(insert greetings to humans builders here)
So every year around the time of BBB’s new bot event I try and broaden my robot skills by making a beetle for it. This first started in 22 with Grabber Wobba as a “let’s have a go at a different weapon type” and while it did have a bit of a knock off Boring Bot vibe it was good fun to drive and at the time of typing remains my most successful robot. For 2023 I ran Aggro Wobba now in equipped with an axe to properly emulate the original Lego build and had tonnes of fun swinging the axe into anything and everything! For 24’ though I fancied doing something off piste and stray away from the line off Wobbuffet themed machines.
In the time between the respective Sub & Summer Showdowns 2 things had happened. The first was Joe and Henry had started working on the now well known 28mm Strangbox (sorry Henry) and Grab Crab went on a brilliant run in Burgh to win the event capping off a lovely back to back victory for the non spinners with Jack’s Luchador and it got me thinking maybe I could have a go at making a good flipper/suplexer bot. The second was I’d finally got a new computer and I could finally run fusion and after learning the ropes with Sion & Boom Zoom Rob I felt ready to have a crack at designing something cool!
The inspiration from Heratoss comes from my favourite classic Robot Wars bot Bigger Brother so there was specific parts I wanted to replicate on the CAD including the horns on the flipping arm, the solid rear end and the pointed side armour covering the wheels. As highlighted above I didn’t want this to be just another Wobbuffet themed robot and for a while it was going to be based off of Piloswine but in the end I pivoted to Heracross as but nature that Pokemon suplexes foes so it fit the bill perfectly. With those in the back of my mind I set about doing enby’s first box
Bigger Brother pre Robonerd rust
Behold, an edge box!
With the general frame sorted I took a leaf out of the Wobba CAD and used double helical gears for the drive. Originally Heratoss was going to run Mars drive but it was becoming slowly apparent this boi was going to be on the weight limit (more on that later) so Wobba was gutted of it’s drive along with the Boom Zoom donated cover. Fun fact: those motor covers are still in use in the current Aggro Wobba!
Heratoss frame (still with Mars motor inside)
Now it was time to flesh out some of the design cues from Bigger Brother with the wraparound, in the end I decided against fully covering the wheels as again weight was a concern but I was still happy with how it keyed together with the front end. The forks were an adapted version of the Aggro Wobba fork CAD with the Wobbuffet arm cut off and replaced with a mini horn to help them not get stuck up.
Getting there
The lifter arm ended up having 2 versions. V1 was a relatively simple arm with 6mm tips while V2 was much more artistic combining the general BB arm geometry with Heracross. All that was left was design up some antenna for fit the theming and a bit of pocketing inside and the CAD was done!
Heratoss with the V1 lifter arms, the antennas really helped add to the look
Toss with the proper horn flipper arms
Ehhhh close enough to the OG’s horn!
Between Sion doing the printing, Henry assembling a fresh 28mm and Rob doing the cutting all the parts were good to go for assembly and at this was where things started going a little haywire. Everything looked to be fitting together just fine, could have done with some keying for the prints to fit nicer but other than that all good. Then I popped it on the scales and ooooh boy it’s a full antweight overweight! There were some easy fixes to cut weight such as ditching the brace for the nylocks inside and manually extending some of the internal pocketing but it was clear the big wraparound for the wheels needed cutting down so after some emergency CAD/begging Sion to print more stuff Heratoss was finally built!
The standard Team Johto photo in front of the Lego Wars wall (photo prior to the wraparound being scrapped)
With the frame all done I added the all important vinyl wrap to bring the bot to life. Then there was enough time to do a couple test flips for Toss and see if anything needs fine tuning. The first flip went reasonably well as it toppled the Wobba frame used at Rapture however on the first self-right I could hear the motor spinning but there was no movement, as it would turn out the face plate on the 28mm was more cheese than metal and had clean sheared off under pressure. Henry let me know he would bring along a spare part for the motor but it would be an event morning fix so Heratoss was all packed up and it was off to Bristol
The boi can see the crimes ahead!
Onto Summer Showdown and Heratoss was all patched up ahead of its first fight with Reptile Dysfunction and Ugly Duckling but as soon as I tried to flip again there was no movement. Unfortunately it turns out there was a bad batch of the face plates as the backup snapped on the first lift which wasn’t particularly good! Thankfully Joe had lent me a trusty 37mm for Wobba back at Rapture and with some good old fashioned bodging Heratoss had a weapon once more for the rest of the day. It did pick up a win against Bulbaroar before it became the scary beast it is now and had a fun back and forth with one of the best non spinners in the UK Chucky so overall a decent start for the flippy boi.
Heratoss now with it’s offcut wrap
All 3 ready for the first fight of the day, surely nothing bad will happen…
The 2 Pokémon themed bots just chilling. Believe Bulbaroar is the 4th (garfie position lol) Pokémon themed beetle in the UK after my 3 but even that statement may be as accurate as 4 bar statistics!
Still mostly in one piece after a messy afternoon, that borrowed 37mm will at least see more new bot action next week in Stu and Sam’s hands.
Toss went back to action later on in 2024 in September Dojo with a 28mm back in tow this time from Sion and the parts held up for the whole day. That’s probably the only high point though as it was repeatedly getting stuck on Dojo’s floor and it took quite a beating from Baby Dead Bod, prizing open the back of the bot and cutting through a good chunk of the lifter arm. It did fight one more time in a very stop-start fight as a loaner bot at MITE II but it was clear at this point it needed some redesigning.
“some” panel damage
Mrs. Nesbitt needs a nap
And with that here’s the CAD for Heratoss V2! The length of the frame has been cut down by a ⅓ emulating the changes Aggro Wobba had between versions, with wanting to keep the frame symmetrical (much to Tweedy’s relief) it does remain quite a wide machine to house the 28mm but the internal pocketing has been integrated much better. The wheels have been moved further back and made somewhat larger (inspiration from Luchador there) and with wanting to bring a little more creativity to the build the horizontal setup now has Heracross’s arms built into the TPU. We’ll see how well it turns out next month at Battle In The Burgh 5!
