Dolos mk3 build diary

[morgan_ls (Morgan Larner-Smith)]

hello! figured it was about time i did another build diary, now Dolos for a while has been pretty stagnant design wise, i mean if it aint broke don’t fix it right? well after war in the Wirral there was allot broke and allot needed fixing and it taught me allot of lessons

(apologies in advance for spelling or grammatical mistakes, those are really not my strong suit )

dolos prior to war in the wirral (with its old anti horizontal wedge)

firstly to not always expect it to do well, prior to this it had had 3 top 4 finished and a top 8 at ratpure so i kinda threw it together with spares and not allot of thought and figured id have a decent shot, and instead got back a pile of bits haha

dolos after war in the wirral

all but 1 of the motors on the robot were out of action by the end of the day, front end was wrecked and the blade twisted

it highlighted allot of issues id been having with the bot and ignoring because “if it aint broke dont fix it” these being the lack of drive reliability and power, it had previosly been able to get away with just using 22mm bbb motors and exposed wheels but as of late its been killing allot more and breaking them, and frankly getting out pushed but spinners is not fun haha so i wanted to go to brushless drive

the other thing that i really wanted was a more reliable weapon, the hammer arm itself has always been pretty bomb proof, ever since i swapped to a old cordless screwdriver after subterranean its had loads of power and only been killed twice in like 20 matches, the disc however has always had problems, this mainly stems from wanting to keep the insides as tiny as possible to allow for more width. this meant the motor was stuck out on the arm with a belt drive leaving it very exposed to any spinner that breaths on it, often ending up with a dead weapon going into fights which sucks when that’s your main way to deal damage

i also felt i finally needed to step away from the screwdriver motors, although they have been nothing but reliable they are also large and heavy and very exposed with no real way to put them inside the robot, so these will be replaced with a tried and tested method from the other hammer saw bots with a 3:1 reduction to a fingertech mega spark

that and seeing how much success saw loser has had with there hub motor i figured i may as well try and emulate that success

also the front end failed pretty badly, the first fight baby dead bod cut almost half the posts on the front and then they all let go vs ice breaker, making for the first time a fork had been ripped off since its first even

finally i also wanted to sort out the sticking issue, as rules have changes its no longer as good as it once was, so making some proper forks that wont get stuck is a must

with those deisgn criteria set out i started on the cad, i quickly realised however that weight wise it wasnt going to be possible to keep the same dimensions, dolos has always been a wide boi to help to capture opponents but i had to do the unthinkable and chop 20mm off its width to a measly 280mm wide. this however freed up allot of weight for the rest of the bot

first rough cad

with this first cad out the way i found i was still way overweight, the old method of screwing plastic plates to the tpu frame was not going to work, i also didnt really want open lids, they always seemed to let me down when it mattered with messy wiring and wiggly links

so i decided to try and make a 2 part tpu uni body

this being the motor side for the hammer arm it makes it a very compact and lightweight package, everything bolts to these pair of body’s with the front rail and bent baseplate and rear armour providing the rigidity of the whole bot

the drive motors are fingertech megaspakrs with the hammer arm being the same motor on a 3:1 ratio with a 10mm aluminium dead shaft support the hammer arm

this meant it could be in weight, looking like this

(pictured with its anti drum set-up)

one of the more noticable changes is the wheels, on previos versions of dolos these have been machined hdpe with belt screwed to them, or tpu with the same belt, i recently went to cast wheels but they all had the same issue, when hit they would either fly off or break the gearbox, or both

so i designed some “flap” wheels, i designed a version of these for my antweights years ago and they appears to work well, being made from pla it allowed for a part of the wheel to fail and break away without loosing the rest of the wheel, i took this a step further with this design and made them tpu and cast rubber, allowing the flaps to flex out the way of any incoming hit preventing the loss of the wheel and limited shock to the gearboxes, it also had the added benifit of making it much harder to get launched from a side shot

these consist of 10 segments each with there down dovetail to hold the rubber to them

the rear has its own set of dovetails to prevent any one hit from compromising the whole wheel

they will be mounted with the fingertech mounting plates and the motors themselves held in with a 1mm aluminium lasercut mounting plate, this is screwed into the tpu, although the motors are mainly constrained by the tight fit into the tpu itself

with the body and arm system making weight i then had about 2-300 grams left over for the hub motor

now ive built them before (see my build of yam) and a much older bot in chaac this was the first hub motor ive made without dual support and for a hammer saw, as a result i wanted to ensure a relaible spin-up and strong system, for the motor i went with one of zephyrus’s old weapon motors, a 3520 (2808) which delivers insane beans for its size and being a low kv (only 850) meant i could have a large diameter weapon with a relatively small hub,

ill go on a bit of a tangent first about why i wanted a large diameter weapon for dolos, with bots like attitude adjuster and saw loser there smaller weapons allow them to deliver a larger punch than dolos but dont have the range to go weapon to weapon, previos incarnations of dolos have been able to reach past verts and snipe belts as well as going weapon to weapon with some smaller horizontals. the trade off being that you cant really have a large diameter hub motor without sacrificing something else to be able to be under the tip speed limit, to this end dolos has a pretty large 149mm (up from 145 with the old weapons) diameter weapon with a relatively low kv motor, meaning a slower spin-up but the larger diameter should allow it to sneak shots against smaller verts and mabye even some of the bigger ones at the right angle. this is not to say i think my design is better than theres, but i think they both have advantages

anyway on with the hub motor design, the heart of the whole design is the cnc aluminium hub

the lobes key into the weapon with 3xm4 bolts holding it to the place making swapping the weapon a hopefully less painful experience. it also means i can run thinner weapons to claw more weight back for alternative set-ups. it then uses a pair of 22x6x5 bearings on a 6mm shoulder bolt

this should keep it pretty reliable

annoyingly the motor i had choses had a very weird 11mm od beairngs in it, requiring me to drill it out and press in a 11-6bushing. which took most of the slack out the system

this came to a rather meaty 270 grams, with close to 250 grams of spinning mass in its heaviest configuration, 150 of which is the weapon disc

the hammer arm itself has also changed, going from 15mm thick to 8mm, mostly for weight but mainly for more flexability, looking at strike point across the pond he got away with a very thin arm, im trying to replicate that

next on the to do list was the front end, previously this was some rather small tpu hinges that kept the forks on

i decided to redesign this entirely and go to a much beafier design

although slightly heavier i felt it was well worth it to keep the forks on the bot and protect the fork shafts

with the main design sorted i turned my attention to the forks and set-ups

dolos has always had allot of set-ups, which i love to have means i can adjust the bot to fight any opponent, this version is no different with 5 set-ups

anti control bot set up (and anti vert set-up) running either the 5 or 3mm blade depending on if its a vert or not, in the case of a vert ill run hollow aluminium tubes over the hollow carbon fibre tubes

this uses the “bridge forks” which stop bots getting stuck as well as 2 “thumb” forks to catch and hold bots at the perfect distance from the hammer saw and prevent them moving too far up, these may be swapped to the bridge forks i case of verts to not give them an edge to hit

anti drum set-up

this set-up has been bomb proof on previos verisons, the forks are 5mm thick hardox with a very low front edge with a aggresivly spiked bucket which is matched to the diamter of a fingertech beater bar, the idea is the low front doesnt allow a drum to catch the tips of forks and then i can ram them into a wall meaning they get a face full of spikey forks, this either stops there weapon or causes them to flip over, having had great success with this against oubly and sweg

finally the anti horizontal set-up of which i had 2 designs

this one is designed for slightly smaller diameter horizontals or those which play ground game as it allows me to run a pair of smaller forks with break away edges if they get caught (inspired by minimiser) the front itself is a large bent peice of 2mm ti although pretty thin the shallow angle should allow it to deflect nicely

the second design is what im coining bunker mode and takes heavy inspiration from sawblazes anti horizontal set-up

running the thinnest blade (3mm) it frees up weight for a 2mm hardox front plow designed to deflect horizontals upwards and also to allow me to grip on there undersides, this is backed up by a very thick tpu front, each half weight 110 grams each of thick walled tpu, this should protect the body from all hits, as well as some wheel gaurds to prevent stray shot

i also have another design for the big wheeled bots, but ill keep that one closer to my chest for now

with the cad mostly finished i moved onto creating the bot

with almost the entire bot being printed it made creating it rather easy, although a massive cheers to rob (who runs boom zoom) for printing the fronts out and they are easily the cleanest part on the entire build as well as machining the arm

the main part i had to manufacture was the base and rear armour, this consists of a 4mm piece of bent hdpe. i didnt get any photos of this but i clamped the part between two bits of steel and used a heat gun to warm the plastic, then gearing gloves i bent i tby hand to roughly 90 degrees, was a little rough but came out good enough

next i assembled the hub motor, to do this i first covered both the stator and magnet ring in epoxy and then lightly sanded the inside of the magnet ring to remove any leftover glue

annoyingly i dont have too many photos of the build process but one slightly further along is this picture, missing the baseplate and rear arm support

next step was the wiring, as you can see its pretty cramped, by some miracle it all went in rather painlessly

finally here is the finished bot

pretty pleased with it

did some testing with it as well to see what materials it was able to puncture (test took place in an empty garage with me hiding behind a 6 inch brick wall)

first test was against an old bot of mine with 3mm hdpe armour, managed to get through without too much trouble

next test was a sheet of 3mm polycarb

as you can see it managed to puncture pretty well. took some force to get back out again

i next tried it against some 2mm ali

in nearly was able to breach this, and certainly breached my ear drums after hitting it

i also tested it against a big block of hdpe i had as a test dummy, managed to get over 6mm deep before stopping. so with any luck 5mm and below ill be able to breach

however these tests highlighted some issues that i will be addressing, mainly the arm drive is no good so on suggestions from a few other builders im going to a hellical gear and also with a slightly higher reduction (2.5 to 1 to 3 to 1) which should allow the arm to swing easier and prevent the gears from stripping themselves

the old gears vs the new ones

im also trailing a 45 degree and 15 degree helix angle to see which works best for the application

the other issue was the drive, with the way the weight distribution is now its much closer to 50/50 making it allot less nice to drive, going to try to remedy this with magnets and wheely bars. ill update the log on these as i go

once ive fixed those issues dolos mk3 should be ready for its debut at scouse showdown! thanks for reading

[T_Y (Thomas Yau)]

Looking great! I’ve yet to face Dolos, but it’s always been a concerning matchup because of how hard it is to get to the body past the front end. Looking forward to seeing it in action!

[McMullet (Sam Roberts)]

Awesome write-up Morgan. So much great engineering went into that. I love the wheels especially!

[morgan_ls (Morgan Larner-Smith)]

it would be a fun match for sure, your drive would make it difficult to get a clean shot. although given how you have already beaten my other two bots id say the odds are in your favour haha

[morgan_ls (Morgan Larner-Smith)]

thanks! and yeah the wheels should be fun to try out, idk if the loss in traction is worth the added robustness, seems others run solid rimmed wheels on 6mm drive shafts without too much issue so might be overkill. ill probably make a second set with solid rims when fighting non spinners where more traction is needed over the ability to take a bit

[morgan_ls (Morgan Larner-Smith)]

Scouse showdown 3 prep and fight report

firstly apologies for the lack of pictures, i always forget to take pictures at events and in between fights not helped by my phone being dead the whole day haha

despite the bot seemingly being finished weeks before the event when i powered it on to do its POM it decided that its weapon was dead for some reason. somehow the esc was throwing a fit that the throttle limits were too low, well fair enough ill rebind it and it enters the program mode? very strange

i burn a few days on this before giving up and cutting this esc out in favour of a new blheli esc. at this point i realise ive never programmed an esc before and after burning another week on this it turns out the usb to esc doggle i was trying to use was for a diffirent brand of esc and woudlnt work and coudlnt get a replacement in time. cue swapping to another esc which i thought would work, which ofc decided not to

after all this rigmarole i decided to just swap back to a new esc of the old type i had used which i did on the Thursday, at this point the arm and drive both decided to play silly buggers and not work, found the issue to be a faulty receiver which i fixed Thursday evening. luckily fixing the bot just in time

in terms of changes since the last post i decided to ditch the 5mm blade in place of a 3mm blade with double ali poles for strength and it made the bot allot less rear heavy making it much easier to drive and adjusted the drive down to 25% speed to get it a little more controllable

luckily everything seemed to be working before heading off to Liverpool

one last glory pic before it gets allot less pretty

anyway first fight

round 1 :Delta V

Delta V is a very scary robot and not exactly who i wanted to be facing in my first fight, a very aggressive, fast and well driven 4wd vertical spinner which i knew would only need a couple shots with its massive weapon to do major damage to my untested machine. however its overall size and lack of top armour did leave it vulnerable to my go to tactic of scoop them up hit them a few times and bail for a pit
12:29 (since i cant figure out how to link to the correct time ill just leave the time without posting the link 5x over)

Scouse Showdown 3 - Competition Fights

the fight luckily went in my favour, managed to get a good pin right from the start and foolishly threw my weapon into his vert disabling my weapon but flipping him in the process he was quickly able to right himself and get a couple small shots on my forks, from this point on however i was able to keep him away from anything squishy and after a very long 30 seconds managed to get the pit open and shove him down

could not be happier with that result taking down a very capable vertical spinner in my first match with what appeared to be minimal damage

the damage however was not as minimal as it first seemed the misplaced hit had bent the 8mm shoulder bolt. as well as one of the wheels coming off in my hand happily and very fortunately as i hadn’t brought a spare delta V used the same size bolt so i swapped it in and everything on the saw was running again. turns out the wheel issue was due to the lack of loctite which id forgotten to put on

round 2 :Vertex

20:41

this is another dangerous vertical spinner with a fairly agile 2wd system and a another good driver to contend with, on the upside i had faced vertex before in champs 2023 and managed a fairly decisive (if divisive) win. that and with a good injection of confidence from the previos victory i was feeling good going in

and it went well until it didnt i managed to bully vertex around for nearly a minute landing a hammer saw shot (not to the wepaon this time!) and nearly had them down the pit however i was being too precios with getting them lined up perfectly to prevent a self pitting and they wriggled free and then proceded to tear me a new one for the rest of the match the bent forks meant i struggled to get good traction on the floor and nearly ended up in the pit, and then couldn’t capitalise when in the last 15 seconds there weapon went down, a well deserved win to vertex, makes us 1:1 so get you next time!

on a positive dolos was working the entire time the arm self righted me really well and the drive was still spinning by the end of it. damage wise the entire set of forks were toast and the bars holding them in were banana shaped that and lost a few more flaps on the wheels

Round 3 :Crofty angle

34:10

this bot is a very large hammer with a fun design on its upright, i knew going in at least i would get a robot out in one piece

interestingly they had an anti dolos attachment in the shape of some massive wooden forks that were allot longer than mine on the upside i knew i could get threw there lids pretty effectively and providing they didn’t hit my link they would struggle to get a KO

i decided to run my anti drum forks for this fight to allow me to shove on the awkward shaped robot easier

the fight went pretty well for me, got a nice pin close to the start and spun up the hammer saw but found it was catching the floor got the shot off anyway digging nicely into there frame and missing almost everything on the inside. i didn’t want to shred the gears trying to retract if i was really stuck so we were separated, i spent the rest of the fight trying to avoid the front end and get him down the pit, he ended up getting a nice few shots on my link which hastened my drive towards the pit and a neat KO. even if i did try for a cheeky tail hit at the end to rip off another wooded fork

this put on on 7 point (2 knockouts for points and 1 point for a jd loss) this just squeaked me into the top 8 as the 7th ranked robot of the day. this is the first time ive ever got out the heats at one of the scouse events so was very pleased until i heard my draw

quarter final: Unstoppable Force

43:33

this bot is a very fast and dense drum spinner with a fast and aggressive driver to boot, i also knew there drum was going to be very difficult to knockout

going in i kept the anti drum forks on the robot and lowed the levelling screws at the back to try and keep the front of the robot as close to the floor as possible (foreshadowing)

this was a very fun fight a very aggresive robot to try and contain, the weapon hitting the floor cursed me again when i tried for the shot on the top of there robot but did manage to get a decent way into them coming close to snipping a weapon motor. later on in the fight the forks did exactly what they intended to do and force the weapon of unstopable force to keep deliverying massive hits to the forks without much damage to the rest of my bot, this culminated in one large hit towards the end which killed there weapon funnily enough i also said “yeah have that” after that hit so ill take that abiet luckily called kill shot haha, however at this point my forks had got so bent and in conjunction with the lowered screws meant i was mostly high sided meaning i couldn’t capitalise as i would want to and the fight ended with a failed hammer saw shot

the split judges decision was slightly spicy i really wasn’t sure who would win and would of been very happy to of lost that fight. but i aint gunna complain judges is a hard job and not one id ever want to do, ive been on the wrong side of close calls before so ill take it

Semi final: Tsukikage

50:50

for a change its a non spinner! Tsukikage is a 4wd lift which so far has done pretty well for itself and any bot in the top 4 is to be taken seriously however i was quitely confident i knew i had much longer forks and so could negate the lifter entirely and providing i didnt let him get round me i could control the match, i also felt i had a good chance of hitting something important with the saw. also had fitted some extra top armour and luck in the shape of a grabba wobba sticker

before the match started i learned that unfortunately there lifter was down so luckily i wasn’t going to get flipped

the fight started and right away i was able to get under and control the match got a nice little shot on the lifter and then a perfect hold right over the rear… and then the gear on the arm shredded meaning i coudnt deliver the kill shot! happily his lifter was also down so i just had to control the fight and get him down the pit. after a little scare as soon as a i pressed the pit release he got a really good shove on my side i managed to slowly get him down the pit bagging me a place in the grand final

in terms of repairs i gifted the knacked gear to Alex and replaced it with a lurid green one, this didnt have the end stops of the old gear so i would need to be more carful with the arm

Grand final: Ice Breaker

52:50

the bot nobody really wants to face, I’ve face it before and it wrote off the last version of dolos however I felt slightly more confident this time round as i had allot more drive power and a more potent weapon. however it hadn’t exactly stood still with lots of upgrades and had recently taken home a trophy the weekend before taking down allot of good bots along the way

at the start of the fight things seemed to go my way i was getting under and nearly had some decent shots on the side, sadly i took the fight over the pit where i got a little stuck and icebreaker got free. after a little more tussling he managed to catch a fork and from there is was over, i was just trying to break his weapon at this point but it takes allot more than that to kill there weapon. the fight ended with me in the pit and a well deserved win for adam

overall i am very very pleased with the new bot, its placed the best the robot has in about 2 years against some stiff competition as well as taking a beating and keeping on going. there was allot of lessons learned. namely the frame needs to be all one piece as the final fight with icebreaker practically split the front off the robot.

see esc nearly being ripped out

i also need to make the tail that holds up the saw longer as the repeated back swings dented it down to make the saw hit the floor. as well as some slight change in fork design to make positioning over other bots easier. not sure what this will look like yet but shouldnt be too big of the change

the wheels seemed to work well, they 100% saved me from taking some larger hits at times, however i need to remember to bring spares as the set towards the end of the day were looking a little sad

looking very sad next to its 2nd place trophy, someday 1st place someday

not sure yet when the next event for dolos will be, tempted to swap it for Zephyrus at MITE is not it will be ready and waiting as a seeded bot at robot rebellion!

[morgan_ls (Morgan Larner-Smith)]

MITE prep/event report

Sooo dropped Zeph out in favour of dolos, sad times, but I didn’t think I would have enough time to get it back to its face spinning former glory and so its shelved till rapture whiteboards for now.

going into this event I knew there was some things I wanted to change and some things that worked well at scouse. namely super happy with the drive system but the forks and arm needed work

firstly I focused on the arm, I upped the module from 2 to 2.5, this slightly reduced the ratio from 3.1 to 3 but I felt it was worth it for the increased strength. this however did have a problem the increased tooth size had eaten into the hex on the inside this caused the gears to break constantly. luckily however I found I have some m6 hex bar (long nut?) and drilled it out, being steel it was heavier but dropped the hex size from 12 to 8 which meant I could fit the gear properly

with that done the next task was to change up the fork geometry. although the new “bridge” forks worked out well I felt there was a few issues, firstly keeping an opponent on the forks was very tricky, they tended to slide off very easily and often prevented me from getting a good hit. they were also pretty thin, for all of its existence dolos has run 4mm forks, they tended to get beat up but worked well, however as of late I was going through a set of forks a match which was not something I could keep up with so I wanted to up to at least 6mm which is wear most places then stock 500 wear plate so I came up with this design

my “totally not a barb barbed forks” the idea here is that it helps me hold an opponent when pushing forwards but on a hard stop they will slide off the end. also the centre of the arc is exactly where the hammer saw hits so it will be much easier to line up shots. these also saved allot of weight from the older bridge forks and so could be made from 6mm as well as a very spicy 8mm if I only ran 3 of them. I also had some 5mm cut as well just to be safe

beefy

I also changed the material holding the forks in, I have tried many materials for this job from hollow Ali tube to carbon fibre to solid Ali and all have failed in some way (bent or shattered) and I felt like throwing more weight into the fork mounting (like going to steel or Ti) would sacrifice more of the weight from the forks themselves, so I decided to go the other way and try a flexible plastic, I settled on nylon for 2 reasons

its stiff

and its actually available in 8mm

yep I wanted to try HDPE but apparently 8mm HDPE rod needs a special order from China, guess ill try it after rapture if these work out

this saved a huge amount of weight over the 8mm solid Ali poles and so allowed for the heavier front ends

this also meant i could try out a hardox wedge for those nasty horizontals

however these did cause a bit of a panic as despite being described as 8mm they were actually 8.3. i adjusted for this with the fork design but when they arrived the Friday before the event they wouldn’t fit. so had to do a super jank and ran the nylon rods through the hole in the forks to “machine” them down

some other smaller changes include changing up the wheels

the main change was instead of casting the sections in instead I cut them with a knife afterwards. this meant I had much more rubber in contact with the ground and as I had beefed up the radii at the bottom should be less likely to loose sections from a stray hit

I also changed the hammer saw hub to a “lightweight” version to save me a little more weight for a heavier saw and forks

as you can see I cut vents in (these also help me push out the magnet ring in case of damage) and also shortened the hub motor so i could use a shorter shoulder bolt again saving weight

the final change that I feel is worth mentioning is the remade arm thanks again to the sexy Rob Weston for cutting it for me, this time it features a “back stop” so I can trim it to get the arm rest to barley skim above the floor meaning I no longer need to run the jack screws at the back

the weird sticky out bit in the middle of the arm is so I can cut it down to suit

as well as putting a massive 15mm between the saw and the floor to try and prevent hitting the floor again

aside from that the front and pods were reprinted but with minimal changes

MITE event recap!

so going in I was greeted by a pretty interesting fight schedule, unstoppable force, antithesis, and then a rumble with unstoppable force and siren. this was then changed for delta V in the rumble

both Randell brothers 2 events in a row, what are the odds

Fight 1 : Unstoppable force

Minibeasts In The East - LIVE Beetleweight Robot Combat [April 2024]

(46:19)

this was a total barn burner of a fight at scouse capped off with a close JD, we were both looking forward to and not for a rematch, he had made changes with increasing his weapon reliability and sneakily covering his battery in a steel plate. meanwhile my wheels should hold up better and my forks were thicker and of a harder material. should be interesting

(all fight photo credits to Ellie Harrington)

“oi come back here!”

this fight was another great match, i could tell they had learned allot from our previous encounter as they avoided the front of the robot like the plague, the forks worked great managed to catch them a few times and flip them however I wasn’t quite quick enough to capitalise and they did a fantastic job of evasive driving while upside down. and then they managed to get a great flurry of hits knocking me over and smashing a slight exposed link in the process

get you next time!

fixes were pretty simple, a little bit of damage on the forks but nowhere near as bad as last time and a little bit of a solder job on the link

Fight 2: Antithesis

(2:52:49)

this was Gunna be another fun one, I know how fast and effective that bot can be but they also had allot of juicy exposed parts to hit if I could get the right grab

I was going to fit the anti hammer saw top armour but felt like 4mm of additional plastic was going to do very little to its crusher and so I decided to throw the additional weight into the forks

fight started out well, got a nice couple of pins and managed to bring the saw down, however I kinds fell victim of a skill issue as I didn’t leave the blade long enough to get up to speed before dropping it again resulting in not very much damage

forks worked great managed to release well enough until I got stuck on the very powerful magnets on the bottom and antithesis but managed to wiggle free, at this point I did think about going for the pit button but decided against it as not only did we have similar drive power I kinda wanted to see what more I could do with the saw

and I guess it worked out as the shortly after this moment antithesis got a lovely bite at the back of my bot after a scuffle in on of the corners, initially he only caught the hub motor which I knew would be fine until he rammed me into a wall and grabbed right into the heart of dolos, I brought the arm forward to try and backswing him but the arm was stuck? not sure what was happening so just waited on the unstick, luckily for me antithesis bit probably in the best location for me it could of done, right down the hole for the weapon motor wires where there is basically nothing important and then had squished my arm motor into my frame jamming it, literally any other location and that would of been at least a motor down

I got lucky however and managed a few back swings before making a sharp escape, fight ended with us stuck together again after a final hammer saw shot

judges ruled in my favour but dam that was a good fight. heavily underestimated how durable and fast antithesis was and got very lucky it wasn’t a very expensive loss! this However put me in an awkward spot points wise, i was on 3 points (0 for a loss and 3 for a JD win) and so to get any shot at the bracket I would need a knockout win in a rumble… not exactly dolos’s ideal fight as it liked to keep its opponents Infront

Round 3. Delta V and Siren

(4:07:09)

unusually for this event they had the 3 way fight last which was both a fun and scary concept for people who needed the win, me being one of them. especially with a very dangerous and familiar robot in Delta V who was itching for some vengeance after last time and siren which so far had proven it was a very durable robot and had had a brutal draw so far

going into this fight i chose to run the 8mm thick forks in case of a side shot from delta V (if I was pinned by siren) and the strategy was full aggression at delta V as they were the bigger threat and hope that they didn’t try and gang up on me

fight started great (even if I did get cheeky and point myself directly at delta V from my starting area) managed to get a great pit and strike on the back of delta V

not sure this did that much damage as the follow up shot threw me straight over and nearly into a fight ending rear shot.

happily I avoided this and got another pin on Delta V pushing them around and stopping there weapon on my forks and I brought the weapon down straight into the back of Delta V

we had to be separated as it was pretty stuck and by some miracle I had hit the BEC of Delta V killing it outright as they were unable to move from that point on and had to be removed, funnily enough maintaining the tradition (at least until this point) of Delta V only losing to icebreaker and dolos. not looking forward to our next meeting as I suspect I wont get off as lightly. this was also the first ever kill dolos has made with its weapon in hammer saw mode. this just left the limping siren.

however it wasn’t totally plain sailing, the weapon arm was kind of wonky at this point after the two hits on delta and the front forks were bent, so getting under was Gunna be tricky as the robot would both rear up and ground out but after a little manoeuvring I managed it

now all credit to Dom who basically told me to go ham. so i did

and with a flurry of hits ripped the front wedge off

(this might be my favourite ever shot of dolos, just short of the LiPo smoke one but really shows the power in the saw)

broke the aluminium lifter poles

and finally punched into the battery resulting in it bellowing out the classic LiPo smoke,

could not be happier, having went from never getting a knockout with the weapon to 2 in the same match and a LiPo to boot, could not be more pleased. and finally felt like I had solidified dolos as not only having control but also the ability to get the damage where it matters

sadly however it wasnt enough to get into the top 8 as i had a jd win and a knockout not 2 knockouts. however this would of put me into another rumble with even stiffer competition so frankly it was probably for the best lol

damage wise the 8mm forks which i thought be be tougher turned out to get very bent from only a few hits, I suspect the heat from the laser cutting turned them into mild steel and the bent arm is Kinda more tricky to fix, might require a bit of a redesign or perhaps a stiffer arm gear will help

this did however mean I could enter a whiteboard! for the first time ever since running dolos as its normally either still in the bracket or very very dead

Whiteboard 1: Barbour surgeon, Bam! and Antithesis

(6:27:18)

probably the weirdest spinner rumble, 1 vert in bam and then 3 overhead weapons all with very different styles. I ran the anti drum forks for this to allow me to easily release another bot and also to try and space off any overhead attackers from hitting my lids

mostly I was going after antithesis for a little revenge on the bite in our last match getting a meaty hit into the wedge. I then noticed barber surgeon was upside down and lined up for a meaty belly shot

I was expecting them to self right but they did not, tried to knock them back over in vert mode but this failed and so i went after antithesis again, and somehow I flipped myself? I misfired the arm and when I retracted it hit the floor so hard I flipped myself over, jamming the arm in the process leaving both hammer saws out of it

turns out impact had made the gears slip and after a bit of force i freed off the arm but there was significant damage to the gears from it.

so that was dolos’s final fight of the day as I didn’t get chance to throw it into the rumble (and kinda glad I didn’t it got pretty messy!)

However the day had a final surprise with a most destructive award! could not be happier with that. probably the first hammer saw to win one (mabye) and my first as well, and frankly would of been happy with any award if it meant walking away with such a sick trophy

in terms of changes I was very happy with how the bot performed, I need to change the link location, I shoved it deeper in the robot after that first fight and it seemed fine but I want a proper link door next time. also need to change up the gear material did have some ideas to go nylon on the big gear and maybe metal 3d print an Ali gear for the smaller one? no idea if that will be better or worse but something to try. as well as making sure to support the other side of the motor shaft to prevent it bending away from the gear on large impacts

also i want to slightly change the angle of the forks as i wasn’t able to get magnets on the front of the robot as the front of the bot was only just up off the floor with the forks on so ill probably get the front reprinted either slightly lower or with the holes at the slight angle (to avoid remaking the forks) I also need to make more nylon bars for the front as they did get galled through the day and finally the 8mm thick forks need to be cut with another method so going to get a 8mm plate cut out and then waterjet so the material doesn’t get heat treated as much. hopefully making them stronger as i really like the option to only run 3 thicker forks when the potential for fork hits is high. i may also change up the design of the forks somewhat, i need to do some more testing with a higher drive speed but i felt i wasnt able to dump opponents off my forks very easily and dont want to loose to unstick rules

oh and sort out the skill issue with hitting multiple times with the saw to make sure im hitting as hard as i can

other than that no major changes for rapture, did have vague plans of tyring for a one print frame but i think ill save a major change like that for after rapture in case it throws up more issues!

photo credits again to Ellie Harrington and a massive congrats to a really well run event to the team behind MITE ran really was and was a pleasure to compete at, and whoever designed the trophy 10/10

thanks for reading!

[morgan_ls (Morgan Larner-Smith)]

summer showdown 2024 event report

been a hot minute since the last update, decided not to do one of rapture as i took no pictures and theres been no fight videos up yet, so may wait to do that when those release

anyway this event

before this event id had lots of teething issues with the new version of dolos, its biggest change was going from tpu to pp for the bodys, this saved loads of weight but they warped like a bugger and had lots of adjusting to do

this was going on until the night before the event haha

the other major changes included new front ends new weapon shaft (ti instead of steel) and new weapon esc being the bbb antweight esc, this seemed prefectly fine running dolos’s fairly low intensity weapon

the new front ends included this

a 3 pronged front wedge designed for verts and horizontals for those nightmare 3 way match-ups

and a new anti horizontal wedge,

much thicker tpu thanks for the hdpe fork rods over the ali offering much more protecting that the old wedges

as well as some anti hammer saw top amour. 3mm hdpe plates spaced 20mm off the top of the robot designed to let the hammer saw slow down before reaching the main lids, as well as mabye getitng stuck in the thin plastic allowing me to hit back

those are the main changes, onto the fights!

(all photo credits to ellie harrington)

first round: vs sniper vs Ray

before this fight i had a tricky time deciding on a set-up, the new 3 pronged set-up was specifically designed for these kind of situations but i felt that sniper posed a large enough threat that id rather sacrifice my ability to get under ray

the fight starts and sniper almost instantly eats on of my tires, hindering my drive and jamming his weapon. this was very fortunate since i was having some very weird arm issues, i can only assume i must of hit the trim during the fight as the arm kept creeping forward, and trying to fix this while constantly being thrown around by ray was no easy haha. managed a small shot on sniper after fixing the arm before ray disposed of them and the rest of my tire came off, this left me open for ray to control the match, i managed to line up 1 shot but this missed and left me tumbling. only able to score some superficial damage with the weapon in vert mode in the dying seconds of the fight, this rightfully went to ray

repairs after this fight were fairly minor, rebound the arm to the reciever to stop the movement and swapped out the tires for the old set and sharpended the blade after its meeting with the floor

second round: vs Delta V

a familiar one ive fought jake on 2 other occasions and managed to get the win, but they had been getting increasingly more difficult each time so i went in with confidence but also knowing it would be a tough fight

this time the set-up for delta V was very different. flat front parts no magnets and a carbon fibre additional lid. this would be interesting

the fight starts and almost immediately goes wrong

not ideal

he catches the edge of the fork at the start and keeps on me the whole time. i manage to break from the action and get under him sending him bouncing a couple times and then it dies? the link had come loose with all the impacts and i ended up with a very lucky win

fixes after this fight were thankfully minor, gifted the broken arm support to jake and depsite a few knicks on the base plate no critical damage

round 3: vs Wheely big lad

oh god, not another big wheeled bot. having thought stratus at rapture i looked at the competitors going to this event and though “theres no shot it happens again” but here we are. to prepare for this fight i fitted my anti hammer saw armour and my anti stratus armour to make an unholy concoction which i felt could let me survive the first few swings and get him over a wall or in the pit

fight starts and i imediatly try for the oota, and get one wheels to hover over the oota zone but not quite get it in and from then on what can only be described as manic driving ensued,

i didnt want to give him 1 clean swing at my top armour or forks so tried to stay as close in as possible and only swing when i had a clean shot. this worked well the first time catching wheel and pulling off some of its rubber the second pin however despite nearly getting his wepaon belt unplugged my weapon leaving me weaponless. at the same time he had ripped off the lower part of the tall forks leaving me more unstable. i knew by this point i needed to end the fight before a jd due to the weapon effectiveness of wheely big lad

after allot more struggling and a very close call which him hitting my underbelly i eventually wrestle it towards the pit and get it down on the second attempt after only getting the weapon to clip the edge in the first attempt

was a great fight that was, probably one of my favourites ive ever had against a very tricky machine to fight. it was like trying to grab a block of very melted butter

damage afterwards was fairly extensive to the anti big wheeled bot frames and top armour but the robot underneath was pretty much unscaved apart from a couple missing teeth on the arm gear and a unplugged weapon motor

Top 8: vs Jackhammer

jack hammer is a brutally efficient hammer saw/lifter vert which i was not looking forward to fighting. but it must be said im glad it beat wheely big lad otherwise id of had to ask shakey for my attachment back

anyway the set-up for jack hammer would mean reusing the battered anti hammersaw top armour and a pair of forks in the centre. the stratergy was to avoid front on attachs, jack hammer easily outreaches me and couple hits could destroy the arm gear disabling my weapon and my ability to self right. so i wanted to get to the sides of the fairly long jack hammer and hit it where it couldn’t strike back

despite a bit of issue with battery the first time round the fight starts and it goes semi to plan, jack hammer catches my forks a few times bending them up and also hitting my weapon gear. but not enough to disable it. my anti hammer saw top armour did its job. deflecting blows and not allowing for any critical damage. eventually his weapon died and i was able to take full advantage despite some great evasive driving from jack hammer i landed a flurry of blows eventually catching his link and tearing it out. resulting in a fortunate knockout as he had dominated the fight early on

after this fight i didnt have much to fix, I didnt have a spare arm gear and the rest of the damage was to the forks and the anti hammer saw armour. both of which i gave to jackhammer in return for there shattered link

top 4: vs Chucky

chucky is probably the toughest robot in terms of durability at beetle scale. twinned with allot of drive power and a lifter perfect for keeping you off kilter. so i was kinda nervos going into this fight especially when i saw them attaching a titanium plate to the top of there robot to prevent me punching the lids.

for this fight i decided to leave the blade dull as id only be hitting ti anyway.

fight starts and its clear its going to be a very fast paced battle. chucky is the faster machine but dolos’s width prevents it from capitalising. eventually i manage a pin right over the wheel and hit just between it and the frame. this didnt result in much damage but i was glad i was able to pin the very squirmy machine. the fight continues and he gets the upperhand by the pit button but doesnt manage to capitalise we then end up in a corner were i manage to prop it up on the forks and get it down the pit.

very very fun fight. and meant id finally managed a win over adam. so like 2:1 now i guess just takes him not to be driving icebreaker

final: vs Baby deadbod

this is a fight id been looking forward to for a while. ive thought baby deadbod on a number of occasions with a few robots and so far with dolos we were 3:2 to him so i needed to even out. and this version of dolos had yet to right a large horizontal for an extended period of time and was intrested to see if it could take it

the set-up for this fight was fairly simple. big chunky wedge big chunky guards and crossed fingers i could survive to get a good pin. and to add to the fun tom had to be off for a train so this would be a rapid fight from both sides

fight starts and i manage to catch deadbod early preventing it from spinning up to its full speed. this continues with deadbod trying to make space and me tyring to my darndest to close it. he begins to chip away at the wedge but im keeping him towards the edges of the box forcing mistakes into the wall. eventually i manage a pin and fire the weapon before rushing into to deliver another shot. this shook his link free and dolos had won!

only took 2 years of sweating with the bot to finally get a dub. I believe this also makes it the first hammer saw to win a event in the uk, at beetle weight anyway

damage wise

the wedge got pretty beat-up but more alarmingly is that deadbod was pulling the entire front of the robot off. more screws needed next time!

as well as a hint of deadbod paint on the wheel guards. very glad i took the time to put those on

whats next for the bot? probably going to keep it as is for now to learn a little more about this design before making any more changes but overall im very happy with its adaptability and its durability as well as the weapon being able to get those good hits

probably going to be focusing on feathers for the foreseeable and ill probably keep dolos on the back burner till champs to let my other bots out to play