety and competed. This
was about twice the number at 2014,
and the highest number in years.
We travelled up on Friday
afternoon and evening, so missed most
of the Antweight and Fairyweight
competition, but with 30 Ants (only 11
last year) fighting, we were in time to
catch the last couple of bouts despite
arriving at 9: 30 pm.
The losers semi-final was a repeat
of last year’s finals: Low Blow (Figure
1) versus Algos (Figure 2). This time,
however, Algos won decisively and
moved on to the finals against POW
(Figure 3).
The small arena used for the Ant
and Fairyweights has a steel floor, and
POW took advantage of this by having
powerful magnets keeping its wedge
hard against the floor and giving it
much better grip than most
competitors. Algos and POW had
fought earlier, and POW had won by a
judge’s decision as Algos simply
couldn’t get under his opponent’s
wedge. The final was very different,
however, with Algos dealing out
repeated big hits and making it easy to
declare him the winner. One curious
thing was the way that POW did not
bounce when landing….the strong
magnets instantly gripped the floor.
The picture of Klazo in Figure 4 (who
finished in fifth place) shows the kind
of damage bots had to endure.
The main event got started on
Saturday, and so did the snow. There
were a couple of changes this year in
how the event was recorded and
displayed. The usual arena side camera
was used, but that left a small blind-spot in front of the judges. This year, a
motion activated web cam (Figure 5)
EVENT REPORT:
Motorama 2015 - Ice, Snow,
and Beetles ... Lots of Beetles
● by Pete Smith
SERVO 05.2015 35
Figure 1. Antweight -
Low Blow.
Figure 2.
Antweight -
Algos.
Figure 4.
Antweight
- Klazo
after.
Figure 5.
Blind-spot
camera.
Figure 3.
Antweight
- POW.
Figure 6. Pit’s TV.