RFL RECORD: 19-11
BattleBots RECORD: 7-2
| RFL Nationals in San Francisco, Nov, 2005 2 Wins, 2 Losses LW 4th Place see pictures |
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vs. Slap 'em Silly |
This is what we live for! Lot's of flipping! We did lose a couple of gears in one gearbox during the match, and driving was very sluggish near the end. |
vs. New Attitude: |
I was totally outmaneuvered in this match and carried across the arena several times. We lost yet another gearbox and the bot was extremely unresponsive at the end. I thought the sluggishness might be due to the lost gearbox, but we set it down and it drove OK. Then it died completely and we figured out the batteries were wasted. I spent the night waking up every 90 minutes to charge and discharge all the packs to see if I could find a couple of good ones for the next day. |
vs. Agsma: |
Agsma entered the match with a Ti plate fixed in front of his wedge spikes; an effort to keep our flipper at a distance. I thought this was good for us because I figured it would also keep us off his wedge. It worked out even better, because an early head-on collision broke the plate at a weld and bent it down to interfere with traction. So most of the match was spent maneuvering around Agsma to get several good flips. |
vs. Wipe Out: |
After the Agsma match we thought we had the battery situation licked. But after building an apparent lead in this fight with several good flips and pushes, the bot once again went virtually lifeless with :20 seconds to go. Even with the overall dominant showing early, the judges saw our final state and gave Wipe Out the decision. |
| Robogames in San Francisco, Apr, 2005 6 Wins, 2 Losses LW 3rd Place |
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vs. Wedge of Doom |
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vs. Agent 7: |
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vs. Whack!: |
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vs. VD4.0: |
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vs. VD3x2: |
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vs. Come to Mama: |
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vs. The Big B: |
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vs. New Attitude: |
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| RFL Nationals in San Francisco, Oct, 2004 1 Win, 2 Losses see pictures |
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vs. The Coyote |
Hexy Jr. righted himself for the first time during competition in this match. In previous matches he was upside down with insufficient pressure to self-right. With the new and longer flipper plate in place for this competition, self-righting was very effective. Falling behind early, we eventually flipped Coyote into an immobile position for a come-from-behind victory. |
vs. Agsma: |
We had some kind of radio issue and the bot just went dead. We were easily pushed into the pit. I hate pits! |
vs. New Attitude: |
After very little sparring, New Attitude scooped us up onto his top and carried us into the pit. According to the published rules, this is clearly enough a win for New Attitude. But during the pre-event briefing it was stated that wearing another bot "like a hat" into the pit would be considered a loss. But since New Attitude had braked sharply and ejected us against the wall just before falling in himself, that demonstrated control to the judges. I'm ultimately happy with the decision, but all the confusion with the rules and statements about the rules regarding pits is very unfortunate. I hate pits -- and arena hazards in general -- and plan to avoid arenas with pits in the future! |
| Robolympics in San Francisco, March, 2004 2 Wins, 1 Loss LW 1st Place! see pictures |
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vs. Son of Whacky Compass |
This first match was in the smaller "Toad Tank", so there was nowhere to run from this hard-hitting spinner. We kept moving in and kept taking the big hits until we finally got under him for the fatal flip. There was significant damage to the shell, breaking most of the weld seams in the front. Looking at the bot, you'd never know we won! |
vs. 1st Abe Lincoln on the Moon: |
There's never much we can do against this bot, aka Herr Gepounden, except keep flipping and weight for the decision. |
vs. Wipe Out: |
Both bots went into this match with some driving control issues, but we managed to get enough flips in to sway the judges. |
vs. Wedge of Doom: |
The match started well, but went bad after suffering drive control problems that turned out to be a lost gearbox. WOD wedged Hexy Jr. against the wall where the flipper could not reach anything to get back over. He left us there for the loss. |
vs. New Attitude: |
Hexy Jr. dominated this match from start to end, getting under New Attitude easily and flipping him pretty much at will. I suggested to Tim that with the victory surely at hand that we continue conservatively by doing more pushing than flipping. Fortunately he didn't listen and continued to work the flipper well. We wound up flipping New Attitude up onto the I-beam wall and then pushing him into the dead zone! |
vs. Wedge of Doom: |
In this finals rematch with WOD we stayed healthy and were able to maneuver and flip well. WOD has a wide base and was difficult to get on its back, but we eventually succeeded. His lifter can ordinarily effect self-righting, but it struggled and failed. We left him there for the win! |
| Steel Conflict 3 at the RC Expo in Anaheim, May 2003 4 Wins, 2 Losses LW 2nd Place see pictures |
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vs. ReticBot: |
Hexy Jr. flipped ReticBot at will, but couldn't knock her out. Still an easy decision for the judges. Got Jr.'s fork stuck under the I-beam at one point. SC rules give you one free release, but you need to drive more conservatively after you get it! Jr. got stuck 5 times in six matches, releasing himself once with the flipper. |
vs. Agsma: |
Agsma got his rusty steel forks under Hexy Jr. a couple of times, but Jr. was able to turn away easily enough and flip him many times. Another easy decision for the judges. |
vs. Matt's Bammer: |
Flipped Slammer early and he had drive problems the whole time, so it was not as interesting as it could have been. Slammer doesn't drive as well inverted, so left him that way a while. Pushed him around and flipped him enough to convince the judges. |
vs. Furious George: |
This was the first meeting with our fellow Northwest team, Death By Monkeys and Rob and Pam Farrow. (The top of the winner's bracket in this double-elimination tournament.) We danced a while as I tried to turn and slip away from the wedge of spikes. Flipped him once. Then took a big ride with a hard hit into the I-beam wall. Heard air escaping for quite a while. Turns out the shock unscrewed the tank valve on the left side. Eventually took another long ride and wound up flipped over. Not enough pressure left to self right at this point with the air depleted. Rob pushed Hexy Jr. inside the girder just to make sure it couldn't get over. |
vs. Crusher: |
To the top of the loser's bracket versus Crusher. (Excellent driver, Tom Petrucelli, also has MW 'BadAttitude'.) Flipped him once and thought I'd leave him a while on the side where his wedge is less effective. Got him under the flipper on the wedge and drove him across the box hard once. Then got the fork caught under the wall again, with Crusher stuck on top. After we were separated Crusher wasn't moving. Steve (Judd) and 'bot-wrangler' Jim went in to move him and Crusher started spinning out of control. Tom wasn't sure if it was a bot problem, possibly gyro failure, given the circumstances. The guy snooping the airwaves for radio interference said there was none. Lucky win for me, perhaps. |
FINALS vs. Furious George: |
This was the first time two Northwest teams met in the finals of a tournament! A much better match this time. More dancing and turning away from each other. I thought I almost had it won at one point when I had him up on the ramp and with some help from the flipper pushed him into the corner. But could not get him to stick. Then I wound up with the fork stuck under the I-beam again. Wanting to save the free release I tried the flipper and got unstuck by myself. But Rob was quick to ram be back in harder this time and I needed the ONE free release after all. Somewhere in there another big hit lost me a tank of air. Probably loosened the same valve again. I also had a brief radio problem, so Rob rammed the sitting duck Hexy Jr. and he wound up half on the bottom I-beam plate with no traction. I tried jumping off with the flipper, but that didn't work as I ran out of air pressure. Counted out just as the 3 minutes expired! |
| Robocide in Orlando, Jan, 2003 1 Win, 2 Losses see pictures |
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vs. Runt: |
A very satisfying fight with Hexy Jr. totally dominating by flipping and pushing the Runt! An early flip had left the Runt balanced helplessly on his back. But we generously pushed him back on his wheels to continue the fight. We then pushed him hard enough into the wall to move the heavy steel I-beams that formed the base of the wall! The fight almost wound up in the crowd, but we didn't know this until looking at pictures after the fight. We also didn't realize until Team Beaverbot informed us afterward that they had lost drive power somewhere during the fight as well. |
vs. Cast Iron Pig: |
A very un-satisfying fight with Hexy Jr. being wedged, carried and pushed continuously around the arena! We got under the Pig's skirts early on with an attempted flip, but not catching enough meat underneath he didn't go over. We never got underneath the skirts again, but it wasn't until later back in the pits that I discovered why. I have a titanium plate under the foot of the flipper (intended to protect it from the kill saws) that had been bent early on, causing the foot to ride high on the floor unable to get under Cast Iron Pig's skirts. Credit the loss to an unneeded plate (no kill saws at Robocide) that should have been removed and probably isn't all that useful where there are kill saws! |
vs. Gutter Runner: |
This is an example of how anything can happen no matter how heavily favored your position might seem. Gutter Runner had been nearly totalled by the powerful spinning blades of 2EZ. His busted forward axle and wheels were replaced with makeshift casters. And the destroyed rear gears were refitted with ones with a poor 2:1 ratio. With an average performance from Hexy Jr., this should have been an easy win. But after a single flip, Hexy Jr. hit the wall and stopped cold. The jolt caused a still-unexplained electrical failure that disabled the radio system. Thus proving that anything can happen and nothing can be take for granted. |
Lightweight Rumble: |
Only two other LW bots (YU812 and Code Black) had signed up for the rumble. And since YU812 was still in the tournament and thus not in the rumble, I lacked the desire to see the rumble turn into a 1-on-1 with a dreaded destroyer of bots. But when I learned that Street Thug had decided to rumble, I couldn't let him face Code Black alone! So we went into the three-bot rumble hoping to come out of it alive. Alas we did manage to take Code Black's weapon head on a couple of times and, while sustaining significant damage, managed to keep going. Hexy Jr. flipped both bots several times before Code Black stopped dead. The damage we sustained kept gravity from lowering the arm completely, so Bobby had to use air to force it down and we ran out of gas before the match ended. What remained was a pushing match with Street Thug, but we continued to hold our advantage to win the rumble. Such as it was, it was still fun! |
| BattleBots Season 5 in San Francisco, May, 2002 2 Wins, 1 Loss |
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vs. Scrap Daddy Surplus:
see pictures |
We don't like going up against "thwack" bots that sit and spin. (We lost in the quarterfinals in Season 4 to Carnage Raptor, another such robot, last season.) We prefer something we can toss dramatically into the air, that cannot drive inverted. We assumed going into the match that neither bot would seriously hurt or disable the other, so the objective was to evade the mace weapon, flip him as much as possible and score points with the judges. And that's pretty much the way it went. |
vs. Sallad:
see pictures |
Dallas is a good driver with a veteran, seeded robot that just keeps coming. I'm not a bad driver, but as a two-wheeled bot Hexy Jr. is very difficult to control. So I was very worried about getting pushed or lifted and dragged to the hazards. I was also concerned about being flipped over by Sallad's lifter. Hexy Jr. could self-right in tests; but we're not interested in actually proving that in battle conditions. While Sallad's lifter never seemed to be a factor -- he was upside-down a fair amount of the time -- he did at one time push Hexy Jr. across the battle box and into the spikes. But we waited patiently and got our share of flips in. With less than a minute to go in the match, we were stopped dead with control problems and the referees actually started to count us out. We got restarted, but control was very jerky. We believe this was caused by intermittent resets due to low voltage on the IFI controller. (Something we corrected later by giving the radio its own power supply for the next match.) Fortunately we had enough control to stutter along and keep flipping. Sallad started smoking and it was clear that he was either damaged by being flipped or burned out motors from all the pushing. He survived to the end of the match, but we won the decision. |
Quarterfinal vs. Gamma Raptor:
see pictures |
After a loss in the quarterfinals last season to another Team Raptor robot, Carnage Raptor, we were looking for payback this time. But Hexy Jr., with more weight devoted to the weapon, is not nearly as strong a pusher as Gamma Raptor, so we knew we'd have to flip it early and often to take a decision. We got an early flip as we maneuvered close and tossed it into the air. It was landing upside down and for a second I thought we might gain an advantage. But it came down hard on the horn connected to its lifter, which apparently has a considerable amount of spring as it just bounced completely back on its wheels! To add to the effect, Hexy Jr.'s air cylinder depressurized with a loud hiss just as Gamma Raptor sprung back, giving the illusion it had actually righted itself with compressed air power! We got in some flips, and fairly well evaded Gamma's lifter I thought, but it was apparently not enough for the judges. I believe it could have gone either way, but I thought the scoring should have been closer. We stalled with control problems at one point in this match as well; though we recovered without the stuttering. Perhaps that looked like damage in the minds of the judges. |
| BattleBots Season 4 in San Francisco, Nov, 2001 5 Wins, 1 Loss (5 knockouts) |
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vs. Killer Stash: |
Hexy Jr had his share of help from his opponents during the preliminaries. From the start, Killer Stash drove to the center of the box and paused, apparently dead. We brought Hexy Jr in slowly, still testing those driving skills, and flipped Stash quickly and the match was over. Good enough for the very first rookie match -- testing the arm on a real opponent and flushing the butterflies. |
vs. Little Piece of Hate: |
LPOH was perhaps the scariest bot we faced in the tournament. The rail sides left no good hold for the flipper arm to do its work. The drum up front was a formidable weapon and it did some early damage. But one impact of the drum against Hexy Jr's armor bent up an end of a tooth bar on the drum. The bent steel impacted the battlebox floor, stalling the gas engine and disabling the weapon. The hit was hard enough to dislodge the drive shaft on one side of Hexy Jr. So we did a "sit and spin" just to look alive and put up a defense. That seemed to realign the shaft enough to get us moving again, and with some effort we were able to get under LPOH and push him over for the win. |
vs. Dracolich: |
Dracolich was another "no contest" match. It drove to the center and died, tapping out before we could meet. This was extremely fortunate, since we lost a drive gear set screw at the same time and could only spin. Another lucky break! |
vs. Trilobot: |
Trilobot was another of those opponents with no sturdy bottom surface to leverage for a good impressive flip. But we did manage to wedge underneath it and eventually push it over, helpless on its back, for the knockout. At one point Trilobot did a curious "sit and spin" as if it were having drive train problems on one side. After the match the builder explained he thought that one of the electromagnets, intended to hold him down against the lifting arm, got stuck on one side causing him to spin. A defensive weapon backfired! |
vs. Backlash: |
The Backlash match went about as well as we had hoped. He got in some damage early, carving up our lexan top, but mostly just throwing sparks off the titanium shell. Eventually we got under one of his wheels and flipped him harmlessly on his back. Later we signed the lexan top and donated it to Team Nightmare for their trophy shelf. |
Quarterfinal vs. Carnage Raptor:
see pictures |
The Carnage Raptor fight was an example of BattleBots sometimes being just a very expensive game of rock-paper-scissors. Some bots just don't match up well at all. The wedge-flipper just couldn't find an edge against the two-wheeled, invertible axe-spinner. And while Raptor's axe skimmed rather harmlessly off our angled titanium sides, the nice sparks scored him points with the judges. We needed to flip him hard and often to win their votes. The only really interesting part of the match, unfortunately, is how it ended with the statistically improbable event of Hexy Jr being tripod-balanced on the flipper arm and the leading edge of the baseplate. Raptor's axe was wedged under Jr so that when we fired the flipper under his axe's arm Hexy Jr pitched forward. To save weight we omitted the valve necessary to drive the arm downward, which would have freed us in this case, so we were helpless. Lessons learned. We already have that modification in for next time! |
Lightweight Rumble: RUNNER UP |
The rumble was, in a word, fantastic! We went from one part of the battlebox to the other, flipping one bot after another, having a great time. Backlash went over one more time. We even went back to him later to try and right him again, but when that failed after one attempt we gave up and went back into the fight. We squared off against Ziggo and in the first hit he got the better of us, prying up our titanium armor shell. But on the second encounter we got under him with a powerful flip and put him out of the match! Tentoumushi had reportedly never been flipped before. She went over like a heavy pancake! In the end, only Hexy Jr, Crusher and Dr. Inferno Jr were still running. The vote came down to between us and the Doctor. We never could get a good enough hold under Inferno's skirts to flip him. The good Doctor pushed us around a bit, but never did any damage. Still, that seemed to be enough for the crowd to give him the victory, and the Big Nut. But we believe had the decision gone to the judges, as prescribed by the rules, we had a good chance at being declared the winner. |