I popped over to Norwich this weekend to compete at the inaugural MITE with PMXL
Fight 1 was against Flick!, an amazing first build that won Best Design, and rightly so, as it is a choo choo spring flipper! My works were very effective in this fight in getting under their wedgelets, which let me largely dictate the pace of the fight. The new weapon module is hitting hard, with inital misses impacting the floor with even louder bangs than previously. I managed to push them against the wall a couple of times, firing my axe while they were pinned. At one point, I managed to overturn them, but they managed to self-right. Around half-way into the fight, I opened the pit as KOs were worth more than a judges win in this format. I lost a couple of rollers at this point - these wheels had already seen a handful of events, so they were wearing down. I managed to get them in between me and the pit, and a combination of me pushing and them reversing to try to escape had them in to the pit.
It turns out that I had forgotten to add the backstop before the first fight - the top armour is used for the tech check as you have to weigh in with the heaviest config, and that integrates the backstop in. This meant that during the first fight, I sometimes had some control issues as the retracted axe was rubbing against the rear wheel.
With the backstop attached, I was up against AOB, a pneumatic flipper. We started by circling around the centre, then we went head on. They missed with his flipper, and I swung my axe in return. It turns out their top armour is 1mm polycarb, and the axe had no trouble punching through, actually getting stuck! AOB pushed me back into a wall before using its flipper to free me. I managed to get round to their back and push them against the wall, but my axe wasn’t working properly for some reason. We locked horns again and they managed to partially lift me. I managed to get around to the side again but missed my attacks, or they were weaker than usual. Another head-on engagement had AOB under me and managing to flip me over next to the OOTA zone. For some reason, the axe was struggling to self-right, until eventually it righted me. The pit got dropped in the meantime, and AOB managed to get a good pin and lift against me. We spent some time jockeying for position, until I managed to get to the side and land a full power axe hit, getting embedded again. I tried to drag them into the pit, but not quite managing it. Retracting and firing again, the axe got stuck, and this time AOB pushed me over to the pit button. The fight closed with a few more swings from me, ending the fight embedded in their top once again.
That was a very nervous fight for me, due to the self-righting issues and the control AOB exerted over me in the second half of the fight/ However, I did get the judges win.
In between rounds, I tweaked the axe settings, so retract and throttle control were upped to 50% from 30%. I suspect the slightly smaller motor and reduction were the cause of my self-righting issues, so I was hoping that just giving it more power would resolve it.
Everyone’s third fight was a 3-way melee, with my opponents being BAM!, a 2WD vert using a big brushed motor, and Gremlin Bait, a low 2WD wedge. I started the fight by going for BAM!, getting two hits in which appeared to cut all power to it. I think I managed to ever the fuse in his removable link, as it was still in the bot but there was not motion. I then went after gremlin Bait, my forks consistently getting under their wedge. I pushed them against the wall and fired a few times, severing the power light, though I initially thought I had hit their link. I managed to pin them several times, each pin accompanied with several axe hits, then the pit got dropped. Gremlin Bait got caught on the edge of the pit and I pushed them in, earning me a win.
Now into the top 8, my opponent was Boom Zoom. He was all over me in this fight, I couldn’t manage to get any hits in, and he kpt on getting round to my sides and pushing me across the arena and slamming me against the wall. He eventually got a great push and lift that sent me cleanly over the OOTA wall and out! Great job by Rob.
Overall, a great day out, well done to the MITE team for putting on a great event. I’m happy with the new weapon module, and I’m generally happy with how PMXL is running. I’v egot some AM32 ESCs on order though, I’m hoping that will help with the low speed power that would be required for self-righting. These should arrive in time for Roboshowdown at the start of May.
