First event of 2025 for me is taking the new Overclocked to Roboodjo for some testing ahead of Brawl next month.
Fight 1 was against Screaming Banshee, with it being a pusher this gave me a safe initial test of the drive and weapon in a fight. It has a metal top plate, but lacking forks, I managed to control it for a bit before it got flipped upside down, exposing the softer bottom plate. I managed to get some good axe hits into it, partially getting stuck on some hits. We got close to one of the pits and I attempted to fling him out with the axe, but he managed to reverse the positions. Luckily I managed to get out before he could push me, and eventually I pushed him out.
Inspecting the bot afterwards, everything seemed to be in order. The drive didn’t show much degredation, so it remained for the second fight against Icebreaker. This ended up initially being a stalemate, with an unstick required as our forks got stuck against each other. When we resumed, we jockeyed for position, with me managing to get some axe hits in, though in return he got a glancing blow against my extended axe. This was followed by a volley of small hits, which resulted in me losing a fork and being inverted, though I quickly self righted. We continued to exchange blows, until his TPU forks got stuck under the wall and he was counted out.
Because there was a lot more stalemated pushing in this fight, the drive units were showing signs of wear, with the gear teeth starting to melt and some of the legs also melting a bit. While they could still run, I swapped out for the spare set of legs in preparation for the next fight, against a new undercutter called Undermine. They set up inverted, so their weapon was on top, which would have prevented me from using the axe, but it seemed that they were a bit unstable, and on spinup, they flipped back over. Their slower spin-up speed meant I could continuously engage before they got up to speed. There were some cases where they went upright, as the design of their bot meant that it could wheelie if the blade got unstable. Eventually, they hit thier own pulley, on top of getting a wheel lodged in the gap next to the pit, and were counted out.
Luckily, I had managed to avoid much damage from that fight. The final round fight was against B-Ash, a 2WD pusher. While it had a metal lid, it did have holes in it to reduce the weight, which I might have been able to get my axe in. It looked like it was quite twitchy on the controls, so I managed to control the pace of the fight. However, halfway through, my axe started to lose power. We ended up near the pit and I managed to slowly outpush them into the pit.
The weakening axe turned out to be the TPU ratchet clutch wearing away over the course of the previous fights. This was replaced, along with the drive units back to the first set, as these had melted quite badly in the final pushing exchange. With 4 wins by KO, Overclocked was on track for 1st, needing to fight against Kriegsmesser first. Kriegmesser had been delivering some big hits over the course of the day, so I was scared of its disk, however he only had 1.5mm carbon fibre lids and we didn’t know how that would fare against my axe. This was a very cagey fight, I managed to get some hits in while avoiding his disk, but he managed to hit one of my fork mounts with such force that it tore the TPU pice clean off the front of hte robot and flinging it at the camera (luckily on the outside of the arena!). Losing that fork meant he started to get under me instead of the stalemate we were having, and he chucked me around a few times. Eventually, the second fork went, and I was inverted with my axe extended as he drove under me, after whcih the bot could not self-right anymore, earning him a well-deserved 1st place.
Looking at the damage, there’s a lot of small bits, but nothing major. The fork mounts both ripped off, leaving the bolts on the robot. The front has some nibbles, and the TPU side skirt has a crack in it, but it did its job in protecting the HDPE behind it. The axe failed at the end because when he drove under me while I was inverted, he managed to hit the gear, tearing off a tooth so the axe could not fully engage with the motor. That same hit also clipped the battery compartment, shearing off a screw head (now there’s half a screw I’ve got to try to remove!) and loosening the battery top plate, luckily missing the battery or the receiver.
He did not come out unscathed though. I managed to get this hit onto his top plate, leaving a distinctly axe-shaped hole in it.
This hit was apparently quite close to his own receiver!
Overall, great day out. Overclocked has managed my highest palcement at a Dojo, with 4 KOs to boot. The drive system never failed in any of the fights, so I have more confidence in this redesign as it goes into Brawl next month.