Check out this fight in BattleBots Season 6, Episode 3.
If you have to lose, at least make it look cool!
Coming into this fight, we felt okay about the matchup. Riptide was truly a rookie team, with only some experience in beetleweight robots before this. Plus, they were a low robot with a low weapon, meaning they didn’t pose much threat to our wheels or frame. However, HUGE has a checkered history against eggbeater weapons in the 30lb weight class, with a spotty 1-1 record against the great 30lb robot “Botceps” from the team behind Deadlift (Fight 1; Fight 2). Could be better, could be worse, at least it isn’t Icewave.
We chose to spin upwards after determining that their beater bar wouldn’t be able to punch upwards into our blade. We did this by comparing angles, blade heights, and the rotating diameter of the weapons. There was no way that something the diameter of their weapon could punch upwards into the diameter of our weapon, it would just accelerate our blade faster. Or so we thought.
So what happened?
Riptide has a single-tooth beater bar, with the counterweight at a smaller diameter. This is to give greater “bite” for their tooth, giving the spinning drum a full rotation to allow the opponent to get in the way of the tooth (and is a strategy we also use with many of HUGE’s blades). The smaller outer-diameter of this counterweight happened to be perfect for punching upwards into our blade. Seen down in the Photo Gallery, every hit that Riptide put into HUGE was with their counterweight, not their tooth! This was an oversight that we won’t be making in the future, but one that absolutely turned the fight in Riptide’s favor. It’s also a case of over-thinking a fight due to nerves, and not trusting our standard big-blade-hit-hard strategy.
Our next issue in this fight had nothing to do with Riptide, and everything to do with the arena changes for the 2021 season. We knew of “the shelf” going into the season, and had heard that the holes at the edge of the arena would be covered as well. We did not know how the geometry of those new covers would affect us, and we were not warned at all about the new v-shaped protrusions protecting the screw boxes. These changes created a 1-2 punch that kept us locked in the screws, when we’ve otherwise been able to escape the screws many times in the past. We couldn’t easily navigate as the cover held us locked against the screw by our support pole, and the v-shaped screw box stopped our wheel from swinging around and having the blade slam into the box to hop out. There are long-term fixes for this, but the short-term fix is to prioritize our stiffer Tegris wheels, which should be harder to jam behind the screws.
Onto the damage: We came out of this fight nearly unscathed, with just some slightly bent weapon motor shafts to deal with. Riptide was a little worse for wear, with the bearings in their eggbeater exploded from the force of the hits, along with the eggbeater gouges to deal with. We also heard they bent their weapon motor shafts as well as shearing some of the bolts in their weapon pullies. Their weapon was no longer functional after the last hit of the fight, but it lasted long enough to get them the win. The combined load rating of Riptide’s bearings is just over 45,000 pounds, showing how massive the hits can be in the Battlebox! Our weapon bushing is rated to just 21,000 pounds, but is built in such a way where it will mush rather than exploding (technical terms), ensuring that our weapon will keep operating. It’s rare to say that you learn so much in a fight where you took little damage, but this fight taught us a lot. We’re really excited about this version of HUGE and can’t wait to show off what it can do.
Photo Gallery
A great team photo, ready for action!
HUGE in the box for the first fight of the year!
Riptide’s configuration for this fight, with their big plow on.
Before the beginning of the fight, Riptide jumped the start and pulled off a full box rush including hitting us with their weapon. This was… not appreciated. And in hindsight, we should have pulled the robot out of the arena to check it. In the moment you’re just amped up to fight, which is probably why they jumped and why we opted to continue. We don’t think this affected HUGE negatively, but it could use more formalized rules in the future to encourage teams to check their robot. All’s fun and games until somebody “accidentally” jump starts in the Finals.
Note the pole jammed into the vertical wall. This wall grew taller between 2020 and 2021, as well as thicker (and therefore pushing closer to the screws). The screw box also got longer, whereas it used to only reach as far as the outer 3 bolts visible with a flat outer edge.
The damage to Riptide’s eggbeater weapon
One of Riptide’s damaged weapon bearings. They were actually visible in the pre-fight hype reel if you look closely!
Photo Credits: Dan Longmire, JCRB Photography, and the Riptide team