Babróg (BW) - Build Diary

Babróg V2

In 2020 I designed my third and, by far my most successful, beetleweight Babróg, a scaled down version of my featherweight Barróg Doom. Despite numerous updates to the components within the bot to improve reliability (the wheel hubs being redesigned twice, the servo hacked for continuous rotation, milled HDPE components), the actual design has remained relatively static since I initially competed way back at BBB Beetle Champs 2021, with basically none of the internal components changing. Last year’s champs however left me with a lot to think about regarding what needs to be improved going into the future, and while I did attend BBB Brawl 2024, it was only in a commentator role, while I worked on the first proper redesign for Babróg!

The old Babróg design I ran from 2021 to 2023. You can find that build diary on my FB page (Team Barróg) or over on the FRA forums: Babróg - Beetleweight Lifter Build Diary

The mostly completed CAD done in Fusion 360. Learning the new workflow could be painful at times, but I am very glad I persevered.

Going into designing the CAD (my first fully done in Fusion 360 after being finally unshackled from Solidworks), I had three main goals for improvements coming from my previous experiences:

  • A more powerful lifter motor to replace the Robostar servo (as well as the large dual UBEC), capable of lifting greater loads far quicker, and without any fear of slipping mid-lift.

  • A design that would, at the very least, be far less vulnerable to getting caught in positions where it could not self-right. This came down to having a lifter that could reach further backwards, as well as wheels that could grip the floor even if the robot was not completely flat on the ground.

  • A link system that would instead mount to the main bulkheads of the robot as opposed to the top panel, which would make assembly and disassembly far less finicky.

For the lifter motor I could have gone for something more state-of-the-art used in some of the best current lifters, such as the SHV800 servo used in Luchador, or the Strangbox used in Grab Crab. However, these both came with an additional cost investment as well as minor reliability risks, and since I already had two 37mm 80RPM Pololu motors from running Schnake, I decided to use them as they had plenty of power as well as having a fantastic track record in BW robot combat. These motors however presented two significant technical challenges, that would shape the packaging of the entire build:

  • They are big.

  • They are heavy.

I also wanted to move my rear wheels back further out of the rear of my robot, which would mean going past the 5mm backplate as well as the rolled parts of my side panels. While I was somewhat tempted to upgrade my drive to something more powerful such as Repeat Maxes or Ranglebox Mars’, I had finally gotten the 1806/Robostars running 49mm custom cast wheels to a point where their reliability was perfect for my needs, and any upgrade would have required more internal space as well as being heavier, two things which were at an absolute premium in this design.

The new 37mm motor installed, alongside the smaller and lighter 380mAh 4S battery, down from Babróg V1’s 500mAh.

Since the original Babróg with the motors in the rear already had its wheels as far back as they could go, the only way I could push the wheels back was to move the motors to the front wheel, so that the driven wheels could have their drive axle positioned far enough back to stick out of the back. This also gave me more space to play with concerning the lifter motor, with one caveat; no matter what I did, the 37mm motor would need to stick out of the bulkheads somewhere due to its size, and with the robot already being shorter at the rear, it would push into either the wheels or the drive belts somewhere. My solution to this was to make the belts longer, and place tensioners at either side to create a U-shape, allowing the motor to fit in the newly formed gap. Technically I only needed to do this on one side, but for tensioning and driving consistency I decided to mirror this design, which would also in theory create a greater area of contact between the pulleys and the belt, reducing the risk of slipping further!

The new drive design, reusing the old wheels and with very simple tensioners consisting of 3D printed rollers and a small amount of Vaseline.

The wheels hanging out of the new design. This keeps some of the roller protection design, but also provides a major boost in mobility.

With the distance between the lifting motor and the lifter axle being even shorter than before, belts were no longer possible or necessary to reduce and transfer the necessary torque, so I decided to upgrade to gears instead. With some advice from Jack of Luchador and The Chilli Daddy. renown, I was able to design some double helical gears with an overall reduction of 11:16, and while I had a batch printed in some PLA-ST on my recently acquired Prusa Mk4, I was able to get a friend to print a batch in Onyx, which would stand up to basically anything the lifter could throw at them, as well as several type of weaponry. Outside of the redesigned lifter gear, I basically lifted the entire rest of the lifter assembly wholesale from the original Babróg, with the exception of properly milled antler grabbing arms (now with nails hammered into them for extra grip), and replacing the main 8mm steel lifter rod with a titanium shaft, a surprisingly cheap upgrade that saved a whopping 12g, which is more of a statement to how much weight I was chasing nearing the end of this build.

The new lifter design, as well as the new position for the motors.

Some of the changes I had to make between bulkhead iterations, which gives some perspective as to how much I was chasing every gram I could manage.

The jig I used to hammer nails into the grabbing arms, which were then trimmed to length using wire cutters.

For the front of the robot, things remained conceptually similar, but with small optimizations. The fork mounts were totally remade on the CNC mill, and the hardox forks were redesigned to be lighter while maintaining the same functionality. While the front panels were basically unchanged and interchangeable with Babróg V1 (plus a tiny bit of additional weight saving), the baseplate and side panels were redesigned to not stick out as far forward before, to prevent scenarios where they would warp the front of the bot following a hit, as happened in my matches against Ultra-Violence and Digestive. I was also finally able to experiment with TPU for the first time, which allowed me to print a thick TPU wedge I could use against horizontals in place of the titanium wedge. This wasn’t quite as durable as the titanium wedge, but it was wider, scraped the ground better, and was easy to replace provided I made enough spares.

The new TPU config, coming in at around the same weight as the old titanium config.

A pretty good comparison between the positions of key internal components between the two bots. From the outside you’d never know how different they were internally.

Fitting the same fuse/link hybrid into the robot proved rather tricky with the space provided with the new design. With the back of the bot lower down and the wheels now at the same level as the link, I barely had enough space to squeeze the link in near the top of the bulkhead, still relatively far away from any nasty hits (and also with a brand new TPU link door). As for the rest of the electronics, I needed to buy a new smaller 380mAh battery to barely fit underneath the motor, and what can only be described as a shelving unit was designed to fit the drive ESCs as well as the new lifter ESC, with a small BEC just floating around on top. Getting all of the wiring to fit was somehow even more of a challenge than with the original Babróg (with a special shout out to the lifter motor wires and the transmitter), but eventually all of the components were fitted, and to my absolute relief, it all worked!

All of the electronics packed in to the robot, somehow in an even more compact state than before.

The new TPU link door at the back, just barely able to fit.

And so this is the condition Babróg V2 was declared good to go. The initial tests of the bot proved promising, being easily able to lift the weight of a beetle and more with a good amount of speed, and this combined with the increased range and grippy spikes should make suplexes easier than ever to achieve. The drive meanwhile controlled just like before, and should keep everything that made the original drive so effective at controlling opponents. Barely making it into the weight limit with all of its different configs, it was ready to start competing at events again, and hopefully make the step up the original bot never managed, even if I was already aware that there was likely a long road of iteration ahead of this new Babróg as well!

The new Babróg, ready to compete in Robot Rebellion 2024!

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So much iteration packed into roughly the same chassis is really impressive - its so densely packed! :heart_eyes:

I’d have given up and made a whole new chassis for sure :sweat_smile:

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Thanks so much Jack! There was definitely some temptation to redo the chassis more than it was, but ultimately I was really happy with how durable Babróg ended up being, and I wanted to keep as much of that aspect of the design as I physically could. Have always felt like Babróg was a control bot designed for spinners first and foremost, and while that absolutely leaves me vulnerable to other control bots, I live for those matches where I can take a beating and come out on top.

Also I’m definitely jumping ahead a little bit here, but after Robot Rebellion I definitely feel like I kept up that record with the new design (still fully functional in the pic below!)

BBB Beetle Champs 2024:

Generally I like to do these event reports in chronological order, however Robot Rebellion is an awkward event to talk about, both because I actually don’t have all of the fights filmed on me, and the event is filmed as part of a web series online. While there’s nothing like an NDA for the event, I do appreciate the work that goes into the extra editing job, so I’ve decided to postpone that event report until all of my fights have been released (which should hopefully be at least before June 2025, fingers crossed). I will however say that I did decide to alter my design somewhat for Babróg leading up to the champs as a result of lessons learnt from Robot Rebellion.

Babróg ready to compete with its new front end setup.

The main change made to Babróg for this event was to the fork setup at the front. The metal forks I had been using up until now were good at scraping the ground, but in the current BW meta they were just too short for far too many opponents, and if I got any kind of a hit which bent the baseplate or the front piece, I would be in a situation where it was even harder to get an opponent up onto the front. I was also very impressed by the performance the TPU wedge had in some fights even where it was up against verts, and so decided to bolt long TPU forks straight onto the front of the robot. This came with a few advantages:

  • I could have as many spare parts as I would bother to print.
  • I could change the angle of the fork exactly so that they would press and scrape into the ground while also allowing me to keep four wheels on the ground as well.
  • I could mount thinner TPU wedgelets in between the forks to stop any other forks from getting under the front of the bot that way, and these could be moved up and down depending on what I saw fit.
  • Because I no longer had the weakening slots in the front piece, I could actually fit longer lifter forks into the design, giving me a few more centimetres of reach.

Outside of one final reprint of a TPU wedge (much thicker and sturdier than the first attempt), I was ready to fly over!

Babróg getting funky with it.

All fights can be found in this video, timestamps are included alongside each fight.

Fight 1 Vs. C.D.G., Demon Spirit MKII:

Fight starts at 6:04.

Babróg attempting to wrangle C.D.G. Special shout out to Mike Brazier for all the mid-fight photos you’ll see in this diary!

This first match was a perfect time for me to try out my new horizontal config against a pretty nasty undercutter in C.D.G., while also seeing if the setup could stay competitive against a control bot like Demon Spirit MKII. Ultimately Demon Spirit suffered from control issues throughout, and didn’t end up being much of a threat in this fight at least. C.D.G. meanwhile was landing some very decent hits on Babróg, and although I managed to flip them over, a direct hit from there on could have done some nasty damage to the lifter. Fortunately for myself C.D.G. struggled with mobility while upside down, and midway through the battle they seemed to lose their weapon. I was unable to land any grabs on either opponent due to my static arm config, but I was able to control my opponents enough to take a win via judges decision. Outside of two nice hits from C.D.G. onto the side and wedge, I had taken no critical damage, and so could take it easy enough while waiting for my round of 32 fight.

Damage from the first fight. The new TPU wedge held up rather well, and you can see from the one rear shot that C.D.G. hits quite hard when everything engages in the right way.

Fight 2 Vs. Amethyst:

Fight starts at 59:01.

Me and Amethyst pre-match.

My round of 32 match had me up against Amethyst, another undercutter style robot. This robot was one of my picks to make a deep run into this tournament owing to the nasty spinner on it, as well as the successful runs this team had made in previous tournaments with the EVA robots. Unfortunately Amethyst suffered weapon problems in its first two fights, and was never able to get its weapon up to spinning speed. This left me with a setup choice to make; I could run forks to counter the solid drive base and forks that were still working on Amethyst, or I could run the horizontal wedge to counter the spinner should it be working. Ultimately I elected to run the forks, which ended up being the right call.

Even without a working weapon, Amethyst proved to be a very effective control bot to face, getting under Babróg multiple times and threatening to dump me into the pit once or twice. I was very happy with how the new front end was working in this match, and at one point I managed to get under Amethyst in a head to head charge, something that likely would not have worked with the original Babróg. I managed two very nice lifts, one getting agonisingly close to giving me the suplex out of the arena I have been chasing for so long, but ultimately I lacked both the reach and momentum to pull it off. Eventually I managed a slightly lucky charge on Amethyst next to the pit, and some careful shoving landed me a spot in the round of 16!

Some lifts. Plenty of good shots from this one!

Fight 3 Vs. Antithesis:

Fight starts at 1:14:30.

Me and Antithesis pre-fight.

My next match was up against arguably the standout performer of the tournament, Antithesis. This crusher had gone through numerous iterations leading up to this tournament, but the builder Jed really seemed to find the sweet spot this time round between drive power, an effective front end, and a nasty crusher capable of piercing top armour, as it had done in both of its prior fights.

Antithesis with a forceful grab on me (compare this to some of the images above to see where the main lifter bolt should be).

Within seconds of the fight starting, Antithesis managed to hook onto the bolt of the lifter mechanism, and crushed the entire bulkhead right down deep into the robot (it turns out hollowing out your bulkheads can be a negative in this one particular instance). Antithesis had to let go after the 20 seconds were up, and somehow the lifter mechanism seemed to spring back into place. Afterwards we continued to have our tête-à-tête’s, but while we both had similar drive power, my TPU fork setup seemed to come out the loser against the steel forks of my opponent, and eventually Antithesis managed to hook onto the front end of my wedgelet setup, and skilfully manoeuvred me into the pit, knocking me out at the round of 16 stage of a competition once more. Fortunately I had no lasting damage from the excruciating attack from Antithesis, but if I had a nickel for everytime I lost to a crusher in the BW scene via pitting and surviving with minimal damage, despite a grab that got into the innards of the bot, then I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.

The more gentle bite that would ultimately take me out of the competition.

Fight 4 Vs. Bob Toss, Fatal Deviation, Siren:

Fight starts at 1:43:06.

Normally once I get eliminated from a tournament around the top 32/16 stage (read: everytime), I like to throw Babróg into a spinner melee to test the robots durability, but since I already had a good idea of how durable this iteration of the robot was, and I was going to be going to another tournament in a short time anyway (Battle in the Burgh 4), I decided instead to enter a non-spinner whiteboard. However, I did find another way to spice up this match. Throughout the day I had been providing commentary for many of the fights throughout the tournament, and there was a group decision that I would provide live commentary for the fight that I was currently competing in.

The chaos of the start of the fight.

The other competitors in this whiteboard were all lifters, including the bricky Fatal Deviation, the angular Siren, and the artistic Bob Toss along with its minibot Beat the Devil. This match was pretty hectic even without trying to provide my own commentary, with each machine managing some decent shoves of their own. I failed a few times to get an effective suplex on my opponents, though I was generally able to shove opponents around. The fight started to favour me once the pit button was pressed, and a fortunate shove on Bob Toss eliminated one of my opponents. Shortly after, I managed to flip both Siren and Fatal Deviation with a single flip, something which I reckon would have been impossible with the old setup. Siren was shoved into the pit shortly after, and in what may have been my favourite move in the tournament so far, I managed to suplex Fatal Deviation straight into the pit itself. I finally attempted to suplex Beat the Devil out of the arena, but failing that and running low on time, I elected instead to shove my final opponent into the pit.

Conclusion:

This was another really fun event for me, and provided me with further info at what this new Babróg is good and bad at. The positives to take away were ones I had previously established at Robot Rebellion, but could be confirmed once again. The new lifter has been a direct upgrade from the original machine, with stalling and slipping as issues being removed entirely. The additional length of the lifter forks has been a small upgrade, but it does seem to have made scoring a grab as opposed to a lift slightly more consistent. The new TPU parts have also performed very well, with the new front end capable of actually matching some modern day forked front ends, and the TPU wedge looks to straddle a decent balance between taking hits while remaining viable against fork-heavy designs.

Some design limitations do remain however; the horizontal config continues to struggle at hooking onto and lifting opponents, my drive platform continues to lose effectiveness fast once an opponent gets under me (though the cutouts at the rear do grant me a small amount of additional control), and I can still get out-wedged by control bots in head on scenarios. Many of these issues are hard to solve due to my design goals, since Babróg has always been designed to counter spinning weapons over control-based designs, and this tankiness comes at the cost of recessed internals that limit the angles at which I can effectively drive. This competition ultimately didn’t give me too many opportunities to face spinners, though the fact I performed as well as I did against so many control bots does give me some confidence regarding this platform going forward.

And that was the BBB Beetle Champs 2024. Once again, my thanks to all the folks who do all of the behind the scenes work, and to all of the competitors who put on a hell of a show. Special congrats to Antithesis for the remarkable run the robot had this time round, Impulse for its great performances as a control bot against some nasty spinners, and Frenzy for its entertaining run to the championship! I look forward to updating you all on how I performed in Burgh, probably my most anticipated competition of the entire year!

The crushed bulkhead the day after the tournament. No visible signs of damage at all, it’s mad how the elastic properties of HDPE play out sometime.

5 Likes

Great write-up and some really good fights.

In the fight my bot (C.D.G) you were correct the weapon did go down due to a faulty solder joint. The ESC really didn’t like being soldered to so it took 5 attempts to get a solid solder joint that wouldn’t break again. You drove great and really deserved that victory.

I loved watching the rumble where you commentated. Your ability to say what you would do and then do exactly that was amazing to watch.

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That was an absolutely stunning finish, pleasure to be of service! I need the overhead pit-cam view as a gif, I really enjoyed seeing my bot belly up with the RGB twinkling feebly.

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Battle In The Burgh 4:

My final event for 2024 was one that had been on my bucket list for a long time, Battle In The Burgh. Any excuse to go to Scotland was always appreciated (helps to have family in Edinburgh to stay with!), and the idea of a multi-day event always appeals to me. Unfortunately this iteration of the competition had to be shortened down to a single day, but the field still seemed like a super interesting one, with a lot of heavy hitters and robots you usually don’t see as often in English events. Babróg went over almost literally untouched from BBB Champs, save for a quick once-over of everything to replace any cracked prints, clean out any pulleys, and to tighten or replace any screws needing attention.

The format for BITB 4 (or “Burgh”, as the cool kids would call it. Allegedly. Possibly.) was a fight night format, where every robot would compete in three 1v1 matches, drawn at random at the start of the day. Points were awarded for wins, and victories via judges decisions were worth less than KO’s. From there, the top 16 scorers would move on to a single-elimination bracket until a winner was crowned. There would also be a tag-team competition available for those who were knocked out before the top 8, so based on previous pedigree I was a shoe in for taking part in that.


Babróg ready for its first fight!

Fight 1 Vs. 3 Robots In A Trench Coat:

Fight starts at 00:00.

My first match was against my pit neighbour, 3 Robots In A Trench Coat, a modular design capable of swapping its internal components between three different armour and weapon configurations. I was actually asked by the builder Alys which config she should run, and I answered honestly that the wide TPU config would be the most effective in getting underneath and beaching me. This would also be a solid test for my new TPU wedgelets config in how effectively I could get underneath such a squirrely opponent, even when I may not have the reach advantage.


Some pretty intense back and forth between the two of us in this fight. Full credit to Reese from RBS Media for the fantastic fight photos!

This was a fight of sweaty palms for both of us I reckon. 3 Robots had an advantage in raw drive power, but this left the robot to wheelie quite a lot, even with a large magnet embedded in the central wedge. My main goal was to keep my front end pointed at 3 Robots at all times, as if they got around me, I could get pushed into the pit very quickly. Getting a solid lift on 3 Robots proved remarkably tricky due to its shape, as well as how often a wheel tended to be on the ground. This was one of my more boring drives, but control was the aim for me, and I felt like that was the major factor that pushed the fight in my favour. 3 Robots did manage some very nice slams on Babróg, and both of us danced around the pit numerous times, but ultimately it ended up going to the judges, and Babróg managed to start the competition off with a win.

Fight 2 Vs. Dearc:

Fight starts at 9:21.

My second match was against another control bot in Dearc, run by Chris Thompson, and designed by Ari Callister. Given that Ari’s other robot, Frenzy, had won the last competition I was at, I knew that Dearc would be a solid bot, and it’s a credit to Chris that he got the bot working as well as he did going into this fight after surviving a full distance fight against the nasty horizontal spinner Just a Wee Slice. Dearc would run its long forks in this match, so this would be another major test as to how well Babróg could perform against metal forks.


Me and Dearc coming together.

The start of the fight proved pretty cagey, I seemed to have a small advantage in the ground game, but I was unable to get a decent grab on Dearc, while they managed a single good grab on me, but were unable to convert it to anything major. I felt like I was starting to build some momentum in my favour, but unfortunately I seemed to lose a side of drive a little over halfway into the fight. All I could do at this stage was to keep my front facing Dearc at all costs, and this led to the one and only suplex I would achieve in the match. The fight ultimately went to the judges once more, and by a split decision, I had done just about enough to secure my second win.

After the fight, I was left with the time-consuming process of dismantling the broken drive side and to see what was the issue. I finally discovered that the failure was that the metal teeth on the pinion gear had been completely stripped, removing the connection from the motor to the gearbox. On one hand, I was happy that the failure was not in the same manner as previous failures such as plastic gears failing or the pinion coming loose from the shaft, but this did have me wondering how much I could use each drive setup before they needed to be replaced. I do also suspect that the gearbox may not have been entirely centered on the motor, and that may have been a cause of the increased wear, but I feel like I would need to get some more data before jumping too early to conclusions.


The completely rounded out pinion. Trust me, getting this out was a pain.

Fight 3 Vs. Medusa:

“Fight” starts at 00:42.

My final fight night match was meant to be against Medusa, a very solidly built horizontal spinner. I saw this as a perfect time to test out my new TPU horizontal setup, although with all of the repairs I needed to do with the motor replacement, I was slightly concerned that I would run out of time to make it to the match. The repairs were eventually completed however, and I was ready to complete. Unfortunately, Medusa has sustained too much damage to its electronics in its previous matches, and so with my proof of functionality, I took a third win via technicality. Not the cleanest run of fights I have ever had, but I was happy to have made it in a very healthy state to the round of 16!

Fight 4 Vs. Daisy (the Cow):

Fight starts at 00:00.

My top 16 match was against Daisy (the Cow), another lifter bot which interestingly ran a shuffler mechanism for drive, allowing the robot to be heavier than standard designs. From previous matches, I had noticed that while Daisy was invertible, it couldn’t use its lifter to self-right, so once I secured the first lift, I wasn’t going to go for another unless I knew I could take full advantage of it. I had one scary moment near the pit where my fork nearly got stuck on one of the lips of it, but I managed to free myself. Eventually I got another nice lift, went for the pit button, but instead managed to suplex Daisy out of the arena, scoring my first suplex OotA and making it past the top 16 for the first time in one move!

Fight 5 Vs. Just a Wee Slice:

Fight starts at 7:59.

My quarter-final matchup would finally put me up against a spinner for the first time this tournament, and it was a nasty one in Just a Wee Slice. This horizontal spinner had put basically all of its weight possible into its weapon setup, and had landed some nasty blows against other competitors, including fellow control bot Bubblegum Lift which it had beaten in its round of 16 draw. I was originally going to run the new TPU wedge against him, but after a short conversation with Thomas Weatherley of Baby Dead Bod fame, I decided to run my (slightly worn at this point) titanium wedge, a decision I reckon in hindsight was critical to my performance in this battle.


A lot of dynamic shots from this fight!

Right off the bat, I noticed that Just a Wee Slice was bouncing off the titanium wedge as opposed to the plastic, which was a major confidence boost for myself. While dangerous, at certain speeds, I could almost “dribble” Just a Wee Slice around into the arena wall to slow it down, and the more dramatic hits it would score against me wouldn’t do any lasting damage. The static grabber arm was taking the hits just like it should, although I was certainly taking more and more damage to the lifter forks, and even the lifter gear as Just a Wee Slice kept ricocheting into the taller parts of the robot. Eventually, my lifter mechanism was actually disabled, though I was still able to corral my opponent thanks to the static arm, and I started to get better at keeping Just a Wee Slice under pressure while it tried to get up to speed again. Once the pit went down, my chances of success went up dramatically, and after a few close calls, I finally managed to hook onto the rear of Just a Wee Slice, and with some careful driving, got them into the pit, securing a round in the top 4 in triumphant fashion!


Babróg finally getting Just a Wee Slice into a vulnerable postion.

The damage in this fight was certainly significant, but most of it was exclusive to the horizontal config. There were plenty of slices into the top and side panels, but nothing some light carving with a box cutter couldn’t fix. The main lifter gear had actually cracked across some of the teeth, but none of the teeth engaged during a standard lift in that orientation, and I had a spare I could swap to anyway. The lifter forks had taken a proper beating, and the reason I lost the ability to lift was because one of the lifter forks had been bent underneath the front panel. This may have been an asset however; normally this config does not allow any grabbing motion, but because the lifting fork was stuck in place, I was able to bend the threaded bar connecting the grabbing arm to the forks just enough to bring the grabbing arm down on Just a Wee Slice, which is likely what made the difference in securing the win!


Some decent damage from the match, mainly against the front and top plates, the lifter forks, and the lifter gear.

Fight 6 Vs. Ray:

Fight starts at 16:04.

My semi-final match was against fellow control bot Ray, whose builder Pip was also having their own dream run in the competition. This would actually be a rematch from BBB Brawl 2022, where I managed to take the win via an early flipping, and controlling the match from there. Me and Pip have been friends for years, and I reckon we were both happy to have made it so far, and would both want to see whoever made it through to win. However, I regret to say that at this stage of the competition, once I flipped Ray, I had no intention of righting him, and so was able to control the match rather anticlimactically from there. Without a self-righter, Ray was unable to use that wedge to any effect, and after an OK lift I rather clumsily “suggested” Ray out of the arena. Probably one of the lamer fights in my career, but it was wonderful that we both made it as far as we had, and I tried to take that positive momentum into the final match of the tournament!


Potentially my lamest win, but flipping a wedge-y opponent after having a win all but assured has cost me a grand final position before, with Barróg Doom at the 2019 UK Featherweight Champs!

Fight 7 Vs. Prototype:

Fight starts at 19:51.

Typical to the rest of the tournament, my final match was against another control bot, this being the front-hinged flipper of Prototype. Designed to be a beetleweight version of Team Immersion’s design seen in other weight classes, this bot had been skillfully driven and maintained by Will Owen throughout the day, and was on the verge of taking a tournament victory at the first time of asking. From previous experience I knew these robots tended to have an incredibly effective ground game (just ask any of the wooden floors these bots compete at), so this would be the ultimate test to see if my new TPU forks could keep up with the best.


Two control bots duking it out.

The fight started relatively evenly, with Prototype likely having a small edge in head to head engagements, though we were both quick enough to avoid any major shoves from the other. Eventually I get a nice suplex on Prototype and am able to pin them while upside down for 10 seconds to buy me some time and secure some points from the judges. Things seemed to be going well for me, but then unfortunately I end up getting a fork stuck under the pit, and Prototype immediately goes for the pit button as a result. I was trying everything I could to try and free myself as the siren was going down, but fortunately, the half-second where the latch under the pit releases and the flap falls was just enough to drive away, despite Prototype’s best efforts. I’m then able to get a suplex off of Prototype and guide them bit by bit into the pit, securing the victory and taking my first overall event win in the beetleweight category as a result!


Potentially “the money shots” of the tournament, certainly for Babróg at least!

Fight 8/Gladiator:

I was already ecstatic from taking the win, but as soon as we were unloaded from the arena they were already packing the arena for the final fight of the event, a gladiator where the last robot moving would take the win. Eager to see how well the standard config would fare against horizontal spinners, and to see where the limits are of the smaller battery, I decided to throw Babróg back into the arena with no modifications from the last fight, not even a battery swap.

So much happened in this fight that it was honestly hard to keep track of it all. Babróg managed to get several suplexes on opponents, and took some direct shots from horizontals with minimal damage outside of some bent bolts. I was trying to drive conservatively to save the battery, but whenever an opportunity presented itself I seemed to have enough pushing power throughout the match. Eventually the fight came down to a three way battle between myself, Just a Wee Slice, and 3 Robots, and despite a few direct hits, I was eventually able to get Just a Wee Slice stuck in a position where it couldn’t drive back down. Unfortunately after some back and forth shoving with 3 Robots, they managed to shove me down into the pit and take the win. Would have been nice to have won to complete the clean sweep, but I was just amazed that Babróg had made it as far as it had on only a 380mAh 4S battery!


Babróg post-gladiator. No photos of the bot in between the final and the gladiator, but no damage was suffered in the grand final, so a comparison would be pointless.

Conclusion:

Battle In The Burgh 4 went about as well as it could have for me, and I was just absolutely delighted to finally have a decent result under my belt, and be able to justify so many of the design decisions I have made over the past few years, particularly with the new Babróg. The lifter continued to work wonders, often able to lift two opponents simultaneously, and although the 37mm brushed motor would likely be the first place to look if I wanted to save weight, I’m happy to stick with it given its power and reliability, at least until the brushless equivalents become as dependable. The TPU wedgelets perform exactly to my needs as of right now; they scraped the ground without impacting mobility too much, were durable even when taking hits from horizontal spinners, and could compete with a range of both metal and other TPU forks, wedges, and wedgelets, and all without having needed one replacement over the past two events. The drive also continues to provide sufficient control while remaining competitive in pushing matches, which is especially impressive given how many of my opponents were using more powerful drive systems such as Ranglebox Mars’ or Repeat Max’s, so I don’t have to worry about the headache that would be fitting these larger assemblies into Babróg just yet.

There are definitely some design considerations to keep in mind for myself going forward however. The only mechanical failure I suffered during this event was one side of drive going during the Dearc fight, which had been the first drive failure I had since I believe Brawl 2023. For the first time, the failure point didn’t seem to be down to plastic gears or an insufficient shaft, but rather a metal component wearing itself down (although there is still a small possibility that the gearbox may not have been perfectly concentric on the motor, causing excessive wear). There really isn’t a lot that I can do to strengthen the motor further beyond replacing the shafts after a few events, though I am unsure exactly how many events this drive setup participated in. A more frustrating matter was in how long it took to fix the issue: Babróg’s motor mounting has always been more for weight and durability over easy access, but removing the wheel, motor, and ESC’s took basically all of the time I had between my second and third fights, and this may not be time I would have had if this failure occurred later on in the bracket, much less having any time left for other repairs. Weight will be the main issue in redesigning this mounting system to be more modular, but this may be necessary to prevent an embarrassing loss in the future. I also have to acknowledge that in the past two events, Babróg has only really faced horizontal spinners, and while it has performed admirably against them, it’s performance is still a pretty glaring unknown given how much verts make up the metagame nowadays. My performances against control bots should be a decent indication that my ground game should be competitive against verts given the design similarities, but once again, more data is needed.

And that concludes this rather long event report! Once again, it has been such an amazing feeling to finally have a win under my belt, and I intend to keep iterating on Babróg to suplex my way through to more victories. It has also been really cool to see many of the design tricks I have been using in this weight class appearing in other builds, such as the increased amount of grab-and-lifters and front-mounted TPU wedgelets, though I can by no means take total credit for these changes. I’m just happy to see control bots finally seem to retake their place in the meta after so many years of near-total spinner dominance, and look forward to more of these designs achieving success. Unfortunately I will not be able to attend BBB Brawl 2024 due to flights being too expensive as a result of a Six Nations match, but I hope to be able to compete at a multi-day event within the next few months, and have an entirely new design planned for later this year, using a design I’ve never tried before. Special thanks once again to all of the crew who made BITB possible, including the organisers, marshalls, and commentators. Also special shout outs to Ray and 3 Robots for their remarkable runs, Percussive Maintenance XL for continuing to develop beetleweight axes way past what a lot of us believed to be possible, and Sabretooth for designing a melty-brain twin horizontal and (mostly) getting it functional!


Babróg finally victorious at a beetleweight event!

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