Sometimes a single image can tell an entire story. Other times it just straight up lies. If your talking about how well my Beetle weight “Eclipse” did at the first Farmaggedon event. This photo is a liar, but is also telling the honest truth.
After this event, I was planning on giving my drive a good upgrade, I had no spare drive motors. Just the two. After all, motors dont die, they are immortal machines that will spin long after earth has been reduced to rocks scattered across the cosmos.
Days before this event one of my drive motors died.
Welp. . .
Thats not. . .
Time to put the last motor to work!
Going into this event I wanted to mainly test my weapon reliability, and the survivability of the electronics. My weapon has never gone an event without something catastrophic happening. The belts and pully fail, the gears wear down, the entire weapon blows itself apart, something has always killed it.
My last event was Battle in the Burgh. In my fight against Boom Zoom I hit the floor and. . . the weapon was in the pit. One of the bearings was jammed against the shaft, and I had to cut the bearings to get the rest of the bearing stack off.
I learned a couple things from this. Dont forget to oil your shaft, and dont forget to threadlock your nut. The nylon wont be enough. Luckily, easy fixes!
I used a new shaft, oiled it, and thread locked the weapon assembly to the bot. Now off to the farm!
My first fight was against a bot called “Unnamed New Bot” I hope that name sticks, I like it.
After doing some damage to three of UNBs wheels (two of them majorly!) my lack of reliable drive made itself clear. I couldnt get many turns in and started getting pushed around. . . and the pit opens. If there is one thing that hates a bit more then a big horizontal spinner, its a big horizontal spinner with a single side of drive working. The pit called my name once again.
I was really impressed with how well UNB was moving around with wheels as banged up as these! I was also really happy with how deep the gouges on UNB where! That’s some serious cutting power!
My next fight was against Revenant. Dont worry, its a quick watch!
This fight was a test of my HDPE plates. I had suspicions after a fight against sunstroke that any decent vert would eat right through them. After a few minor back and forth hits (Can I say im surprised how well I was able to stay squared up?) Revenant popped me up, and we exchanged hits. I got a glancing blow on the pully, not enough to break it, but a hit non the less! And Revenant cut through my bottom plate, cutting a phase wire for my drive motor.
After the fight I was made aware of a pretty nasty hit I did to Revenants wheel! This fight also made me second guess the vent holes in the HDPE, I wonder if the bot would have survived it just hit a solid chunk. Either way, redesigns for the plates are in order!
After soldering together a single wire, and replacing a leg I was ready for my next fight against Speeny.
We hit each other hard and Eclipse got launched. But the weapon was still working! And I did something funky to his upright! A couple more hits happened… and now my leg is stuck in his drum. Honest question, is that entanglement? And then. . . my bot stops. The weapon is spinning, but the bots not moving.
One of the hits dislodged my drive motor, and it strangled itself with its phase wire. This kills the motor. Eclipse is now out of the tournament.
Look how much I mangled the uprights! Both forks where bent! As much as I would like to take credit for that big chunk taken out of the beater, that was not me.
Farmaggedon had four guaranteed fights, luckily Alys (the same one who devilishly cut my motor phase wire) had a spare bot that I could use for my last fight! It was weird going from a single side of drive to a 4wd pusher.
Eclipse finished 10th out of 10 bots. . . but my weapon worked! And I have an idea how to make my drive more reliable. Finishing last doesnt mean a bot didnt do well, or that it surpassed what was expected. Something I have admired about this sport is how there is always something to improve, and this event shows that I am on the right path. Does anyone have any motor suggestions?