As I wrote in the Botfest 7 event report, I currently have two new robots ready to fight at Botfest 8.
These two - Honey, I Shrunk the Scrooge and Scrooge McChonk, continue the long and noble line that started with Scrooge McDerp (it lost everything it entered, but in fairness it was a tiny RC stunt car from Smyths with aluminium bolted on as a truly horrific wedge that was lop-sided and didn’t touch the ground) and continued with The Revenge of Scrooge McDerp (an equally terrible cluster of 2 similar but different Smyths stunt cars armed with thin aluminium wedges that accidentally beat a vert while being utterly useless) before The Second Coming of The Revenge of Scrooge McDerp… Again came along - check out the Botfest 7 review for that story!
Honey… is a serious robot for serious competition. I need to do a little work to get the flipper to fully retract after its first firing, which I’m unsure how to fix right now, but otherwise it’s a solid robot. I had a friend design/build it and I can’t remember for sure what it’s printed from now, but I think it’s nylon. Either that or it’s some variant on PLA and I will be making many sad noises when it gets obliterated. Time will tell.
Scrooge McChonk was a silly idea I had to rip the motors from a third different Smyths tiny RC stunt car, put 2 wheels from the original Scrooge McDerp on them (they’re lighter than the wheels it comes with, with the same motor attachments) and build a wedge out of a chunk of foamboard I have yet to fully use. The result was an underpowered, close to the weight limit mess. But it’s FUN. I’m mainly using it to see how the armour handles spinners - if it goes well, I’ll use smaller pieces in strategic areas on future builds. I’m assuming it will not go well.
This does leave me with the option for a third robot. I have nothing that is worth entering, so either I leave it at 2 and have less arena time, or I come up with a third design. I’ve been mulling over a Killertron tribute bot, built entirely around the BBB drive system and the metal servo (plus extender), but with the Ranglebox M10s. I’ve designed bespoke hubs for these, using various tyres so different designs can have different hub sizes. These range from 30mm down to 20mm, the smallest based on the smaller front tyres of the most recent aforementioned tiny Smyths stunt cars.
Quick aside, feel free to ignore from this point on, there’s nothing really present/future relevant after this point: this model in particular has become a bit of a tradition at Botfest, first being used at the Milton Keynes AWS in 2020 as The Beatle… Waits, which wouldn’t drive straight and were shamed into the pit in both their fights. One was entered into Botfest 4, modified into the utterly atrocious When Unicorns Go Rogue (which got my first ever win, because I got stuck and my opponent freed me, then got stuck and we learned I didn’t have the torque to return the favour. Not proud of that one!). There’s also another covered in bits of an old boiler cover called Rust-Bucket, which is very top heavy, has a 3mm aluminium front wedge that is FAR too steep, and ended absolutely every visit to an arena (not just fights, it’s done this on its own when testing too) lying on its face.
They returned as The Sacrificial Lambs when I was an entry short for Botfest 5, and somehow survived absolutely everything that hit them. They lost every fight, but they wouldn’t die. They were meant to. They were stupid. But they’ve got a real love for life. So they were added to the spinner rumble at the end of the day and everyone was given clear instructions to kill them. The buggers all survived, except the one driven by Team Bunny’s Sakara, who successfully got hers killed. She still has it as a trophy. The others came back for 6 and 7, and while still not winning, WILL NOT DIE. So now they get used for parts for equally useless but slightly less silly designs.
When Unicorns Go Rogue is… somewhere, but I can’t find it right now to get a photo and frankly, I never want to see it again anyway. So here’s a couple of photos of the far more impressive Rust-Bucket!
You can see the bare bones of the stunt cars that the Lambs were made from, they were far less modified than this one was.
