Xbox 360 Power Supply Hack

My most recent scooter (that I built and haven't yet blogged about) uses a 7s2p Lithium Iron Phosphate pack using A123 cells. That is great except my Triton EQ charger can only handle 6s Lithium anything. The obvious solution was to purchase new charging equipment like this beautiful Turnigy 8s charger capable of 7A continuous. However, it also means I need to find a suitable power supply that can output at least 4.6A at ~23.1V with an input range of 11 to 15V.

That last requirement removes most laptop power supplies from the list of hopefuls. But, it does shine some light on my favorite gaming platform, the Xbox 360. The 360 variants feature external power supplies with some funky 8 pin output cable. Furthermore there are variants that output some 135W (Xbox 360 Slim) to 203W (Xbox 360 original console) of power. My favorite part about these power supplies is they can be obtained for cheap because they are available everywhere. I grabbed a 150W variant off ebay for $18 free shipping.

Alright! Hacking time! I received my box and noted many familiar items. Wall plug, power brick, lalala... oh wait.

8 pins wtf

What the hell is this? Some 8-pin output connector that goes into the Xbox. No clear labeling on the outside to signify the purpose of the pins.

It turns out, six of the pins are used for power transmission and two are used for a "standby" state. This is probably the minimum power required for the sleeping state on the Xbox (I mean how else do you turn it on using the wireless controllers?). Here is the pinout:

Courtesy of that website. Kudos go to them.

If you were to probe the outputs with a multimeter, you will find a 0V potential between the yellow and black UNTIL you supply the PWR_ENABLE pin with +5V. We are going to simply take the +5V USB line (RED) and connect it to the PWR_ENABLE permanently. Then we will connect the yellow and black wires together in parallel because I don't feel like 22ga PVC jacket wire is ever going to safety transmit 150W.

Anyway, I unplugged the charger cord, and immediately sliced into the cable behind the connector. Conveniently enough, the cables are colored accordingly.

8 pins, 8 wires. Life is good.

Strip away more wire and begin soldering things together. Three BLACK in paralle, three YELLOW in parallel, and connect the BLUE and RED/PURPLE.

Your choice on the shrink wrap and external connector. A good choice might be a power strip in case you want to power multiple items with it. Since this power supply is single duty, I soldered in an XT60 connector used for hobby RC.

GMX Part 2: Combat!

On Friday evening we hadn't left Atlanta until maybe 10 or 11 because SOME PEOPLE were beast-mode machining their robots. Piled into two cars and drove up to Nashville some 4-5 hours later.

The next morning we rolled out of bed to the hotel and set up for the Geek Media Expo's second annual Robot Battled event, or Robot Battles 45 if you'll have it. As we entered, the arena provided by Thomas Kenny was being set up. It was a smaller 4 x 4' arena with a pushout. I was slightly worried about DDT's spin-up time and bouncing but it definitely favored Dominant Mode who operates very well in tight conditions.

Empty for now...

...busy the rest of the day

The Georgia Tech crew brought several robots. We had two antweights between Jim and myself, and six beetleweights created by Gabe Ochoa, Dan Hammer, Xo Wang, Aaron fan, Greg (who wasn't actually there), and myself. 

GT crew and the compound table.

 There ended up being two other antweights, and 2 other beetleweights. Therefore the ants ran double round robin and the beetles ran double elimination. Needless to say, Georgia Tech was over half the competition.

Robots preparing. Everyone looks nice and undamaged right now.

Jim Shealy adds tape to the base of Quantum Platypus to dampen the other spinners.

Dan Hammer working on "The hammer"

Gabe Ochoa, the builder of Mowbot, adding the final preparations.

Mowbot, the champion of the AMMF Robot Battles, sporting a new frame and blade.

Quantum Platypus, the enormous overhead disk spinner.

Gyro King, the massive melty bot made by Aaron Fan and Xo Wang.

My things. Last minute polycarbonate anti-wedge additions being made.

______________________________________________________________________________

DDT vs Quantum Platypus.

DDT pulled the first match of the competition against fellow GT builder Jim Shealy. QP had a nasty overhead hardened A2/plastic composite disk and a wide polycarbonate base for stability and entrapment. Most other robots would have met their doom, but luckily enough DDT's front disk was large and low enough to barely evade the tips of those bars. This is also the first time I have run DDT -_-

DDT proved to have no problem with weapon power. Instant spin up time and enough power to keep it bouncing around the arena. This is not quite compensation for its inability to drive inverted, but it certainly helps. Quantum Platypus's foam adhesives worked well at first, but when DDT struck frame things began to fall apart. DDT wins by JD.

I feel bad for destroying the floor.

Dominant Mode vs Gyro King
Dang! First beetle match of the morning is going to be a big one. Gyro King is a melty brain robot with large 35mm brushless motors for wheels and a solid aluminum frame waterjet from a single billet of 1.5" aluminum. To add to its impressiveness, its motor controllers and bluetooth communications were custom made AND it has hardened s7 teeth. Dominant Mode's drum was rather soft 4130 so I was anticipating the worst. My initial strategy was to box rush, but it doesn't always work out as planned.

Dom takes a nice bite from the tooth support after removing the S7 teeth.

Gyro King was having trouble spinning up. It was designed to spin to over 6000 RPMs but was only getting about 2000. Had it been up to full power it might have been far worse for me considering the number of missed rushes. But Dom removed the S7 teeth by shearing the bolts and nearly ejected Gyro King from the arena. The hit jarred the HDPE dead weights in the robot and high centered its drive wheels. Dom wins by KO.

DDT vs Hardboiled
Return to the antweights to fight last year's winner of GMX Robot Battles. Hardboiled was a fast wedge that didn't show and visible weaknesses. A good driver and reliable drive train was enough for it to clench its first round victory against Green Reaper so I expected him to keep on DDT such that I could not spin up. We would see how well the disk spin up time would be now.


Seems more than sufficient. Even under load, I could torque the disk and spin both robots apart. This bodes very well for DDT seeing as how disk spin up has plagued the old version. DDT wins with an odd flipping slice.

DDT ended up fighting Hardboiled twice more for the round robin format and the championship. All the matches had similar outcomes with equal or greater amounts of bouncing. DDT ends up victorious in both cases. 

Dominant Mode vs Gregbot
Gregbot (or Critical Space Item if you prefer) is a creation of Greg Shikman from Cooper Union. We still have his robot from Dragon Con for whatever reason, and allowed us to run it for GMX. Well, it won its first match against The Hammer and now comes to fight Dominant mode. Gregbot has an overpowered drive train sufficient for 12-pound robots and has an unfathomable translation speed. Gregbot has the potential to really boss Dom around if only it was controllable >_>


Gregbot ended up flipping early from hitting the wall with its springy steel frame. From then on, it was pretty much over. 

Dominant Mode vs Spiky Turtle Screwy Thing
I don't remember the name of this robot exactly, but it was driven by a bright young fellow with a lot of potential. The robot's body was a inverted cake pan and had all sorts of screws sticking out of it as a defense.


I tried my best to not destroy it so I flipped it once and pushed it out. The humane kill for the trutle:)

Dominant Mode vs Mowbot (Finals!)
Finals time! Mowbot suffered some pre-competition damage and was reduced to a pushy bot with a reliable drivetrain. In its last match against Gyro King it suffered a battery short as it was exiting the arena had to be escorted out of the hotel in a fiery bucket. But no harm done, Mowbot was back in action in no time despite looking a bit like it was slapped with baby powder.

Gabe and I both knew that we would lock in a pushy match if we went head on because his front and rear wedges were angled to avoid the drum but contact the frame first. I would try and avoid a head on confrontation like that and instead aim for his corners.

When the match began, he had me where I didn't want to be: pinned against the wall after head-on contact. However when he backed up, I struck the front corner which opened up his front panel and exposed his battery.


After a brief pause we decided to go pushy bots for the rest of the match. The crowd cheered for good sportsmanship and more robot fighting. However the first charge by both robots was the killing blow. Mowbot darted past Dom with its battery hanging out and Dom tagged the trailing battery, pulling it out of its connector. Dom wins in a hilarious final moment. 

Antweight Rumble
At the conclusion of the antweight bracket, we held a small rumble with the three remaining robots in the antweight class.


It turned into a robot dance-off with DDT suggesting its name should be DDR.

Beetleweight Rumble

Two words: Pure. Chaos. Dan and I had agreed to hit weapon to weapon but it seemed like Thomas wanted some action first. By the time Dan and I had any sort of contact, Dom was missing some screws on the side plates. Then, I missed his weapon and fed him my weakened side...

Dominant Mode has never had that much damage before. Both sides incompacitated and a drum bearing shattered. It turns out Dan's robot (The Hammer) pierced through the Ti around the front cap and pulled the entire assembly out. I later gave him those parts as a trophy.

The drum sounded like maracas because of the loose balls inside.

Boom.

Dan Hammer's trophy from me.

Conclusions
Both robots did well but its clear that that Dom needs work. The frame is still vulnerable to horizontal spinners regardless of the angled sides. The inner rails were also tweaked and bent so there needs to be more work in stiffening the front portions of the frame.

The entire competition was pretty rushed for the competitors because of the low number of robots. However, spare batteries and maybe six chargers kept us all going. Given the excitement of the group, I have no doubts we will return to GMX and Robot Battles again!

Big thanks to Xo Wang and Dan Hammer for the excellent video captures! Also thanks to Thomas, GMX, and the MTRAS crew for a great event! On behalf of the Georgia Tech crew, we thank you for a wonderful time!
________________________________________________________________________________

Other awesome moments of the event.
The Hammer vs Gregbot (grudge match)

The Hammer vs Gyro King


Also, the mini highlight reel

GMX Part 1: Preparation

Those who have seen the beetleweight rumble from the AMMF event will remember that Dominant Mode's drive began failing at the end. With GMX on October 26th, it was time to investigate the source of these issues.

oops

That doesn't look healthy. The cylindrical shaped piece on the table is the front bushing for the KW motor, which had fallen out in all the excitement. It was accompanied by a nice layer of brass pinion dust as it seems to have evaporated in the misalignment. 

I determined that the main faults of this mod were the improper mating of the KW motor to the 280's face plate mount and the inadequate length of shaft used to secure the brass pinion. Because the stock face plate was not intended to mate to these motors, it allowed all sorts of slop in the alignment of the gears. To reach the first cluster gear, the pinion had to be mounted on the tip of the KW motor since the KW motor shaft was sufficiently shorter than the 280's. This meant there was a poor friction connection between the motor and the pinion, and an even worse connection between the pinion and its first cluster gear. No amount of JB Weld could remedy the situation. 

The solution was the remake the motor face plate. This new version would need to have features to properly made the motor concentrically to the gearbox and bring the motor shaft closer to the first cluster gear. I found that a simple flat of 1/8" aluminum was sufficient. 

I made several mistake in the model, but I had the main bolt pattern correct so I was able to match drill the new piece.

The full length of the pinion is now available for contact despite being pressed fully onto the shaft. This was complimented with JB Weld. The internal shafts in the gearbox did stick out the back of the new face plate so the entire end was belt sanded to make that surface flush. For the record, the main two screws that bolt through the gearbox are M2.5 and the pins are 2mm dia. I will make this face plate available as soon as I develop a proper model.

The gearbox and resulting combination. Because I couldn't find the loctite, I opted to JB Weld everything. Hopefully, its insane bonding power will be sufficient for holding screws.

Meanwhile, I have been planning a new antweight in light of Dragon Con Robot Battles. Colson Bot was fun, but not entertaining enough for my tastes. It was time to revive the champion of entertainment: DDT.

This time around, the goals were to increase the rigidity of the frame and ease manufacturing. For me, this basically meant waterjet, waterjet, waterjet.

The main idea was to waterjet two slabs of UHMW and stack them together to compose the main frame. The weight for this upgrade would come from a smaller battery and smaller drive motors. The banebots 24:1 gearmotors were overkill for moving an antweight. Instead I opted for the brass micro gearmotors found at pololu. These would be belted to two dead shafts holding the drive wheels. This drive assembly would be mounted to 1/8" 6061 aluminum plates to keep everything in alignment; I wouldn't trust UHMW to stay rigid enough.

The newest version sunk these plates into the UHMW sides. While the disk remained the same, the weapon was upgraded to a Hacker A20-20L. Similarly, the battery was decreased to 460 mAh, but increased voltage to 11.1 V. This meant approximately 11 kRPMs!

The frame was waterjet with through holes for alignment. First some small nails were inserted to keep it together. Then the side plates could be pressed in and drilled. This assisted in assembly of the rest of the machine. 

Drive module. Those are M1.6 cap screws that go through the front plate of the pololu gearmotors. The dead shaft is 1/4" delrin for the time being.

DDT's frame quickly coming together! Top plates are made from 5XXX anodized aluminum for the purpose of engraving logos later.

The belt system for the drive. The motor side pulley is 1/2" OD for a 3/32" urethane belt. The wheel side has a 5/8" OD and is made of delrin. To simplify the assembly, I am using the bearing properties of delrin instead of opting for bearings or bushings.

When I had first purchased the new lite flite wheels for the robot, I had planned on using larger 2.5" diameter  wheels. Now that I inspect the design, it would must better benefit from smaller wheels. With only 2 days before the competition, I decided to try turning neoprene rubber. I shoved a 1/2" aluminum shaft into the inner diameter of the foam wheels and placed them side by side on my lathe. I spun them at 755 RPM and made .03" passes with a sharp carbide bit. It was messy but returned great results.

The top cover after engraving. Included is the molecule so others can make the connection. DDT the pesticide, killing the antweight robots.

AMMF: It's Robot Fighting Time!

Robots. One week ago, the second annual Atlanta Mini Maker Faire held its first ever robotic combat event primarily organized by yours truly. It seemed like an opportune time to feature destructive machines given the audience and zany maker atmosphere.

What made this event particularly interesting (other than the fact that I tried to organize it while fighting pneumonia) was the experimental team battle format. An exerpt describing the function of the team rules is described below:
_________________________________________________________________________________

The competition shall be composed of two sets of rounds:

1. Qualifying Rounds
2.  Elimination Rounds

Qualifying Rounds

Each match will consist of 4 entrants in a 2v2 format. The alliances per match are random. The winners of the bout are declared when both entrants of the opposing team are incapacitated, unable to display controlled translational movement, or are ejected from the arena. Match length will be 3 minutes. If any number of devices on each team are in the arena and still able to display controlled translational movement, the winner will be decided by a judge’s decision.

At the conclusion of each match, points will be awarded to each robot.

• 2 points for both the robots on the winning team*
• 1 point for each robot remaining in the arena

*0 points will be awarded to robots that do not attend their designated match time.*

Robots with byes will be compensated with 2 points.

At a specified time designated by the event organizer, the points for each robot will be tallied and the top 4 devices will advance to the Elimination Rounds.

Elimination Rounds

The winners of each match in the elimination round will be determined using the standard 2011 RFL ruleset.

The remaining 4 robots will engage in single-elimination, 1v1 combat beginning with the semi-final round.

The winners of each semi-finals round will advance to a finals round, where the bracket winner will be determined.

_________________________________________________________________________________

This new format is advantageous because it allows robots to maximize the number of matches they fights in a more condensed time period. However there may be possible conflicts regarding the recharge time typically allotted after each match. This value, of typically 20 minutes, would then drive the frequency of the matches, especially for events with a sparse number of robots. The main negative to this format is the amount of pre-planning required. Walk-up registration is difficult to plan given that most of the match organization is currently done by hand. This would require pre-registration unless an algorithm is used.

For the AMMF, we had 12 robots by the time registration was done; that is, 6 ants and 6 beetles. Michael Jeffries of Near Chaos Robotics assembled the match line up with some quick wit. The idea for the AMMF was to attempt to allow the builders to see the attractions of the faire by hosting matches at preset times during the hour. In the case of this event, every half hour. However, given the low number of robots, it meant that competitors at best case would have a max of 1 or 1.5 hours to look around assuming they don't have robots in both weight classes.

I decided not to enter any of robots directly since I believe the EO should never win their own event.

Cool trophies for the winners of each weight class and rumble.

These were simply laser cut acrylic pieces that were pressed together and then welded using acrylic solvents.

We were placed at the base of the stairs between the CULC and Skiles buildings. It was nice and shady, and the stairs offered free seating for the crowd.

The stands were quickly populated by makers and crowd alike.

I was honestly surprised at the number of attendees. The competition was assembled rather late and not actively publicized yet we had massive waves of viewers throughout the day. Equally impressive were the robots.

The Hammer, one of many robots built at the Invention Studio.

Beetleweights engaged in a qualifiers match.

One team preys on the other team.

The best part of the team format is that no matches were particularly boring. There was always at least one spinner which made from a lot of excitement. Some of the most notable matches at embedded below.

By the end, I decided to have some fun too and threw Dominant Mode in the beetleweight rumble. I'm not supposed to win my own rumble.

More videos can be found at the Near Chaos Robotics Youtube Channel. 

Mow Bot, the beetleweight champion of the event.

With that, I'll call the event a success. The team format was proven to be a big hit, although I think more has to be done in consideration of the builders. This format is great for the audience but the time between cycles on robots is incredibly small. This left very little time for other builders to see other exhibits. In a normal competition where robot combat is the main event, this might not be as large a problem. Still, it might require back to back matches or lessened recharge time. This implies that the team format is best done with a large number of competitors.

Huge thanks to the competitors and members of the robot community who helped set up. This means Randy, Rob, Mike, and several others who not only helped setup brackets, but unload the arena and bring robots so we can have a good show. You guys made this happen!

'Till next time, BOT ON!

Dragon Con: Prep, Ready, and Deploy

Every year, my friends and I bring a plethora of robots to compete at Dragon Con's Robot Battles competition. It includes 1 and 3 pound robots for their Microbattles segment on Sunday, and 12 and 30 pound sumo robots for their main event on Monday.

As tradition, out entries must consist of several "assbots" among our serious entries.

Wheel! (Colson Bot)
After four years of being relatively invincible, I have decided to force-retire DDT. Replacing it at Dragon Con will be the beloved assbot dubbed "Colson Bot".

In the mid-2000's, the arena hazard for micro battles was a colson wheel attached to the output of an angle grinder. It was well known for its overpowering hits that often determined the outcome of the matches. Colson Bot was designed to look and function very similarly... without the stability of being bolted to the ground.

Being an assbot, I had determined that the budget would be minimal. Luckily I had just disassembled DDT and Prop Quiz which left me with several options for controllers and motors. I elected to recycle the gearmotors from Prop Quiz and the electronics from DDT.

There were two main steps to the design: finding a colson that could be bored large enough to fit the electronics and making a chassis small enough to fit in that bore. Given I had already selected my parts, I decided to reverse order design and build the chassis first.

Treads would have been ideal to maximize traction, but could not be done with the space constraint. Instead, the design used is pictured above. The robot is designed in layers. The bottom layer (including the wedge) is 3D printed out of PLA on one of the Invention Studio Ultimakers. The top section is waterjetted polycarbonate screwed on from the bottom of the robot. This top section mounts the Esskay 400xt brushless motor that directly drives the colson wheel (not pictured). I fully expect the 3D printed chassis to snap somewhere.

Colson Bot went together very quickly. I had only 8 holes to countersink and a few things to wire.

...and functionality tests.

Quick enough certainly. I'm dissatisfied with the acceleration of the robot, but once again I play the "apathy via assbot" rule. I have also yet to achieve maximum speed. the robot lifts off and goes unstable before I can spin it high enough. Although the esc braking function provides an interesting way to escape bad situations.

After a quick paint job, lets call it complete.

Dominant Mode

Clash of the Bots 3 showed me a few aspects of the robot that were not ideal:

• The unreliability of Spektrum technology
• The ineffectiveness of UHMW anti-wedge slips
• Something resulting in periodic signal loss
• Custom brushless drum subject to axial shifts

For now, we will waive off the Spektrum issue since it seem to have corrected itself somehow. The anti-wedge slips will be replaced by a few alternatives. 

I drew up this design awhile back. It uses a set of Titanium forks to get under opponents. I favorite this design because it leaves nice sharp points to get under wedges and are not dependent on the position of the other wedge tips. This is a good feature to have in case part of the wedge incurs damage; the other fine points will not be affected.

Others have recommended that I simply bend some blue-tempered spring steel. Since one option was clearly easier than other other, I decide to try waterjet machining some of the 0.01" spring steel stock I had bought for Razor Reloaded.

To prevent the drum shifting, I laser cut a thin ring of acrylic. This will keep the outer bearing from shifting off the mount. For Robot Battles, this should be fine as long as I don't fight and horizontal spinners. For future competitions, I will probably upgrade to a more ductile material like polycarbonate or polyethylene. 

In previous experience with Cake, my first explanations to the radio cutoff was a short between the ground and +5V lines somewhere in the receiver. For Cake, this would usually occur around the drum shaft, where the drum shaft ID would eat through the insulation and contact the PWM wires. For Dominant Mode, no such symptom was to be seen since all the electronics were contained within the body this time. I though perhaps the motor windings were shorting somewhere again, but drive independent tests confirmed otherwise. What ended up being the concluded culprit was the receiver. I had Adam Bercu of Busted Nut Robotics pick up a Spektrum AR6115e on his way down to Atlanta, which solved the problems.

Turboencabulator

What in the world is a turboencabulator? Few people know, but it sounds pretty complicated even though the only new principle involved is power production from the modial interaction of magneto-reluctance and capacitive directance. 

It is a sub-ass bot designed to go fast. I want it to be good yet require minimal spending on my part so many of the parts will be recycled from random things. The basic idea was to create a sturdy 4-wheel drive base and incorporate some simple active weapon on it. 

I was originally intending on using some 860-sized Johnson motors on some 5:1 gearboxes I had, but I would only be able to use two of them and 4-wheel drive with chain would have become costly very quickly. Instead I opted for some low RPM (high kt) 540-sized motors from surplus center. These guys put out a whopping 62 oz-in/amp! Combined with the 5:1 gearboxes on 3" wheels, I could move 24lbs while only drawing 16 Amps continuous. Sounded like an ideal duty for my Banebots 12-45 ESCs that havent seen action since 2008.

The 5:1 gearboxes were salvaged from the Hitachi copier motors that we previously purchased for stator grabs. We had maybe 6-7 of them on hand and since they included bearings it was idea for a low cost solution. Pinions were made from the motor-side shafting by rough cutting them to length, facing them, and then boring them on the lathe. The arbor press finished the installation process.

The 30A Mcmaster bots wheels were pressed directly on the shaft of the output gears. This assembly was suspended in between two frame rails made of HDPE (for now). 

From there, the robot quickly went together.

The Turboencabulator sans roller weapon.

However, did not fair well in some sparring.

The Carly Rae Jepsen Wallbanger puts a nice one into Turbo's side.

The hit actually smashed in a roller motor and deformed the HDPE enough to cause plastic deformation. So the robot was upgraded with steel outer panels thanks to Adam once again.

Intermisssion: Other happenings during the Dragon Con prop week.

Fun things to do with 30 pound combat robots:

The MIT crew bought over 14 power tools from Harbor Freight to hack into robot drives.

Greg bot (Critical Space Item). It has the drive train of a 12 pound robot.

Competition: Sunday
There wasn't much to say about Micro battles because the competition did not last long. It was originally a double elimination tournament but due to the record number of competitors and truncated time allotment for the ballroom, they decided to switch tournament types mid-way through.

Dominant had only one opponent before driving through the pit. Here is the footage.

Turns out the hotter wound motor is too fast. With the spring steel wedglets gripping the floor, I couldn't get enough ground speed to bite into the opponent. The first match shows robot milling while the second match shows more effective biting from 30% throttle.

The second match also shows why I should stop trying to push opponents into the pit. Fail.

Colson bot did not receive the same recognition as I had expected because the EO was rushing. Here is the result.

Without an e-clip on the motor, the top comes off and splays itself around the arena.

Competition: Monday
Arrived nice and early to talk jabber with the other builders.

Turbo was ready to go, fully charged and sporting its new A-36 side plates. It weighed 11.5 lbs.

Our friends from the north were already there with a beautiful array of 30 pound robots.

Dale Heatherington brought the competition's first fully autonomous robot, Scary-Go-Round. It is able to track the opponent and stage boundaries while constantly rotating. Quite an amazing robot.

Turbo had the first match of the competition against a solid block robot named Ice Cube.






The rollers worked perfectly! Between the higher RPM 2" colsons and the 3" mcmaster bot wheels for drive, I was able to "dribble" my opponent on top of my robot for the perfect delivery. Match 1-3 was a great display of control over the opponent.

Unfortunately, match 2 was not as lucky. I was pitted against a robot named Tilla the Hun, which used a very similar principle to turn over other bots.


He had wire brushes for wheels which gave him superior traction on the carpeted surface. I though perhaps my ramming mass alone could push him back but he had superior traction.

For the rest of the competition, I aided with Charles' and Adam's robots since they had some major repairs between matches. One of which resulted in Uberclocker Ubershanker.

That is my $15 katana strapped to the clamping arm of Uberclocker to try and compensate for its broken lifter spatula. It actually worked vs a match against Pinball, as it lodged perfectly in between the body and top plate.

Turbo's final appearance was in the 12 pound rumble where it once again showed its ability. Because Michael Jeffries of Near Chaos Robotics swept both events, I was gunning for him but Apollyon's quick drive train kept it a chase the entire time.



Conculsions

Overall, the competition was a personal fail considering my experience but it was a nice change of pace. I was able to experience the relaxing end of robot combat with the best seats in the house (backstage). I'll be thinking about new designs for future competitions. The next competition believe is the Atlanta Mini Maker Faire (October 6th) and Chattanooga Robot Battles.

I'm dreaming of a 12-pound Uberclocker...