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.
This was one of only two times Bite Force fought in its
standard configuration with the lifter and the clamper
attached.
Figure 8.
60 SERVO 09.2015
Figure 7.
Figure 9.