Robotwars Vic title round 2
With our recent mods to Vincent and a complete rebuild internally , we went to round two with great hopes . Much work had been done on our radio control system , with careful shielding around the receiver , optoisolators between the receiver / relay controller and I even made a stylish new RF-shield plate that covered all of Vincent’s relays and drive motors . A obscure bug in the PRC software had been fixed and testing in my driveway before the event showed a marked improvement in control and drivability . Josh our competition driver was actually getting some practice time as Vincent actually ran before the event . Every lead was clipped , batteries charged and cover fitted ready for the fight . At the arena we tested Vincent and he ran great with Josh adapting to his control like a pro and then came the gremlins ..15 min before event start – Vincent wouldn’t run .

After power–up when you hit drive , he launched for a second and then shut down completely refusing to respond . without knowing where the problem lie , I had to abandon my team to start the event – leaving Lindsey and Josh to do their best to get him working before forfeited his first round . All the painstakingly fitted Rf covers were ripped off as his circuits were dismembered in a attempt to locate the problem . Depression started to set in as much hard work now seemed in vain and then it was found .One of the “lift feeder” mounting screws was shorting on a relay , but with no time to carefully replace most of the Rf shields – we turned to the force …Gaffe tape is the force that binds our universe together – ask any band rodie . Gaffe tape is light on one side and dark on the other and without it everything falls apart . Much gaffe was applied in Vincent to hold his insides together for his fights. My painstakingly crafted Rf cover was tossed aside as there was not the time to fit it and into the fight we went .

Our first fight was against Stainless steel rat - a solid , fast , well prepared and competently driven bot , so we knew if Vincent had problems he would lose . Vincent (without Rf shields) performed great and Josh’s driving was fantastic mixing it with SSrat in a constant running battle that resulted in SSRat being stood on its tail – Vincent won by a K.O. Our next fight was against Pinscher and this also turned into a fast-paced driving contest as each bot fought for domination with the judges finally awarding the match to Vincent . Luck granted us a bye into the next round and that allowed Vincent to play in the arena , being driven by random people in the crowd . The semi final saw us against Inspector General (another well sorted bot with a dangerous saw aimed at our wheels ) . A huge battle ensured with I.G. spending as much time running as chasing . Despite having two opposing wheels destroyed – Vincent continued to take the fight to I.G. and the match resulted in a lengthy discussion between the judges before I.G. was announced the winner . Although Vincent had possibly the edge in aggression , I.G.s successful damage to our wheels tipped him over the winners line . Furious work began in the pits as Vincent had no spare wheels and two were completely destroyed . The two surviving wheels were placed on the rear motors and the remains of the others ( the steel centers) were put on the front . A quick test demonstrated his ability to run like this and Vincent then went out to play for the crowd again before his next match . The losers semi final saw a rematch between us and Pinscher and another fast paced fight looked likely . Pinscher had learnt from his earlier fight to watch out for the lifter and immediately leapt to the attack , grabbing the lifter at every opportunity to restrict Vincent’s ability . After another furious fight – Pincher was declared the winner by the judges and our night was officially over . Vincent reappeared in a “demonstration” 3 way match against Ballistic and Reboot and managed to hold his own in such tight company . Reboot finally managed to hit Vincent’s side skirts with his weapon – finally bending part of the skirt and we eventually retired with flat batteries . Having fought thru the comp – we lost to the two robots who fought the grand final . A great event and a brilliant job done by Vincent’s volunteer team . It was fantastic to see Vincent display some real potential and to dispense with some myths that relay controlled bots cannot be drivable or competitive .

Josh- you did a great job driving and Lindsey– Vincent wouldn’t have moved without your attention . Great job guys .
_________________
Some people pass cars - some people get passed by cars

Rye exhibition event 22-05-05 update

With some changes to Vincents brain , we finally realised that the micro was restarting thru the failsafe light flashing . There were some problems with Vincents brain present but these are problems we hope to fix during the next repair cycle . Generally Vincent drove well during this event and our nightmares with the radio seen to have finallly passed . The present version (III) seems to be a resonably solid and stable set-up and I hope that I dont have to make any more maijor changes . Some bracing to the front of the base plate is needed to reduce damage , but "full rebuilds" seem to be over
_________________
Some people pass cars - some people get passed by cars

Rye exhibition event? 04-06-05 update

Vincent performed well in all of his fights , the driving was shared between Josh and Terry and a great day was had by all . With the cancellation of the official "Robowars" event none of the fights were recorded , but this didn't make the fighting any less intense . Video of most of the fights can be downloaded here . http://www.allsuburbs.com/robots/video/robot_video.html

I didnt have time to work on the controller - so the "micro reboot" problem continued and the micro finally got fried at the end of the day ( static ) , but despite this we fought hard .

In a grudge match againt scoopy-doo , we became concered when the micro "rebooted" leaving us open to "scoopy attack" but the micro recovered before scoopy could do any damage (whew) . In a one on one fight against I.G. it became I.G.'s turn to experiance problems , but as Vincent is not designed to destroy bots - all we could do is play with I.G. when he was a sitting duck . Some good and intense fighting was had and untill the micro died at the very end of the day - Vincent earned his place in the arena .
_________________
Some people pass cars - some people get passed by cars

And so it begins again .... Robowars makes a comeback with Judgment day 2006 and Vincent's come home to play ..

Having spent some time lazing around doing displays in some schools , Vincent nearly thought has was in retirement . But with the ever so experimental "Ver II" relay controller and a fresh paint job he's back out to play . With fresh looks , brains and some welding , I wonder if Vincent will again be the only relay driven bot in the fight. Tomorrows "judgment day" will tell the story with a large field of very competitive bots . Will Vincent be up to the task ? only tomorrow will tell . Hopefully the great god of junk robots will smile on us . Watch out - I'm nearly excited .
_________________
Some people pass cars - some people get passed by cars

Can I cry now …
Saturdays testing saw a couple of minor glitches but Vincent showed great promise . Our first fight was against Cobra II and after a fast paced fight - Cobra was judged the winner by three points . That was a fair decision cause Josh had not driven Vincent for many months and as still adapting to some of my changes . This allowed Cobra to get under us a few times and dominate the fight placing us on the defensive . Cobra went on undefeated to fight in the Grand Final .

Using a 32 bot event structure but not having 32 bots caused a large amount of bye's in the early rounds and in the end we received a bye in the first losers round meaning that we wouldn’t fight in competition until the next day . With most of the day left to waste , I decided to let Josh and Terry run Vincent as much as they liked in whatever demo fights they wanted so we could get some extensive testing of my experimental PRC board . If we were to have a problem I wanted to know about it on the Saturday so I had a chance to fix it for Sunday , what a mistake . Vincent ran at every opportunity on Saturday and at one time Josh ran him for over a hour continuously stopping only to change drive batteries . Josh exhausted all our available SLA batteries and we recharged some of them and he reused those too . 3 x 12v7ah (all of them recharged and reused ) and 16 x 12v2.3ah (6 x recharged and reused ) were flat by the time he was finished .Vincent ran like a truck with only minor glitches and finally he stopped as we had no more batteries to use . The only hint of a problem was the main feed wires from the battery's had become very hot . Brett from Technomagic was kind enough to allow us to recharge all of our batteries using his "super charger" unit and we sat back for a hour whilst they all charged up. Full of optimism about Sunday we packed Vincent into the car and went home .

Sunday morning saw a slow start for all but me as I watched all the footage shot of Saturday and waited for people to arrive or surface from bed . The front edge of the lifter was ground sharper for our next fight and Vincent was loaded into the car . As our departure was delayed slightly , we rushed towards sidetracked and our first fight - prompted on the phone occasionally by Brett . Our first fight would be within 10 mins of our arrival and Stainless Steel Rat would be our opponent . A driver change was agreed upon and Terry formed tactics for the next fight .
With Vincent assembled and ready to go - I grabbed the camera and prepared to video the fight ….

Disaster struck as the experimental PRC board had decided to become unstable , probably because of the shocks and treatment of the day before and Vincent "locked up" and refused to respond reliably - SS Rat promptly belted us around the arena and we were out of the competition . The rest of the day was mostly spent trying to fix the experimental board but as I had encased the wires underneath in hot glue (to improve their durability) , effective repairs were nearly impossible and surrender proved to be the only option . After such promise and durability on the day before - we finally returned "crushed" to home . I had learned what I wanted and proven what I needed with my experimental board but I would have liked to have lost a good fight than sat there and "twitched" to death - LOL . The next PRC board will be built to a specific standard and should provide Vincent with a combat ready "brain" . Still there is allways another fight and a loss is best washed down with a win …
_________________
Some people pass cars - some people get passed by cars

ROBOWARS IV 2007 - “The Carnage Continuum”

With many things happening in my life over the last year - Vincent , the relay controller and “botbash” have been pretty low in my priority list . Vincent has languished gathering dust in my shed with a broken relay controller and botbash has been ignored for nearly 12 months even after some gentle prompting from a couple of the schools involved last year. Little had changed on the Thursday morning before the event despite some more gentle prompting from Brett .

Finally I relented to my deep and dark need to be a part of some electronic mayhem and brought the components to rebuild the PRC in Thursday afternoon before taking over my kitchen table for a rebuild of Vincent’s brain . Clearing the buildup of dust on Vincent’s and his batteries , I started to prepare him . After a long a hard workday on Friday , I resumed repairs on Vincent finally completing him at 3.00am after accidently deleting his software (LOL) and doing a final test in the carpark of my local Safeway store. Changes I had made to the PRC seemed to fix the constant rebooting problems and we hoped lady luck would smile on us and we would at least move for the first round .

After nearly no sleep we arrived at 9.20am at Sidetracked without our main driver (Josh) and no time for testing . Furious last minute preparations saw us ready to fight as the opening draw was held only to find we have a first round “bye” (it figures) , so just like drag racing it was a “hurry up and wait”…

Our driver for the round 2 fight was to be young Sam who had never driven Vincent in competition , but he wanted to “have a go” and “Spyder“ was to be our opponent .Spyder is build under the same principles as Vincent in that he is a non destructive robot designed to disable his opponents by lifting , not rip them to pieces so the danger to Vincent was small . Sam drove well and finally won the round in a close points decision – well done Sam .

Our next fight was Jolt (a nasty, very destructive hi-energy spinner) and Vincent has never fought such a opponent before so Sam “deferred” the drive to me in case Vincent was destroyed. This would be my first fight (hey I build him , not drive him ..) . Our un-tested spinner tactics , 1: Ovoid the spinner , 2: Stay near walls , 3: Hope he breaks , 4: pray .. Somewhere in the back of my mind – I actually wanted this fight . I wanted to know just how strong Vincent was and this was the only way to find out . I knew that the armor was strong as long as Vincent was completely closed up as it is designed to brace itself when closed – but I didn’t know if it was strong enough . After some general chasing and being chased , I decided to ram Jolt and find out if Vincent was strong enough . I could not believe it when Jolts weapon broke with Vincent having little real damage and then the instability caused by Jolts broken weapon actually saw Vincent the winner .

The next fight was against “Late” (a destructive hi-energy vertical spinner) and I wondered if it could get worse – two good “hi-energy” spinners in a row . Percentages must surely be against me but I was buoyed by Vincent’s strength in the fight with Jolt . Again I drove a similar pattern with similar results . Late’s weapon drive failed leaving him open to Vincent playing with him and Vincent became the winner of that round also.

Our next fight was to against our arch nemesis “Reboot” ( Hi-energy drum spinner , well made/driven) . During a exhibition match in 2006 , Reboot become the only robot to seriously damage Vincent by bending his side skirts up and nearly breaking them off. Something about Vincent and reboot sees reboot able to get a good grip on Vincent with his drum and damage always seems to follow. Straight out of the blocks the fight was intense but eventually reboot managed to get a bite on Vincent and the plastic gearbox of the lift motor smashed leaving the top tray to flop open. More intense fighting followed with the tray occasionally flying open and Vincent took much damage to his top amour/tray before finally losing the fight in a judges decision .

Although bent , needing repairs and a lift motor – it was good to see that my latest PRC has not failed and basically Vincent had suffered little real mechanical damage. A quick trip to the workshop and some panel beating saw Vincent fully working and ready to fight again .

Eleanor ( a very low, well made/driven wedge ) was to be our next opponent . Vincent had no chance of getting under him so if we were to win it would have to be on aggression points. Although we constantly attacked – we could only “ski-jump” off Eleanor and although we should have attracted aggression points apparently the points were awarded to Eleanor even when we attacked . Although I expected a least a close decision , the judges scored unanimously for Eleanor and our event was finished . Oddly enough Eleanor did not enjoy the same judging approach in his next fight and despite very similar results , Eleanor was not awarded the win ?.

Vincent went back in to the arena for some demonstration fights before being prepared for the final event – the “wacky races” around the small go cart track. Young Sam jumped back into the drivers position for the race and once the race started Vincent was away and flying. ---- Disaster on the second lap ---- , Large amounts of smoke poured from Vincent as the drive appeared to fail and fearing the worst I recovered Vincent and gingerly opened him up. Fortunately only a motor mount ( hose clamp) had broken allowing the motor to turn and its wiring to dead short and eventually overheating and burning through the main battery leads. The PRC had survived and with some slight rewiring Vincent will be ready to run again .
_________________
Some people pass cars - some people get passed by cars

*Great* Event Report Rick.

I think Vincent was an amazing herculean effort for the time he was ressurected in and gave a few high energy experienced competitors a very nasty surprise. Great to see you back in the fray

I think there will be a lot more talk about the PRC after seeing its performance this weekend and how well Vincent drove with bang-bang Relay Control.

More comments when I'm more awake.
_________________
Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people

Junkyard II ? - Jam jerrup Vic 14-10-07
Well , my last post contained a slight understatement ...."dead short and eventually overheating and burning through the main battery leads." and "with some slight rewiring Vincent will be ready to run again" ... how I wish that was true ...Although I was tempted to retire Vincent after the last robowars .. I decided to "repair" the wiring for a return to the new junkyard (for want of a better name).

After a full stripdown - it became obvious that the wiring short had far more damaging results - with all of the main wiring loom and control system destroyed. With large work committments (new job) I became concerned that I would not be able to find the time to repair Vincent , but after some very late nights and getting up at 5am on the compitition day - Vincent finally moved again .. Vincent had moved for only 10 meters before we got to the event , and this sort of approach has normally resulted in disaster --- would this be the same ? . Gremlins were definatly loose in the house as problems were starting to appear with intermittent lights , the transmitter battery failing and more suspect motor mounts .

The Event :
With "in fight" judging restricted to the catagories of aggression and control the likely out come was not clear and we were trialing a "chicago shootout" form of sheduling and so the fight structure would be considerably different to the normal.

Vincent vrs Spearhead (Sam driving) : won
Spearhead struggled with control eventually failing during the fight giving Vincent a technical TKO

Vincent vrs Bye (Sam driving )
A trial approach , with Vincent required to "run" in the arena for 3 mins to prove he could have fought before being granted the bye (common to all bots)

Vincent vrs 6x7 ( Sam driving ) : won
Reasonably tight match against a "axe thwack bot" with Vincent eventually granted the win by the judges .

The final ..
Three bots had the same score at this point - Reboot , B/W and Vincent and a decision needed to be made as to how to resolve 3 bots into 2

Initally it was decided that the fastest TKO would get a "walk" into the final with the other two having to fight it out for a place ... Vincent was the only bot who had got a technical TKO at that point and so we had a "walk" into the final ...but ... we had come to fight . As team leader - I decided we would not accept a "walk" into the final as we had come to fight - not walk and so despite Vincent not being fully charged - I challenged "B/W" to a fight for a position in the final . Reboot was then granted the bye based on "rankings".

Vincent vrs B/W ( Sam driving ) : loss
Tight match with Vincent running very low on battery power towards the end.
Close judges decision against Vincent saw us have our first loss for the day
and put us out of the comp. I am happier to lose a fight than walk to a final.

Grudge Match : Vincent vrs 6x7 (Jake driving) : loss
To "blood" a new driver - we challenged 6x7 to a grudge match . Having never driven a bot before , Jake started slowly as he grappled with the controls but after a while he started to develop a good "feel" for Vincent - allowing him to attack strongly in the later parts of the match. A close judges decision saw Vincent the loser and we retired for the day .

Enjoy
_________________
Some people pass cars - some people get passed by cars