Bert The Vert: The Vert that Verts

[Wither (Luca Dingemans)]

Well hello again.

Today, i’m sharing with you the Bert The Vert saga. Which has been over a year now.

1. El Beginnin

Well, it didnt start with Bert, it started end of September 2021 with Inferno.

Inferno was basically gonna be Bert, just, not named Bert.

Original shitty Cad, funnily enough looks close to Bert

We wanted to enter it into FACTS, our big event over here. So the rush was on!

Spiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin

so the event was nearing, and the bot wasnt done yet…

this was it a few days before the comp, ohno

so, we had also other bots to finish too, they took up allot of the week. then day before the comp, we worked hard to maybe get Inferno running. But alas, it was too much work to be done and we didnt enter it.

Sad bert noises

2. Oh hes bacc

So last year, around May, I decided to bring back the project. Redesigning Bert to be fully Lasered and hopefully running for Hannover in

He’s Baaaaack

Now, after fully making it, and the chassis being welded, i forgot a thing, WIRES.

Ofcourse, for it to work, i needed a wire from one side to the other, and well, i didnt design that…

See the red and black wire, that isnt good to be there

But finally it was comming together. only took, uuuuuh 9 months? sure we will go with that.

El Completo Robotto

3. It has fight

As posted before in the Han V3 writeup (you should read it #spon #ad), Hannover was allot of fun. But Bert took a Hurt.

This was straight when we started

Now the biggest issues were mainly the bending of the ears (by which it was nicknamed “The Killer Bunny”), Belt falling off above 20% and mobility.

The belt was an easy fix, better pulleys, and a Green Belt.
The Bending was a pain mainly because bending it back would be hard, since all is welded. But we got it back in uuuh some sort of shape afterwards?
Mobility was mainly because of the large wheels i had to use to make it run inverted, which also forced allot of pressure on the front which made driving a lil harder.

Ofcourse, there are also positives, It Span, It Hit, It won a fight and won over the Crowd, what more do you want!

Bert did still do a Demo at the DRG Clubday, spinning up and driving around. which it did well!

4. Changes people, Changes!

Bert needed allot of fixes, so, i started designing a new one!

My main goals with new Bert were:

1. Make it more servicable
2. Better design to get under stuff
3. More Weapon Options!!!
4. 3d Printed Chassis
5. Wires via a different way
6. More interesting shape (no just box)

all i was stuck with were, the weapons, the pulleys and the weapon supports. The rest i could play around with for the design.

not most recent cad, wheelguards are different now, see later below

Now it was off to the Printer, and slowly, new Bert was comming together.

It was a few cm wider then to old one to accomendate all internals, since the old slightly struggled to. it has 8cm thick tpu armour with 2mm ti gr5 on top and bottem. frame rails are still the good ol 8mm Alu.

to combat the groundgame, i added some forks to it. which will hopefully put people into the weapon . and as a 2nd setup for better drive and more armour ive taken some inspo from a certain green boi.

i completed the build of bert a few weeks ago, it all now drives and is basically ready for competition.

Bert as of Right now

Now, we wait for when Bert strikes its next competition. It might be soon!

[Wither (Luca Dingemans)]

and well, Bert is gonna be at BBB Beetle Brawl this Feb.

its basically all done

Bert as it is atm, all ready

Spiiinup (its a loud boi) https://youtu.be/SEzTm3NkUaY

Excited to go to Bristol and see if this boi gets blown up in 2 hits

[JohnWilliams]

Good luck Bert, hope to see you in action in Feb!

[Wither (Luca Dingemans)]

Well i finally found the motivation to writeup Bert at Brawl (yay)

Look at this dapper gent

5. Stone Cold BBB Brawl Austin

Fight 1: KULT VS BERT THE VERT VS TOUCAN

Going into this, I knew Toucan was a scary bot, very well driven and a tank. Kult, ive not seen before but looked very scary and destructive. but i thought if i could hit it before it got fully up to speed i could make it explode or break something, then deal with Toucan.

Fight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncrPL-5Ki5Q&t=1311s

So basically. well, thats how long i lasted. It didnt go really to plan and showed these RC wheels were made from basically tinfoil. I hit a little seam on the floor, lil bounce, then kult came in, killed 1 wheel, and then killed the other, and it was over.

We are ok!

We are not ok

after this Toucan and Kult had an amazing fight, while Bert was sitting there looking pretty. and knowing what happend to Kult later (big boom) i do feel like we couldve seen that a lil earlier, but meh, you learn from each fight.

I really do love both these bots to bits, oh and theres Bert

At least i made the Thumbnail!

Fight 2: SLOT MACHINE VS BERT THE VERT

Slot Machine is such a cool bot. I LOVE the design and the whole mechanism driving the weaponslidethingy. got to have a close look at it and was just amazed. makes me wanna make one.

Zoom

So for this fight i kept the rc wheels, since its not a high energy weapon, and put on the long forks. still using the same 2 tooth bar. main strat here was to get a hit in from the sides, try and take out something juicy there and avoid the front.

Great Strat, poor usage

Fight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncrPL-5Ki5Q&t=2313s

So Finally i got to use the weapon, after a minute. Slot Machine was amazingly driving avoiding my attacks, slightly frustrating me. Very nice Sawage too, we love slawing.

After a lil while i got a lil nibble on a fork, then remembered: oh yeah, i got bigger forks, USE THEM.

Dink

Queue me going a lil crazy, smashing bits, and making the sawblade do a Pussycat. After asking Rory if he was finished, he said flip it back/keep hitting (one or the other). and after a few more, he was done.

WHEEEEEEEE

So finally, Bert showed what it can do, took it some time but we got there!

Fight 3: BERT THE VERT VS SCHISM

After a solid few minutes of first fighting BBY Deadbod, then Abracantbearsedtospellthewholename. i finally found my opponent, Tweedy with Schism, Skism? why is the sch a sk? english people uuh.

So for this, i said f the Groundgame, lets go basically wedgeless and see what it does. since last fight i found out the drive wasnt fuuully liking the long forks for manouvring, and tweedy being an amazing driver (even getting 4th)

Yes, i love zoompics, no its not an illness

Fight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncrPL-5Ki5Q&t=3555s

So basically, Schism absolutely dominated me in control, i had no time to breath. and it got behind me for some tasty hits, one getting the ziptie caught.

God i love titanium sparks

What i didnt know, and tweedy pointed out, i nearly got the pulley, so at least there was something! oh and ofcourse allot of dirt from the pit.

Theres a hole there

So Bert was out of the competition, but not out of fights! It signed up for a lil Whiteboard way later. Sticking on the Cobalt Esque 1 tooth blade and staying with the no groundgame setup.

Fight 4: SAW LOSER: 2 SAW 2 LOSE VS CARBONATED BEVERAGE VS BERT THE VERT VS EVIL TWIN

Fight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncrPL-5Ki5Q&t=5749s

So i was super scared of Saw Loser, i know how nasty it can be. so i fight tried to go for some of the others, quickly, this turned into going for Saw Loser. Taking a good nick out of the wheel and then getting one big hit in, where it went flying!

Bert doing vert things

After this, i hit the wall, and the belt slipped off, making my weapon no longer do the spin. Then Saw Loser went a lil ham on me, flipping me, bending some titanium bottem and then i did the thing (stupid seams). enjoy some sparky pics!

Ouch, my chin!

Ouch, my bottem!

Look ma, a headstand without hands!

After Alex Kindly Self righted me, he proceeded to take off my top panel and explose my terrible spagetti wiring! how rude!

You can here see the light seeing the light and going away

After that hit i was like yeaaaahhh nooo. i dont wanna break any squishy insides.

After the fight, i gave away the top panel he ripped off and the destroyed tpu top (my dad said, if you rip it off, u can have it). and i got the ruined wheel!

When we got back to the hotel, i really got to see in what state Bert was in, Simply put: Bloody ruined. Much was bend, had holes or was loose. The heat inserts basically said goodbye most places and the battery could be seen from the outside.

Have a few damage pics

So yeah, Brawl was allot of fun, no electronics damaged but yet still enough to improve on. Lets go to the positives and negatives!

Positives:

• It Hits hard, like, It makes me slightly brown my pants
• Foam wheels gave it still enough grip and worked a charm
• The TPU chassis took the hits and the rest of the armour too
• 2mm titanium can take a hammersaw!
• No real service was required
• Easily more serviceable then the last one

Negatives

• The Heat inserts are very crappy, break easily and just dont work as intented
• Not enough drive power to propperly use the large forks to wedge someone
• Wheels were easily targeted fighting an HS
• RC Wheels bad

So its time to make some changes!

6. Bert 3 Vert? Bhird?

Now its time to go make the new bert! Old bert was gifted to my dad with some changes, Renamed Kwalitatief Iets Beter, after the last one was called Kwalitatief Uitermaten Teleurstellend (dont look up the abriviation in dutch!)

Look, its KIB!

With the new Bert, i wanted to fix the big issues.

To fix the heat insert issue, i took some advice from AA and SL. Hex Standoffs. putting those into the TPU and bolting at both sides ment the pannels wont decide to go bye cya adios.

To combat the wheelsniping, i added some side armour thingy to defend from front on attacks, so unless i exposes my back side or side back it should be just about fiiine.

And to make it go faster, i got some new MARS motors from the Amazing Ellis. this in testing made it do a wheely without the front armour!

The all new chassisisisis

After printing the chassis, i found out, ohno the hexes dont fit at all. so i had to reprint it. then i saw my red was nearly empty, so i tossed in the blue TPU, which looks very very tasty!

After this, it was putting everything back together again, and it was ready!

Blueeeeeee

Brought it to the DRG Clubday. Sadly i couldnt fight with it since we had an open arena roof, but i could spin it up, drive and not hit anything.

Yes i make too many robots

So whats next for bert? Well Dortmund in 3 weeks! which will also be streamed on the germanroboteers twitch. see me there fight with my army!

Hopefully ill have time again to do another writeup when thats done!

[Wither (Luca Dingemans)]

We are back again for another writeup! this time, Dortmund, bit of Rapture and prep for hannover

7. Bert Goes Dortmund

Dortmund was a blast, and allot of success for all bots. lets dive into the bert fights:

Fight 1: Bert 2 Vert VS Fang

Link: https://youtu.be/hthEUO8eKio?si=Uf7EpDkRu_hCQWZH&t=710

No no, its not the amazing Fang you all know (i would not have brown pants left)

This Fang is a SSP Kit with a custom grabby claw

Very nom

So, for this fight i didnt put on any latex on my wheels yet, and with forks, driving on this floor is, uuuh, interesting. i was also having a weird bug in the electronics where it would brown out first time pressing full forward, but, after it does that, its fine?

For this and all my fights, i ran my new very high energy weapon, Dr. Tooth (totally original name)

After some tossling, and him pushing me against the wall, i got a decent bite into the printed side armour. taking out a bit of it. after 2 more dinks, he got stuck on the wall, and i lost a wheel, with the grubscrew loosening. then found it did fun gyro!

The only real “Damage” you could say was the wheel comming off, fixing it with adding the retaining screw in at the end of the shaft.

Fight 2: Bert 2 Vert VS TLC

Link: https://youtu.be/hthEUO8eKio?si=4fL8BkHDjKkNGidJ&t=1194

OH NO, Bert has multiplied!!!

Some T, Some L and an amount of C

TLC is heavily inspired by Bert, the builder said it himself. only difference is the way heavier weapon and stronger motor powering it, to say its a dumb dumb hitter, is an understatement.

For this fight, i stuck the wedge on, as the forks didnt like driving on this floor. The fight was, uuuh quick. with maximum latex mars zoom, i went into him, he flipped, then gyrod into the pit. as easy as that.

Fight 3: Bert 2 Vert VS Kwalitatief Iets Beter

Link: https://youtu.be/hthEUO8eKio?si=MAW7YtPAj5U4eZg2&t=2279

So yeah, i had to fight old bert with new bert. only my dad broke the weapon (pulley melted and pulled the weapon motor into the weapon) and just stuck one of our feathers forks on the shaft. so he had one large fork (singular)

Ofcourse beating your dad is fun, and it happend! After a few scares of him getting under and fear he would oota me over the near non existing walls (thanks wajoo) i got a hit that flipped him over, then simply pushed him over the wall.

Fight 3.5: Funfight

Link: https://youtu.be/hthEUO8eKio?si=OIofWXAl3zevbcf-&t=2540

So end of the round, i felt the fight of bert went a bit too quick, so i tossed it into a whiteboard VS allot of bots.

in 2 seconds, i dissabled 1 bot by flipping it. then 1 other vert got a hit on me, and i ootad it as retaliation. after a bit i got a bot stuck on its back, then went for the final driving one, and discovered, the bite of this weapon is a bit bad. i had it running at 50%, and it couldnt get bite. in the end i still ripped open the last bot and saw its battery stick out, and stopped.

Fight 4: Bert 2 Vert VS Bad Omen

Link: https://youtu.be/hthEUO8eKio?si=NhETDa2WBWvbjfYi&t=3499

So Bad Omen is a clusterbot me and a friend made, same builder as fang. ofcourse i chose to drive Bert for this

is 2 better then 1?

For this, Bad ran the wedge config and Omen the, uuuh, Drilbit? its undercutter broke the last 2 fights and didnt have a spare anymore, so drillbit it was! meanwhile i ran the forks since i was scared Bad could get under.

I got some solid hits against Bad and Omen, and got Omen stuck on the wall, meanwhile, i got a massive hit on the back top of Bad sending it to the roof and knocking down the Live On Twitch Sign and Bad out of the arena.

we love chaos

So after this, i was 4-0. but many others were too, so for the final we had 1 big massive Rumble. With Wajoo, Trouble Double, Sparkles The Third and Lumera.

Fight 5: Finals

Link: https://youtu.be/hthEUO8eKio?si=IvhBQ1KEcPaBM5qQ&t=3610

So for this i was mainly scared about wajoo, but had a strat for it. FORKS!!

You may ask, why? well, in a 3rd round fight it fought my tpu wedged bot Gladiator, and well, it ate the front of it up with its flippy tooth. so i wanted more to get under it instead of trying to deflect it.

Wajoo did this

So first, i went for Trouble Double, while Wajoo scored a cross arena hit against Sparkles (this was the feather arena, 6 by 6)

I nearly got Trouble Double in the pit after Wajoo flipped it, but i couldnt push him in fully since i saw Wajoo creeping up behind. then i went for Wajoo, deflection slightly working, but he then ripped off 1 of the forks. after a bit i saw Lumera sneaking up, and i hit it and flipped it. afterwards Wajoo Flipped me and i got stuck on my face, trying to use the rpm of the weapon to self right. after getting up, i drove to Wajoo, and then flipped myself. Unknowingly, i injested my own weapon motor after the pulley melted from spinning up and down.

After this, the fight was called since Wajoo could basically decide who gets 2nd. Wajoo was declared the winner and me and Trouble Double were flipped back upright and we fought on, both without a weapon. after a little tossle, i got him into the pit to finish 2nd in beetles.

Overall, i was very happy with Bert, tho there were a few fixes i wanted to implement.

• Make the Pulley infill 100% as to not shred it and change the pulley design.
• Look into different wheel options
• Use a different weapon

8. Tweaks

For the Pulley design, i used the holes in the motor to kinda lock in the pulley, making it able to not slip and get the weapon to top speed.

For new wheels, i used the old RC tires with foamies to create the grip of rubber, while keeping the foamies sturdyness. unlike the old rc wheels where if you breathed wrong they would break.

And for weapon, i went back to the tried and trusted 1 tooth cobalt style i got. but i did have 50 million weapon options.

beside that, i started working on something to counter hses that could cut into tpu wedges, a way to deflect them. the idea was a mixed Titanium and TPU wedge, basically a TI Laying idea. this sadly never got any use since it made the bot very overweight, but it will be redesigned.

9. Planet Roboting and Rapturing

At Planet Robot, i got the chance to test out my weapon and new wheels. Bert now did wheelies and also, i got to use the weapon at 100%, which ment massive hits on the test chassis i brought to hit (funnily enough, being the og bert)

Rapture Writeup, ill have to come back on since i forgot everything that happend. but it was a blast and Bert really showed what its made of, with massive hits!

I finally feel Bert has hit its potentional with this design. For Hannover the only change I’m making is the Forkmounting making the forks not flip under the bot and getting myself stuck, or getting the forks stuck up.

How Hannover will go? idk, they will have a new propper arena but no pit. Ill be back with a writeup when thats happend!