After running a few errands, including a trip to the hardware store for some more #6-32 taps, it's time to get to work - specifically on the drive train for Intrusive Interloper 3.0, and whatever other tasks we want to cross off the lists. Hit Back after viewing an image.

We picked up yesterday's mail, and in it was a box from Amazon with our monthly Subscribe 'n' Save coffee, plus these two items. A 16GB micro-SD card and a very small camera to put it in. This video camera will be mounted to the Sportsman for some action-cam footage at Motorama.

Skip forward a ways, and we're done tapping the FingerTech wheels without any more broken taps. Aside from the one drive pod we still need an axle for, we've bolted the gears to the wheel hubs, and installed the wheels to the axles with keystock and the nylon cores. Next up are the speed controllers, after a brief interlude for some test driving.

A quick shot of the 'victim' Steel Stiletto was sparring with - a 30lb box of junk. Let it be known to all 12lb builders: cardboard would not be a good armour material :-)

Here we've started to install the speed controllers. They're stuck to the side wall with foam tape, and lead 'C' will be connected to the yellow motor wire in all cases. Red and black will be connected depending on which side of the 'bot the pod is installed in.

We happened to have the table saw out to make a couple of supports for a cat tree (we have hefty cats) so we took the opportunity to cut a second piece of aluminium angle down to size for a second wedge for the featherweight. It still needs to be drilled, but that shouldn't take too long.

Here we have all five speed controllers mounted in drive pods, so the next step is to break out the transmitter, receiver, and programming card, and get these things configured.

Here we're in the midst of configuring the speed controllers. We have two per side, but we're missing a V-tail mixer, unfortunately, so we're going to have to hit a local hobby shop tomorrow and pick a couple up before we can really get this 'bot wrapped up. Time flies when you're having fun!

Tonight's goal is to finish up Steel Stiletto and have it in a controlable state. Shouldn't be too hard, considering we did most of the work over the weekend - all we really have left is wiring, and figuring out whether we want to incorporate a gyro or not. Hit Back after viewing an image.

We switched back from BotBiz hacked ESCs to Victor 883s, as we determined over the weekend that they don't play well with the gyro we have. We coupled up all the wires, throwing in a Battery Eliminator and new mixer - the old one was damaged in the spin-out a while back.

We also gave Milly a quick pocketing program to let us recess the bolts that hold the spikes on, as the heads of the bolts were rubbing on the wheels. We want to do everything we can to make the drivetrain run as true as possible, in case we can't get the gyro working.

Ta-daa! All buttoned up, we took some time to give Steel Stiletto a test run. The short version of the report is that the gyro didn't work worth a dime, so we yanked it, and played with radio settings for a while to try and tame the beast. Eventually we worked the 'bot and the radio into a pretty nicely controlled setup, so we're happy.

A quick weight check, and we're at 11.6 pounds, so no worries there. One other change we've made is to switch the Victor speed controllers from Brake to Coast, to reduce the load on them when we change direction. It makes for some neat drifting maneouvers, and hopefully will allow the Victors to make it through a whole competition without blowing up, as our stockpile is pretty lean at this point.

The last shot of the night: our To-Do Lists. There's a reasonable amount to do, but we think it's very doable in the four or so weeks we have until we load up the BotMobile and head north-eastwards towards Pennsylvania. We put in a bunch of orders today for the parts that are still outstanding, and may also have had a breakthrough in how to more easily build the beetleweight walker - more on that another time ...

Today was one of those days where we got a lot done, but with very few pictures to prove it. The goal was to wrap up three more 'bots, and although we fell a bit short of that mark, we had a very productive day. Hit Back after viewing an image.

The weapon motor on Transcendental Terror 2.0 was not spinning up. We'd already identified one wire that was not connected properly, despite our best soldering efforts, and after pulling off the electrical tape, it was pretty easy to spot the same problem on the other two leads.

We broke out the crimper and PWM pins, and mechanically connected the motor to the speed controller. Finally, all was well. Time to bolt on the top plate and take the 'bot for a test drive.

No video at the moment - sorry - but the 'bot is pretty zippy on it's 3S battery and 30:1 HP Pololu motors. Final weight is 144 grams, out of 150 allowed, so no worries there, and the internal components are very tightly packed, so our worries about the side walls pivoting are essentially unfounded.

At this point we switched our attention to Belligerent Battler 1.0, which needs some upgrading done. We neglected to take any photos, but were able to cross a few things off the To Do List.

Switching focus again, this time to the hobbyweight Steel Stiletto. We used hacked brushless speed controllers in this 'bot at the last competition, and they worked fine, but in testing with the gyro we want to put in the 'bot, the ESCs would rhythmically 'pulse' on. We decided to switch to the configuration that worked in our 30lb'er - using Victor 883 speed controllers instead. We also took the time to update the 'bots paint job.

This is as far as we made it tonight - the 'bot is mostly assembled, but needs some additional wiring and internals installed. Then we'll put it through it's paces with the gyro and see if it's more controllable than last time. More to come tomorrow - same 'Bot Time, same 'Bot Channel.

We don't usually build on Friday evenings - it's typically pizza-and-a-movie night, but having lost a week of building to the 'flu, we need to regain time, so it's out to the Build Space we go. Hit Back after viewing an image.

After rummaging around in our boxes of bits, we found some PWM pins and housings. We weren't feeling entirely confident, but decided that the best way to reduce some of the cabling would be to cut them and put a new set of pins on the wires.

After a trip to our local Fry's, we had an appropriate crimper, and a few YouTube videos later, we decided to give it shot. As you can see, we did pretty well - hurrah!

A blurry shot of the weapon speed controller wire with it's new PWM connector on [much] shorter wire. We tested at this point, by plugging it in, and doing a quick spin of the weapon - it works! Now on to the drive ESCs.

While the cable editing was going on, we had been attempting to get Steel Stiletto to play nice with a gyro. We did find a gyro that seemed to work, but it also caused the drive wheels to 'pulse' on to a rhythm - not a good feature. It dawned on us that when we had the gyro working in Intrusive Interloper 2.0, it was with Victor speed controllers, rather than the BotBitz ones, so we decided to swap them out and put Victors back in the 'bot.

Back to the fairyweight, and the two drive speed controllers have had their PWM cables shortened and tested - everything is works still!

And things fit much better inside the chassis as a result. We still need to figure out what to do with the electrical wiring though ...

As a result of chopping down those PWM cables we've also chopped three grams out of the 'bot. No weight worries for us with this 'bot.

This shot was taken while we were trying to figure out how we're going to manage the electrical wiring. One thought was to have a removeable link, to allow us to keep the connector on the battery for charging, but there's simply not enough room inside the chassis for it. The soliution is still eluding us at this point ...

Last shot of the night, and we've drilled and tapped the Lite Flite wheel hubs with a #4-40 bolt to act as a retainer on the Pololu motor's D-shaped shaft. We'll add a dab of Shoe Goo too, once the wheels have been assembled.

We're having a bit of a cold spell here in Austin, Texas, and the temperature hasn't been getting much above 40°F the past couple of days. Looks like today is going to be a bit chilly too, but none-the-less, it's time to head out to the Build Space and see if we can't make some progress on the fleet. Hit Back after viewing an image.

Here's the current fleet status: lots of boxed parts. The beetleweight Belligerent Battler 1.0 is about the only working 'bot at this point - all the others are in some stage of [re-]construction.

We're starting today with some work on Lauren's antweight Malicious Mule, which is getting a rebuild based around Pololu 30:1 HP motors. Here we're using a (recently) trashed motor to ensure the motor mounts fit the fresh motors, with the aid of the arbor press.

And the first wheel/axle/motor/mount is successfully installed. This ought to be a fairly robust drive train when it's done, based on how solid the 'bot seems already.

Three more installs later, and all four motors are in place. Truthfully we trashed another Pololu motor installing all these, but luckily had some spares lying around.

Next is a test fit of the top plate. With three walls installed, every single bolt has gone in just fine, which is pretty impressive by Team Radicus standards.

Et voila! The chassis is assembled, and everything seems to fit quite well. One bolt missed the mark, but there are enough others to keep this 'bot buttoned up just fine.

After breaking out the soldering iron, we had some electronics installed, including the receiver, mixer, and two FingerTech speed controllers. At this point we took it for a test drive on two LiPo cells, and it was pretty zippy! It'll be interesting to see it on four - definitely going to need to get the gyro installed.

At this point we spent about two hours trying to integrate the HobbyKing gyro but to no avail - no matter how we aligned the gyro, or twiddled with the radio, the antweight would just go nuts. Getting frustrated, we put the 'bot to one side, intending to revisit it tomorrow with a fresh cup of coffee.

With that, we turned our attention to Lauren's other 'bot, Steel Stiletto which had blown up the other night, ripping up the electronics inside the 'bot, which had become displaced to outside the 'bot. You can see here one of the ESC signal cables wrapped around one of the axles. We dug it out, intending to try and repair the ESC.

Here's where we wrapped up for the night, soldering some fresh PWM cable into place to patch up the torn up part. It was getting late enough that we didn't try to run the 'bot following the repair - we'll save that fun for tomorrow!

We recently picked up a couple of replacement speed controllers for the hobbyweight Steel Stiletto, and decided this evening to get them installed, so we could try running the 'bot with a gyro in it, to see if it would be more controllable. Hit Back after viewing an image.

The first step is to put some connectors on the ESCs, and in this 'bot we're using ring terminals, so we crimp a set on, which takes no time at all.

Having not run the 'bot in a while, we pause and hook up the batteries to chargers to let them get topped up. The batteries are well wedged into the 'bot, and we don't want to mess with taking the front and back panels off, so we elect to charge the batteries in place. We can't do a balance charge, but the odd standard charge shouldn't hurt them.

While the batteries are charging, we turn our attention to Poor Punctuation 2.0 and drill and tap a pair of new motor mounts, for #4-40 bolts this time, instead of #6-32.

Rather than try and extricate the 30:1 Pololu motors from the current mounts, we dig out a pair of 50:1 HP motors, forgoing a bit of speed, and press the motors into the new mounts.

After pressing on a pair of fresh 1" foam wheels, we install the mounted motors onto the chassis of the antweight. We also spent a little while contemplating the internal layout of the 'bot, trying to minimize the amount of witing we'll need to do, to see how much weight we can save, remembering that we were an ounce over last time.

The underside of the 'bot - that's a lot of screws! We're debating whether we can take half of them out to save some weight.

Meanwhile, the batteries in the twelve pounder have charged up, so we set about installing the new speed controllers.

Eventually everything has been re-installed, so we fiddled a bit to make sure the ESCs were plugged into the right channels on the mixer, and also installed the gyro for it's test run ...

... Which did not go well. The 'bot went into a death spin, ejecting the receiver, gyro, and a speed controller, which sparked as it came out.

Here's where the sparking happened: the PWM control cable on the ESC was sheared, so next time we get to building, we need to replace or repair the cable, and keep our fingers crossed that the gadget is still functional. So much for the gyro test ...

It's been a while since we stepped out into the garage Build Space, but it's coming up on the end of November, which means Motorama 2013 is not that far away and we have 'bots to build! The game plan is to try to finish as many of the fleet upgrades as possible before the end of the year, so we can focus as much of January and February as possible on our beetleweight walker Hexapedal Hitman 0.9. Guess we'd better get a bit of a move on! We've placed orders for parts and materials, so while we wait for those to show up, we decided to see what we had available to work on. Hit Back after viewing an image.

The last time we were out here, we left scratching our heads as to why Steel Stiletto wouldn't power up. After checking all the other parts, we decided to check the power switch. As you can see here, we must have gotten over-enthusiastic turning the 'bot off at some point, and bent the copper bar inside the switch, such that it wouldn't connect - oops! We flattened it back out, and reassembled the switch.

Unfortunately, during the process of wiring the 'bot back up, we somehow managed to short one of the speed controllers by touching a ground connection to the metal heatsink on top of the unit. Drat! This means having to swap it out, and swap a fresh one back in. The only spare we had was one of the ones we hacked ourselves.

Which did not go well. Oh well ... we have a couple of pre-hacked ones on order, and will swap them in once they arrive, and maybe finally we'll get to try out a gyro in this 'bot. Moving on ...

We dusted off the chassis of one of the beetleweights we started a while back, and played a little with mounting some internal components, before realizing that we already have two working beetles, plus we're going to be building the walker, so there's no room at the moment for this 'bot in the fleet, and therefor no need to spend much time on it. Moving on ...

Next up, the Sportsman class Palindrome30. We took the parts with us to Motorama 2012, which was pretty foolish, because there was no way it was going to be completed in the pits. But at the moment we have time, and most of the parts already in hand, so we put some effort into it.

We're using 6061 aluminium round for the weapon shaft, but it's oversized and we can't get a sprocket on it, so we opt for the Poor Man's Lathe, and chuck the round into the drill press, and hit it with some sandpaper. It took a while, but eventually we had the round down sufficiently to be able to work the socket on.

Ta-daa! One end of the 'bot - not quite complete, as the weapon blade hubs have not been pinned to the axle, and we need to drill a couple of holes for the weapon chain, but pretty close!

Here's the end bolted into the chassis, and looking about how we had it in our mind's eye. We're working without CAD for this 'bot, which is unusual, but also somewhat liberating, and it's a fun 'bot to work on.

After repeating the lathe process with the other weapon axle, we were able to bolt together the rest of the chassis, and here it is!

The next step will be to install the drive train, and then move on to the weapon motors, and finally the electronics. Here we're testing drive shaft lengths, and our home-made bearings. Things seem to fit quite nicely, but we've hit a stopping point for today for two reasons - we don't have any wheel hubs for the 6" Colson wheels we're using, and we're headed to the movies to see Skyfall!

Just for fun, this is what the fleet looks like in the Build Space - ants and beetles on the top shelf; beetle, hobby, and sportsman next shelf down; feather and hobby on the next shelf down, and finally misc parts on the bottom.

One of the things we really wanted in both Intrusive Interloper 2.0 and Steel Stiletto for the Franklin Cup competition was a working gyro to help with the driveablility of both 'bots, but after playing with them during the build process, we just couldn't get them working, so we left them out. This morning we spent a fair bit of time Googling "how to use a gyro in a RC car" and found quite a bit of information on how to mount and use a gyro, so we decided to test our cheapie gyros again. Hit Back after viewing an image.

Here you can clearly see the gyro, temporarily mounted to the baseplate with some electrical tape. The key thing we had done wrong in our earlier attempts was to install the gyro in the wrong orientation! Typically there is a line on the gyro showing you which way should be forward, but this one doesn't have one, and we had been assuming the gyro should be lined up with the cables running front-to-back, but in fact it should have been side-to-side. With the gyro in and powered up, and the 'bot up off its wheels, when we wiggle the 'bot the motors did indeed fire up, and attempt to resist the movement - score!

We wanted to try the 'bot actually running around, but because the wheels had worn down so badly at the Franklin Cup, we didn't have enough clearance from the mashed up corners where Tetanus had chewed on us in the featherweight finals. To fix this we decided to rotate the rear wall so the gouged corners were on top, and spent some time disassembling the 'bot. The fact that both lower bolts were also mashed up meant we had to take the entire chassis apart to be able to snap off the side walls and bolts, then extract the remainder of the bolt.

In order to get the 'bot to stop wiggling, we had to change the end points on the third channel (gyro gain) from 100%-100% to 15%-7%, as suggested by some of the posts we had read on R/C forums, and eventually the 'bot ran well in normal mode. When we flicked the switch to heading hold mode, however, the 'bot would keep going nuts, so we decided that normal mode would suit us just fine, and in the test driving we did, it actually ran remarkably straight, especially condsidering the mis-matched wheel sizes from where some had worn down more than others. We're happy! :-)

Having gotten the 30lb'er working, we wanted to see if we could get the 12lb pushy-bot working too, but again we had work to do. This is the state the 'bot was in after Franklin - you can see the snapped inner rail, and one side of the drive train wouldn't turn.

Here's the offending motor. Nothing looked obviously wrong, so we were a bit nervous that maybe we'd broken a gear in the gearbox, which would be quite a problem, as we don't know where the gears originally came from, so we wouldn't be able to replace them.

Thankfully we found it was the $5 motor that was damaged. The brushes had popped out and jammed the motor up, presumably following the hit from Fiasco that snapped the inner rail. Fortunately we have quite a large stock of these motors, and it took no time to pop the pinion gear off, press it onto a new motor, and solder leads on.

As the current version of Steel Stiletto's chassis is broken, and we had no spares, we pulled out the old chassis, and began reinstalling components into it. The only internal difference between now and the last time we used this chassis is the swap on the drive speed controllers from Victor 883s to 25A BotBitz-hacked brushless controllers, and they fitted nicely.

After repairing the broken drive chain, we hooked up all the internals, installed a gyro with some double-sided foam tape, and prepared for a test drive, having pre-configured the model settings in the radio with the same settings that worked for us with Intrusive Interloper 2.0.

Aaaaand ... nothing. We had charged the batteries already, but there was no power light on the receiver. After dinking around a bit, and re-watching videos from our Franklin Cup event report, we came to the conclusion that one of the speed controllers must have blown (remember the jammed motor above), but we didn't know what was up with the other one. Guess we're going to be doing an autopsy later this week ...

We need to stuff a bunch of things into cases and head to the airport, but before we do that, here's a quick shot of the fleet for Franklin. Hit Back after viewing an image.

Here's the fleet as it stands right now (clockwise-ish from the top: Formidable Fustigator 2.0 - 30lb Featherweight, Malicious Mule - 1lb Antweight, Steel Stiletto - 12lb Hobbyweight, Nihilistic Naysayer 2.5 - 12lb Hobbyweight, and Belligerent Battler 1.0 - 3lb Beetleweight in the middle.

We got a late start today, having to spend the morning and first part of the afternoon sorting out a client, but we quickly got into the swing of it, desperately wanting to get at least one "Presenting" post out today, as we're short four working 'bots with exactly one week to go. Hit Back after viewing an image.

After running the 'bot with the second new 9.9V A123 battery pack we're happy with the current state of the rebuilt Steel Stiletto, so we're going to call this 'bot done! Presenting the rebuilt Steel Stiletto!

Moving on, we're done with the re-wire of our 30-pounder Intrusive Interloper 2.0, having wired in four Victor 883s but we're short a couple of Y-cables for the drive ESCs, so we can't test-drive this configuration just yet - we've made a note to hit our local hobby shop tomorrow so we can scratch this 'bot off the list.

It's not stretching the truth to say we had some "issues" tapping the 1/4" 6061 aluminium rails for Malicious Mule, so here's a fresh set from Team Whyachi which have been drilled and tapped without incident, ready for a fresh coat of paint and installation.

Here we've begun assembly for Malicious Mule, with the 10:1 HP Pololu drive motors mounted to the inner rails, and the base plate attached so we can start looking at the internal components.

Here's a test layout for the battery pack, receiver, and gyro, for the 'bot Malicious Mule. Two things strike us imediately after taking this photo:
1) There's not as much space inside this 'bot as our CAD suggested; and
2)We've had zero luck thus far in the build season for gyros, so we're not expecting this to go well.

It's very rare that we feel good about soldering something, but we think we did a pretty good job putting leads on the 10:1 HP Pololu motors, and so the next task is to connect the ESCs.

To reiterate: our soldering skils are not that good. It took over an hour to go from the previous photo of leads on motors to this pic of motors connected to speed controllers, but eventually we got there.

The final challenge of the night we wanted to take on, was getting the receiver to bind with the radio. We plugged things in, unpluged them, plugged half of them in, and eventually got the receiver to bind. Next was calibratintg the ESCs, which also took a while, including swaping the V-tail mixer. But finally we had it done. Tomorrow all we have to do is sort out the drive axles, and we have another "Presenting"' post on our hands, assuming we don't try to use the gyro ...

This time next week we'll be in Philadelphia, but as things stand right now we'll be there mainly as spectators to the Franklin Cup. We have two 'bots that are running, but with issues, and the other four are still piles of parts. We don't usually build on Friday nights, preferring to relax from the week, but we don't have that luxury tonight. We're going to do what we can to get Steel Stiletto underweight, and exorcise the gremlins from Intrusive Interloper 2.0. Hit Back after viewing an image.

Earlier today we took a lunch trip over to see Chris, and throw some parts on the lathe. Chris mentioned he hasn't used it since the last time we were here, which was before Motorama 2012, so it was in exactly the same state as when we left.

We wanted to core the drive axles for Steel Stiletto to save some weight after realizing that the original axles were aluminium, and we had replaced them with steel. We calaculated that a quarter-inch bore would save about an ounce, which helps.

Meanwhile, back at the Hall of Justice ...
First on the To Do list is figuring out why the featherweight drives so poorly. We disassembled the drive train, and found a DeWalt that had siezed up. Not sure if it's the motor or the gearbox, but we swapped it out, and everything seemed to spin nicely.

We hunted around a bit, and found four Victor 883 ESCs that seemed to be in good shape, so if the 'bot is still acting wierd with the replacement motor, we're going to see if we can swap in these in place of the hacked ESCs.

With the 'bot mostly reassembled we took it for another test run, and although all the motors now drive nicely, power to them does cut out from time to time, and the gyro is not working at all.

As things currently stand, we're at 29.2lb, so we do have a little leeway to be able to fiddle with the internals.

Taking a short break from the 30lb-er, here's a test assembly of the beetleweight chassis, with the drive train installed. It doesn't look perfectly square, but no matter, the wheels turn, and that's really what counts.

We trimmed the drive axles on Steel Stiletto in addition to coring them, and our efforts have paid off. The scale reads 11.8lb! Success ... now we have to re-wire a little bit to fit the new 3S A123 pack.

We switched the #6-32 nuts and bolts for the ring terminals to #4-40, and shortened the wires as much as we possibly could. After neatening up the wiring, everything fits nicely, so we took the 'bot for a quick test run.

We had an audience - normally critters are not permitted in the Build Space, but this guy was cute, and kept following us around the worktable, so he got to stay and watch.

Well ... that didn't go so well - one side of the drive train bound on a screw that had come out from one of the broken motor supports, which caused the battery pack to overheat. Hopefully the pack is okay - we'll try putting it on the charger and see if it's still juice-able.

After a decent test run for Steel Stiletto (barring the screw-chain-battery issue) we turned our attention to the thirty-pounder. After a couple more test runs, we decided to eliminate the gyro - we tried two of them, and they both caused the 'bot to act squirrelly, so we've decided to ditch them. We've also decided that the ESCs we hacked are not up to snuff - they keep shutting down - so we're going to switch in some trusty Victor 883s and see if that makes the 'bot more reliable.

With the four Victors in place of the two TZ85As the scale reads 29.4lb, so we can keep the four packs in the 'bot, and hopefully get it running smoothly tomorrow. It's getting late, and although we've put in a good few hours of work, it's time to wrap up for the night, in anticipation of a big build weekend - our last before Franklin - to determine just how many of the 'bots will be up and running for the event.

After spending a good chunk of time last weekend on the rebuild of Steel Stiletto, including burning up some battery packs, we'd ordered some replacements and today they arrived, so we headed out to the build space with the intention of finishing this 'bot. To paraphrase, the best laid plans of mice and 'bot-builders oft go astray ... Hit Back after viewing an image.

Here are today's new parts, from top-left, clockwise: A couple of female JST pigtails for Belligerent Battler 0.9 and Persistent Pugilist 0.9; 2 A123 3S packs from EP Buddy for Steel Stiletto; a few 2S LiFePO4 2S packs from Hobby King USA, also for Steel Stiletto, a couple of - unfortunately - 3S LiPo packs we can't use in Steel Stiletto for Franklin; replacement 6061 rails for Malicious Mule from Team Whyachi to replace the ones we broke taps in; and a spare 1.25" wheel for Malicious Mule in case the fourth one from Robot Marketplace doesn't show up in time.

As we began wiring Steel Stiletto for the new battery packs, we decided on a whim to check weight. Uh-oh! Currently we're almost a quarter of a pound overweight! Basically this is because the LiFePO4 packs shown here weigh considerably more than the ones we burned up in our last test drive. We need to start thinking about weight reduction measures we can take.

After eliminating the gyro, switching ring terminal connections to #4-40 hardware, and trimming leads we were still showing as overweight, so we had to stop and think where this weight is, and where it can be eliminated. The 'bot is pretty spare, so this will take a fair bit of imagination to work out.

The first thought is to replace the steel driven axles with 6061 aluminium round, so we fitted a fresh hacksaw blade into the saw and went at it, cutting two replacement pieces for the the 'bot's steel axles. We figured this would eliminate half an ounce.

Except the problem here being that there's no easy way to remove the tires from the hubs, as the pins are nigh ungrippable without cutting into the tire, which we don't want to do. On the plus side: they're completely solid; on the negative side: they're completely solid!

So we start doing math. Late at night. With a couple of beers. Stay in school kids! :-)
Here we've calculated that if we switch the 3/8" 6061 front and rear walls with 1/2" polycarbonate we'll save almost half a pound, but we want to check other options too, as we'd prefer aluminium to polycarb in this particular application.

After cleaning up the wiring some more we're about half an ounce over, not counting the gyro - if we use it - and whatever else we need for hooking up the electronics. This is the first time in quite a while that weight has been an issue. We figure that if we can core 1/4" out of the axles, trim the axles, and shorten the bushings, we can probably save about a half a pound, so we don't have to hack up the tires to switch in aluminium shafts, although that's definitely on the cards for Motorama 2013!

So finally we have a new To Do list for Steel Stiletto with our weight-saving measures. If we did all these things we could run 4S LiFePo4 batteries and not worry about weight, but there's also the thought that in a 16' arena 3S (9.9V) might be enough. We'll make the first few changes then take a test-drive and see how things are shaping up, before deciding on the more drastic - and time-consuming - changes.

We've resolved today to finish a 'bot. We have today, one more weekend, and up to seven evenings between now and NERC's Franklin Cup, and at the moment we only have one finished 'bot, so we need to hustle! Today's focus will be on the hobbyweight Steel Stiletto. Hit Back after viewing an image.

First from the To Do list: cutting, drilling, and counter-sinking the top and bottom plates, from eighth-inch polycarbonate. We had originally planned on using 6061 aluminium, but don't have any to hand, so hey! Weight savings.

After Motorama back in February Steel Stiletto was limping a bit. We don't know whether this was due to a blown motor or speed controller, but as we've switched the Victors to hacked brushless TZ85A controllers, and we have literally a dozen spare motors, we decided to swap in fresh motors too. We've done this a few times, and we're fairly proficient with the gear puller at this point.

Next step is to solder on new leads to the motors - again, we've done this a few times, so we've gotten the hang of it. Still not pretty, but functional.

At last we can begin assembling the 'bot! First to go in are the motors and their supports. We've also installed the power switch. We left the motor leads long, as we want to cut them to the exact length once we get the speed controllers in place.

After the motors are installed, we put the rear wall on, with the aid of a rubber mallet, and installed the baseplate (currently unpainted) so we could throw some internals in there. We're quietly pleased at being able to put all ten screws in the baseplate!

The first speed controller is installed. We're using ring terminals for the connections, to make it easy to swap spares, should we buy any. The ESC fits just perfectly between the rear wall and the motor.

And the second speed controller is installed also. As we moved on to the drive train, this is where we hit today's snag - can you spot it from the photo?

The geometry of the 'bot is different from the previous versions, and so now the drive train doesn't fit, as it's designed for a wider 'bot - oops! We're going to have to brainstorm this, and see how we can adapt the components to make them fit the new, narrower 'bot.

So the plan is to switch the existing 3.5" diameter wheels for 3" wheels, as the larger ones are too big for the distance between the axle and the front/rear wall. We also need narrower wheels. We had a set of fresh 3" x 1.5" Colsons, but what would be the most efficient way of trimming them down to 1" wide? Answer: buy a new tool! :-) We picked up this little bandsaw from Home Despot, and it actually made short work of the Colsons right out of the box! Hurrah!

This is where we hit the next issue, which is that the bore on these Colsons is considerably larger than that on the previous ones, so the current hubs are not usable. This one had us stumped for a little while, until we remembered making Colson hubs quite some time ago for the Sportsman we almost took to Motorama 2012. We were pleased that the bandsaw was able to cut them down to size without too much hassle too.

So now we had a plan and some parts! This is actually the first time ever that we've needed to disassemble the wheels/hubs/axles from what, a long time ago, was Team Cosmos's Neutrino. Ted was pretty ingenious in how he made these - the sprockets had been lathed down and pinned to the shaft, becoming part of the hubs, with some aluminium round on the drive axles, whereas the driven axles were turned from a whole piece of aluminium round, and the sprocket was pinned to it. Well, let's see how badly we can butcher these :-)

A lot of drilling and pinning later, and we have modified axles that will fit our new wheels! The sprocket has been pinned an eighth of an inch closer to the end, and the aluminium hub has been pinned for the other side of the wheel.

The tires were then pinned to the aluminium rounds, and hey presto! Drive axles! For the driven axles, we cut two lengths of half-inch keyed round, pinned the sprocket and hub to it, and then again pinned the tire to the aluminium hub, and finally we had a drive train that fit the 'bot!

Phew! With a usable drive train once again, we went back to wiring the 'bot up, connecting speed controllers, power switch, and battery packs. This was relatively painless, and spirits were rising!

We needed to trim down the custom "Nut Strip" we were using to attach the titanium side rails, and the bandsaw protested too much - remember it hasn't been tuned - so we went old-school, managing to break one hacksaw blade while cutting these parts down, but we made it eventually, and after a quick run on the belt sander we were ready for the last phase of assembly.

Ta-daa! With the inclusion of a receiver (no gyro yet) we were about ready to take the 'bot for a test drive!

Well. That was exciting! And it's an excellent demonstration both of why wire comes in different thicknesses, and why the Franklin Institute wants LiFePO4 batteries in larger 'bots! The piddly wires on these packs could not carry the current the mini-EVs were drawing, which meant they heated up, burned off the plastic covering, and shorted. If these had been regular Lithium Polymer batteries, they would have gone up in flames, wrecking the 'bot most likely. These packs didn't burn up, which is very neat. In hindsight, we shouldn't have even contemplated using these packs, but hey: they said they could put out 40 amps, and we're betting with thicker wires they'd be able to just fine.

We borrowed a couple of 2S packs from Nihilistic Naysayer 2.0 and swapped them in for another test run. We threw a ~15lb box of old parts on the ground, to see whether Steel Stiletto could push it around.

Not bad at all - plenty of power in those mini-EV motors, and the points on the titanium end rails sank straight into the box. That'll work. Now all we need to do is rethink the battery, and we'll be done with another 'bot.

So close to a "Presenting ..." post, but we can't in good faith say the 'bot is done, because we've got to go back to the drawing board for juice for it. There's not a lot of space inside the 'bot to cram 6S of LiFePO4 cells, so we're going to have to shop around for something that will fit.

Having run out of options for Steel Stiletto for tonight, but feeling good at having seen the rebuilt 'bot run, we decided to likewise take our recently completed featherweight Intrusive Interloper 2.0 for a test run too.

Crazy! The 'bot was uncontrollable, and figuring out what was going wrong was definitely a "three-pipe problem" but finally it dawned on us - the gyro inside the 'bot was plugged in to the throttle channel, not the steering channel - duh! With that realization, we decided it was time to call it a night. All in all, not a bad day's work!

Hot on the heels of yesterday's efforts, we spent another long day in the Build Space, shooting to get as much fabrication done as possible for our six-'bot fleet for NERC's Franklin Cup. We made good progress yesterday, and was hoping to keep the momentum going today. Hit Back after viewing an image.

Lauren's getting in on the action, putting a revised colour scheme on her 'bots.
Steel Stiletto and Malicious Mule will be returning with more power, more driveability, and more armour. They did a good job breaking oponents weapons at NERC 2012 but you ain't seen nothin' yet! Note the hot pink colour scheme after comments by onlookers that pure pink looked like Mary Kay (barf).

First up for Toni this morning, some drilling and tapping. It doesn't take much time to have the front and rear walls reasy for a test fit for the antweight Persistent Pugilist 0.9.

And the another run, albeit with a slightly larger tap, to be able to put the chassis for beetleweight Belligerent Battler 0.9 together for a test fit. Both 'bots have some slotting needing doing on Milly, but one thing at a time.

Speaking of Milly, we ran and endmill down the UHMW tube that will be the antweight's drum, and were able to put two pieces of 1/4" keystock in the channels without a lot of effort, so that works.

On the other hand, after drilling and tapping the keystock for the #6-32 botls that will pass through the drum and attach the two teeth to each other, this was a pain in the behind! Despite the effort, it came together well, and we're pretty pleased with how the drum is shaping up!

We next turned our attention to our thirty-pounder and, having finished the wiring harness, decided to power it up, and figure out the R/C wiring. After a minute or so of running, the drive motors were faltering, and things did not sound right. The photo didn't capture it, but this drive motor was smoking slightly, and you'll see in the photo that the two LiFePO4 battery packs are in series - they weren't when we first started working, so there's a pretty good chance that in addition to replacing the back two motors - neither of which were working - we're going to have to ditch these battery packs too - darn!

After some time and effort the two rear motors were switched out, and we fired up the 'bot again. This time three of the four motors sounded fine, with the fourth not spinning at low speeds. As all four were showing some signs of life, we decided to figure out what was connected where. We're not doing transmitter-side mixing, as we have a gyro in the 'bot, and it took a little time to determine which receiver port was steering, which was throttle, and which channels to reverse on the transmitter, but eventually we had everything plugged in properly.

We also decided to play a bit with the gyro. Here it is plugged in, and of course it pretty much went nuts, as we would send the 'bot a turn command, and it wouldn't turn as it had no wheels, so the gyro sent the motors into overdrive. On the plus side, we know which way to flip the third channel switch on the transmitter to disable it :-)

Time for a weight check, and something's not quite right here. We've switched from 1/4"-20 bolts for the front wedge to #10-24, yet the scale is suddenly showing a full 30lb! Eek! We decide to ignore it for now, and soldier on, hoping it was an abberation.

Here we've trimmed the drive axles to length with the Dremel-ish, and cleaned the ends up with the belt sander, so we're pleased to see them fit right in to the bearing we had so much trouble with in the past.

Here we're figuring out where the wheels need to be pinned to the shafts. We've put 1/2" bushings between the wheels and the inner rails, and that seems to leave them in the right spot, so we can go from here to actually pinning them.

We've kept it simple, and put a 1.5" long 1/8" roll pin through the shaft into the wheel. Fingers crossed the wheels survive at least a couple of matches, because these pins are going to be bears to get out if we need to replace them, but these wheels don't have a lot of surface area to play with.

Here's a quick shot following the first test run! The 'bot went bezerk, running into a shelving unit in the 'build space, but we suspect that was something gyro-related. Otherwise the 'bot is pretty zippy, and we need to seriously dial down the turning so it's not so extreme.

To wrap up for the night, we decided to check the scale one more time. As you can see, the scale is saying 31lb 5.4oz, which doesn't make any sense, as we've cut parts, not added them, and it was underweight the last time we played with the 'bot.

Frankly, we're suspecting the scale, so we break out the 150lb-capacity Pelouze, and sanity is restored: 28.4lb. It doesn't have the resolution the 40lb scale has, but we trust it. When all is said and done, we can always to hit the mailroom scale at work, and see which one is right.

Wrapping up for the night, we reflect it's been a very productive weekend. Hopefully we'll have our first "Presenting ..."" post for a Franklin-bound 'bot, and we're planning on making at least as much progress again during the week, leading up to another major build weekend next weekend!

Argh! Three weekends left before NERC's Franklin Cup and we have zero finished 'bots! Seeing as though we had a large delivery from Wisconsin and also Australia yesterday, today was shaping up to be a big build day. Hit Back after viewing an image.

We spent some time cutting polycarbonate and 6061 aluminium on the table saw right out of the gate today. Unfortunately we had some aluminium that was too small to be safely cut on the table saw so we had to go old-school and break out the hacksaw. Here we've cut some walls for the stand-in drummer antweight from 1/2" x 1/8" aluminium.

Here's another set of parts we hacksawed from 1/2" x 1/2" 6061 aluminium stock - custom 'Nut Strip' for Lauren's revised version of her hobbyweight Steel Stiletto. After cutting them and drilling them we decided to test the fit using some 13/64" drill bits.

Also for Steel Stiletto we have some 1/4" polycarbonate internal rails which need to be end-drilled and tapped for #6-32 bolts. Fortunately this goes without issue, and things are progressing well.

More end-drilling - this time for Lauren's antweight Malicious Mule with some 1/4" 6061 and polycarbonate too, all being end-drilled for #4-40 bolts.

Here are the inner rails for Malicious Mule after drilling and awaiting tapping. We've had a pretty accurate drilling day in the Build Space, and we're pretty happy about it!

Yet more end-drilling and tapping - this time for Persistent Pugilist 0.9 - our stand-in antweight - as we work on the front and rear walls, that were hand-hacksawed then trimmed to length on Milly.

We also threw some effort into our replacement beetleweight, Belligerent Battler 0.9. Aside from cutting walls we also drilled and pinned 1/16" roll-pins through the timing belt pulleys and shaft in anticipation of hooking this beater up to the weapon motors.

A quick test layout of the beetle, realizing that the UHMW walls need to be slotted for the front and rear walls. Things seem to be fitting okay, so that's a relief!

A final shot for the day of the new chassis for Steel Stiletto - 1/4" titanium side rails and 3/8" 6061 for the front and back. The custom 'Nut Strip' pieces fit well, and the chassis is solid!

Hopefully tomorrow's build report will give a better sense of the amount of grunt work that was done today - we kicked butt as far as fabrication went - so it's time for a rest, in anticipation of maximising our time tomorrow!

Yesterday was a fun day! We had nine matches, and still have two 'bots in the running as of this morning, although one of them needs a fair bit of work done, so we're up early for breakfast and coffee, and headed to the Farm Show Complex at 8am, to try and beat the mess we encountered yesterday morning. Fortunately we found a decent parking spot this time, and headed in to fix up the beetleweight and check on the hobbyweight. Hit Back after viewing an image.

First order of business - other than coffee - is swapping out the drive and weapon motor speed controllers in Didactic Duelist 1.5 as the original ones all seemed to have burned up in our match against Shame Spiral yesterday. We pulled the BB3-9 controllers from the defunct Unlettered Understrapper 2.5 and those went in without a hitch, but we didn't have an exact replacement for the brushless controller, although we did have a reversible 60A controller spare. Back when we were building this 'bot we tried using a 35A car speed controller without much success, so we were leary of this one, but after hooking everything up, it seemed to work fine, so okay.

By 9am we'd completed the repairs to the beetle, and most competitors had returned to the arena area. The noise levels grew as the morning went on, until finally the competition was on again! We were the second and fourth fight of the morning, so we were glad to have gotten here early and already had everything charged up. It didn't take long before it was time for our first fight - Nihilistic Naysayer 2.0 versus Placebo:

Whew! The blade Ravi has on Placebo certainly chewed our hobbyweight up nicely! Again, the drum shaft came loose, and one side of the drive appeared to have given out again, so we tapped out. You can also see in the photo that the back wall came loose too, but that's our fault for using bolts that are too short. Lessons learned for the next version ...

We didn't have too much time to mourn, because we're up again - this time for Didactic Duelist 1.5 versus Chobham 2.0:

One side of the drive on our beetle seemed to be out at the start of the match, but despite that we were able to put up a pretty good fight, and it was a fun match! Ultimately the Judges gave the decision to Chobham 2.0, and so there we have it - our competition is done! We still had the rest of the day, though, so decided to see what we could do to repair Steel Stiletto and Nihilistic Naysayer 2.0 and maybe get them to face off later in the day.

These are the trophies for the event - alas, we weren't going to be taking any of them home this year, but there's always next time :-)

Here's what's left of the fleet now our matches are done. The circular Poor Punctuation 2.0, the tracked Unlettered Understrapper 2.5 and the large Formidable Fustigator 2.0 are all in pretty poor shape, but the rest are actually in decent shape, and with some tweaks could fight again.

Speaking of fighting again, we spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon swapping motors and controllers in Steel Stiletto, and bolting Nihilistic Naysayer 2.0 back together, and decided to have a grudge match, to help the event organizers fill in some of the dead time that tends to crop up towards the end of the event while the remaining competitors are using their guaranteed 20 minutes between matches to repair and recharge.

The drumbot got one good hit in on Steel Stiletto, but once again the drum finally came undone, and I also managed to wedge myself into the seam at the side of the arena, so this match went to Lauren's Steel Stiletto - next time ... ;-)

As the event was winding down, we cleaned up the pit space, and packed up the 'bots. Once the matches came to an end, it was time for trophies and prizes.

First Place Fairyweight The Tracked Terror Team Sandman	Second Place Fairyweight Baby V Team Mateo	Third Place Fairyweight lolcat Team Slammers
First Place Antweight Vile Ant Pretzel Robotics	Second Place Antweight Kobalos Near Chaos Robotics	Third Place Antweight see you next wednesday NovaRobots
First Place Beetleweight Revenge of Dr. Super Brain Cloak & Dagger Robotics	Second Place Beetleweight Shame Spiral MH Robotics	Third Place Beetleweight Weta: God of Ugly Things Team Rolling Thunder
First Place Hobbyweight Apollyon Near Chaos Robotics	Second Place Hobbyweight Zandor Team Mad Scientist	Third Place Hobbyweight Tough Nut Team Slammers
First Place 15lb High School Pixie Bloomsburg High School	Second Place 15lb High School KV West Mifflin High School	Third Place 15lb High School Rhynex Team Malicious Intent
First Place Featherweight Tetanus Team Brain Damage	Second Place Featherweight Lenin's Tomb Team EMF	Third Place Featherweight Gloomy Team Terror
First Place Sportsman Upheaval Team Mad Scientist	Second Place Sportsman Lock-Jaw jZ Robotics	Third Place Sportsman Phoenix Team Cookin' With Gas
Coolest Robot Enforcer Team Half Fast Astronaut	Best Driver Mike Jeffries Near Chaos Robotics	Most Destructive Tetanus Team Brain Damage

With the awards done, it's time for some forced labour! Well, not really forced, a bunch of the competitors hung around to help take down the big arena, and after a couple of hours it had been stowed in the Bensons' trailer, ready for the trip back to Massachusetts, and all that was left to do was throw our stuff in the 'BotMobile and find out where we're all heading for the End Of Event Dinner.

Which was, of course, Texas Roadhouse! The dinner is always great fun, with the competitors and event organizers able to relax after the long weekend and chat with each other - about robots, typically :-) After a good steak and better conversation it was time to bid adieu to our friends, and head back to the hotel. Another great event is done with, and we need to rest up for the drive back.

What we accomplished:
• Lauren competed in her first event!
• Ran our biggest fleet yet, with eight working 'bots.
• Finally got to see the thirty-pounder's weapon fire up.
• Scraped a win for our oldest 'bot, Unlettered Understrapper 2.5.
• Finished the event with a 7-16 record.
• Had a blast!

Thanks Go To:
• Ed, Beth, Gina, Joe, Jim, and Jon for organizing and running a fantastic event!
• Mike and Julie of Near Chaos Robotics for frequent loans of solder and cables, and for filming our matches.
• Kyle Singer for filming almost all our matches and letting us link to them.
• The Judges, for sometimes giving us the decision ;-)
• Lauren, for putting up with Toni and putting on a great first time effort!
• Mike and Chris Allison, for their continued support during the build process.
• All the competitors, who came, saw, fought, and had fun too - thanks all!

Where we go from here:
• Fixing the stability issue on the fairyweight.
• Maybe a full-body spinner beetleweight.
• Making the drum shaft on the hobbyweight able to support the drum!
• Finding a new featherweight design that doesn't get slaughtered in its first match.
• Finishing a 30lb Sportsman for next year!

P.S. We didn't get to see any snow in Harrisburg, but it snowed Sunday night in Virginia, and we did get to see plenty of snow on the drive back, so Mission: Accomplished!

After a restful night, today's the day the Big 'Bots fight (and hopefully win!) so it's time to throw on some clothes, find some coffee, and get the rest of the fleet through safety inspections. Having decided to leave the Sportsman alone, we didn't have any last-minute building to be done, so we decided to head in later than we've done in previous years - that was a mistake! We got to the Farm Complex about 9am, and the main parking lot was already full! We were herded over to a secondary lot and took a bus to the main event complex. Hit Back after viewing an image.

By the time we arrived at the pit table it was pushing 9:30am, and most competitors were already here and going through safety inspections. Lauren took Steel Stiletto over for a safety check, and passed without any issues. I took the two beetles and Nihilistic Naysayer 2.0, and again we had no worries getting through safety.

That left the thirty pounder, and we had actually done some last-minute meatball surgery, as the hole we'd milled in the front wall wasn't exactly lined up with the path of the blade, and with Milly 1500 miles away, back in Texas, we took the easy way out and cut the front wall with the jigsaw. After that, the safety inspection was fine, and we were ready to compete!

It typically takes a while for things to get going, the first morning of the Big 'Bot event, and this year was no exception, but eventually the Drivers Meeting was held, and the crowd began to assemble in the stands, as the brackets were being drawn up.

It seems like we usually miss out on byes at Motorama, but this year Didactic Duelist 1.5 and Nihilistic Naysayer 2.0 both had byes, and yikes! Formidable Fustigator 2.0 is the first match of the event! With all the 'bots charged up, we steeled ourselves for the competition to begin!

Here we go with the first match of the event - and it's not looking like a pleasant match-up! Formidable Fustigator 2.0 versus the full-body spinner of Tetanus:

Thanks to Mike for the video. Ouch. Pretty much a repeat of what happened to us in our second match last year, but hopefully we'll be able to patch this up and run the featherweight on two wheels for it's next match. In theory the two remaining omniwheels ought to let us move around the arena. We checked the brackets, and Didactic Duelist 1.5's bye just went by, so up next we have our oldest 'bot, Unlettered Understrapper 2.5 versus SID (Sadistic Infernal Device):

Thanks to Kyle for uploading this video. Yay! A win! After eight years we finally get the 'bot into an arena with a working weapon and come away with a win - neat! At this point we have a bit of a breather before we need to load up again so the 'bots are back on the battery chargers, and Lauren's on her way back from hunting down some lunch. Nihilistic Naysayer 2.0 has a bye, so up next we have Steel Stiletto versus the old warhorse War Drums:

Thanks again to Kyle for the clip. YAY! Steel Stiletto beat War Drums on a Judges' decision, after a couple of decent slams dislodged the two rear wheels from War Drums, and the front wheels were looking a bit wobbly too! Despite the couple of initial hits from War Drums, we couldn't find any damage back at the pit table, so the 'bot was put on the charger, and we scanned the brackets for our next fight.

There's plenty of activity in the seconday pit area, with 'bots being repaired and charged as the day went on. It's great to see so many familiar faces, and the spirit of cameraderie is evident, with builders helping each other get their 'bots back together - sometimes the driver who just destroyed you is the first one to offer to help!

There was a bit of downtime for us before our next match came up, which was going to be Unlettered Understrapper 2.5 versus Maniac Kathy:

The carcas of Unlettered Understrapper 2.5 after the beating it just took from Maniac Kathy. Suffice it to say, with one win and one loss, we're happy with this old 'bot, but it's time to put it out to pasture. The insides are in good shape, but it can't be fixed up for another match, so we forfeited the next match against Ripto 3.0 and turned our attention to the 'bots that were still running.

Didactic Duelist 1.5 had been slated to fight Traumatizer in the beetleweight brackets, but due to damage Traumatizer received in its first match against Revenge of Dr. Super Brain, it had to forfeit to us. Our next match was going to be in the hobbyweight division, putting our drumbot Nihilistic Naysayer 2.0 up against another veteran 'bot, Alan's Zandor:

Again, thanks to Kyle for the video. A lot of folks on the NERC Forum were skeptical about the UHMW drum, and as it happened, there was a failure, but not of the drum itself - but the bolts holding the dead axle sheared after a weapon-to-weapon hit with Zandor, and ultimately the drum separated from the 'bot. Back at the pit table we quickly extracted the sheared bolts, and replaced them. The front wall had taken a hit from the drum as it separated, and the polycarbonate had shattered on one end of the wall, so the 'bot was a bit rickety, but lives to fight another match!

Up immediately after the drumbot was Steel Stiletto, versus the nasty spinning bar of Fiasco:

Thanks again to Kyle for the video.

Steel Stiletto took a fair bit of abuse from Fiasco before breaking it's weapon, and at least one of the speed controllers went up in smoke, leading to the tap-out. Lauren set about disassembling the 'bot to see if we could get it back up and running for it's next match. After tinkering for a while, we weren't going to be able to make the repairs needed in time for its next match against Placebo, so with a 1-2 record, Steel Stiletto is out of the competition. We will try to finish the repairs though, in case there's an opportunity for a rumble or grudge match tomorrow.

Next into the arena we have our damaged featherweight Formidable Fustigator 2.0 going up against a Canadian saw-bot by the name Gloomy:

Once again, thanks to Kyle for the video. Two things about this match: first, we actually went the distance - the full three minutes; and second the weapon spun up which we were very happy to see! Even though we didn't do a whole lot of damage to Gloomy we were able to knock his saw blade off, and by spinning the 'bot (the DeWalts were in high gear) we got a couple of good thumps in for good measure, but at the end of the day the Judges gave the match to Gloomy, rightly so.

Here's the carcas of Formidable Fustigator 2.0 following its match with Gloomy. Note the very clean cut on the bottom-left of the 'bot: if that cut had been on the right side, there would have been an interesting circumstance - that's where the batteries were! As it is, there's a number of chewed up power and signal cables in there, so the post mortum back at the Build Space will have to weed out the re-usable parts from the destroyed parts.

There was a pretty good crowd in the stands today. Truthfully it thinned out a bit towards the end of the day, but for the better part of the fights today I'd have to guestimate that the stands were 90% full. At this point it's getting on for 5pm, and the fights are spacing out a bit, but it's time again for us to throw a 'bot in the arena; specifically our beetleweight Didactic Duelist 1.5 goes up against the über-speedy Shame Spiral:

More thanks to Kyle for the video. As you can see, Thomas's 'bot completely out-classed Didactic Duelist 1.5 - the weapon died shortly into the match, and after being slammed around the arena, and being left inverted, everything pretty much died after a few more slams, leaving Shame Spiral with a win by Knock Out.

There's your problem! This is the PWM cable for the weapon speed controller in Didactic Duelist 1.5, and as you can see, it's been rubbing against the weapon motor, and that's chewed through the insulation and cable, shorting it, which is why things went quiet in that last match. We also have amber lights on the BB3-9 drive speed controllers, so first thing tomorrow morning we're going to have to switch out both the drive speed controllers and the weapon ESC too!

We hung out for a while to see whether we were going to have any more fights this evening, watching some of the matches, and generally hanging out with some of the great folks running and competing in the event. As 6:30pm rolled by, it became obvious we weren't going to have any more matches this evening, so we tidied up, and called in a reservation to the Texas Roadhouse near the hotel. It was going to be a two-hour wait, so we headed out to the car and ran a couple of errands before dinner.

After dinner it didn't take long for the hectic day to take it's toll, and wrapped up the day with a gin and tonic, and review of some of today's matches.

It's Boxing Day and so time to return to Steel Stiletto. Today we replaced the receiver and bound it to the radio. After firing up the Steel Stiletto for some test runs, we discovered everything operated in the reverse direction. Despite changing the wires from the ESCs to the receiver, it remained in it's obstinate position of moving backwards when then radio sent a forwards direction. This week we'll have to take the Stiletto down to it's platform and reverse the polarity of the motors, so forward is indeed forward! Another build report to follow on that adventure.

Despite the contrary direction, we used a block of wood to test Steel Stilettos's power and ability to give her oponent a right bollicking. Bot's beware; the Stiletto is not only a lethal weapon but a state of mind....

P.S. We are expecting delivery of the chasis parts for the Malicious Mule (formerly Polycarbonate Pump) this week!