Servo - September 2015

into the space between the bumpers and the exit doors.

The biggest upset of the tournament had to be the quarter-final match between the #2 seeded Ice Wave and the #10 seeded Ghost Raptor. Ice Wave uses a gasoline engine to power a 47 pound spinning bar, and had previously made quick work of RazorBack and Chomp. Chuck Pitzer made good use of the Lincoln Welders professionals to craft a “keep away stick” that bolted onto The large engine pod on top of Ice Wave made it vulnerable to this attachment. Ghost Raptor was able to grab the engine pod and push Ice Wave backwards; this caused the spinning bar to score only glancing blows on the front armor of Ghost Raptor. A final half-hearted hit to the side of Ghost Raptor flipped Ice Wave upside-down, and it was counted out.

Semi-Finals

By the semi-final matches, there was only one spinner left in the tournament: Tombstone. As the graph in Figure 8 shows, spinners tend to die a little faster than lifters and flippers or — as in the case of Ghost Raptor — they lose their spinners and become lifters.

The pivotal match of the tournament was the #1 seed Tombstone versus the #4 seed Bronco. This fight produced the most sparks because Tombstone has a vicious spinning weapon, and Bronco used a lot of titanium, giving showers of white sparks on every hit.

After ripping off the right wheel guard of Bronco, Tombstone also removed Bronco’s right front tire. Bronco was unable to drive and the referee started counting him out. According to Ray Billings, whenever the count got close to zero, Bronco would fire his flipper, and the referee would stop counting. The enormous power of Bronco’s weapon can be seen in Figure 9, showing Bronco throwing itself over five feet in the air.

At this point, Tombstone has won the match. All he had to do was head back to his starting square and wait for the clock to run out. However, you never want to leave the outcome to the judges. So, Ray lined up for one last hit, which probably cost him the tournament.

Tombstone was upside down and when the blade struck Bronco, it caused Tombstone’s body to flex, shearing the bolts securing its top plate that, in turn, holds the batteries in place. As Tombstone cartwheeled to a stop in the middle of the arena, his A123 battery packs spilled out onto the floor. Ray won the fight, but the damage would haunt him in the finals.

The other semi-final match was the #10 seeded bracket-busting Ghost Raptor, which had previously beaten the #7 seed, Warrior Clan and the #2 seed, Ice Wave. Having lost its spinner, Ghost Raptor was now just a lifter, and was out-controlled by the clamping ability of Bite Force. Bite Force was able to grasp its opponent and feed the screws their last victim.