Check out this fight in BattleBots Season 4, Episode 5.
Ahh, back to our usual wheels, and our traditional look. This fight would for sure be another test for us, in the opposite direction. While Son of Whyachi was a test of our defensive capabilities, Jasper would be a test of our offensive capabilities. They’re a tough brick of a robot, and aren’t afraid to jam their hammer/lifter into a spinner and take the hits. Their fights in China with a similar robot gave us a healthy fear of if we’d even be able to damage Jasper. As one of the lightest spinners in the field, this was a big worry to us. We make up for not hitting as hard by hitting where nobody thinks they'll need armor (top), too bad Jasper was all armor!
What went right here was our weapon, more powerful than we remember! We were thrilled to score our first-ever knockout fight, and felt like we controlled the match well. Against a control-oriented bot like Jasper, getting them on their back foot is critical since they easily have the power to drive us around the box. We brought grip for this reason exactly, to help us out against controlling opponents. Our driving, improved from last year massively with more power and grip, was just barely good enough to keep them from getting their arm tangled in the wheel to control us. Last year’s HUGE, with bigger holes in the wheels and far worse control would have had a real struggle here.
Otherwise, we’d taken the time to fix our belt tension, and get our bar spinup right where we wanted it for this fight. We were helped by team members from Copperhead and Minotaur, and by Tormach, to get our pulleys the perfect size and get everything tuned up just right. Our spinup against Son of Whyachi was nearly 30 seconds to top speed, while for Jasper was comfortably 5-10 seconds. Right where we wanted it!
What didn’t go right? Batteries! The bar we used drew more power than we expected, and we were at just 30% battery charge remaining by the end of the fight. We’re glad we got the knockout, because we doubt our spinner would have lasted to the end. They were ultimately knocked out by losing the drive link, effectively their On/Off switch for the drive. A lucky break for us. Thankfully, our drive batteries had more than enough power. And with 2 batteries for drive and 2 for weapon (per half of the robot), it was easy to rewire for 1 drive and 3 weapon batteries, and give us the capacity for our next fight. We just knew we’d have to be careful and not drink too much power, or we’d be in for some painful electrical damage. Here’s to hoping our next match is a fast one…
Photo Gallery
Jasper pre-fight, wearing extra armor as well as a straight hammer-arm.
The BattleBox is still just stupendously large. But once the lights are on, there’s suddenly nowhere to hide.
Photo credit: Tony Woodward
Surprise! HUGE 2019 is actually a lifter.
Photo credit: JCRB Photography
Be free, little plastic chunk. Flying parts like this is why we have a tip speed limit.
Photo credit: Tony Woodward
This one is just a cool photo.
Photo credit: JCRB Photography
Bang! The knockout hit.
Photo credit: Tony Woodward
It was right about here when we realized how much power Jasper has in its arm. Their arm has the same motors as our bar, just geared for torque instead of speed. Power for days.
Photo credit: Tony Woodward
A concussed but alive HUGE asks… Who’s next?
Photo credit: Dan Longmire
A memento! We think this was the result of the last hit of the match, when we got up into the hammer mechanism. We didn’t realize we’d done anything to the mechanism until after the match, as the arm still worked perfectly fine.
The other motor of theirs could power it through the gap in teeth. Redundancy is good to have in the BattleBox!