If You Give a Bot a Wrench:
Failure, Iteration, and the Combat Robotics Cookie Cycle (Part 1)
The First Taste
I’ll never forget the first time I put a robot I designed into the arena. That moment—the hum of the motors, the adrenaline of the countdown—was the hook. And I am willing to bet that most people reading this would feel the same way.
Watching BattleBots in middle school lit the spark. I had sketches, plans, and even a friend who suggested we take apart his dad’s lawnmower—though, predictably, nothing came of that. Years later, a new season on Discovery turned into weekly family viewing. A rabbit hole of internet digging led me to a Facebook group, then to David Small’s Arizona Robot Combat (ARC), and finally to the realization that insect-weight combat robots were being fought just a few miles from my home. A 3D printer, a Black Friday sale, and a beater bar bundle from FingerTech later—and by mid-December, I had something I could actually drive.
The realization that with a small investment of 3D Printer, I might be able to achieve a childhood dream. October 2022 I started sketching ideas, ordered a printer on Black Friday, found FingerTech Robotics and ordered all of the components of the 3lb Beater Bot Bundle. Mid December I had something that I could drive around.
The First Wrench
I had no idea what I was doing—and honestly, I still don’t. I did not want to start out with a kit bot, not because I dislike kit bots, but because I wanted this to be my robot. My original concept was dual weapons—one front, one back—but weight limitations killed that fast. I pulled inspiration from Minotaur, and I purchased the RioBotz Combat Robot Tutorial. By January, I was deep into weapon design. It would need to be SCS, no way I can machine a part. February I was printing more parts, making changes, printing more. Built a small test box out of Ikea as is fiberboard and some Home Depot polycarbonate. In March the design finally started to settle down. I was at Version 7 of my first robot, and David announced the next ARC event (June 2023). Time to finish ordering all of the components to finish this. I started with Rectified Robotics drive motors. With all of the testing and prototyping, I had pulled out what I now know is a phase wire in each of the drive motors. I now know it is a great idea to relieve the stress on the wires with a little hot glue and zip tie. With my first event rapidly approaching, thankfully the drive motors that I was using came back in stock, Ordered an extra set to be safe.
Everyone will have a different design philosophy or design process, and if you get from Point A to Point B the process works. To register for an event on RCE, you need to have a Team Name. I have never been good with naming things, whether it is a pet name, a D&D character, or a Team Name. I did not want to fall into the trap of my team name being the same as my robot, what if I moved on from that design, what if it was not good. How would that work if I had more than one robot. I had just recently started playing D&D again with friends from grade school. The name Roll For Initiative stood out as a good theme for my builds. As for my first robot, in the design process I fell into the name Action Surge. Originally with a vert in the front being the normal action, the second vert in the back and the extra action. With that gone the name still felt right. The weapon design had a bit of a great axe vibe and deals d12 damage. With a center pulley on one side you have your 2 great axe attacks per action with a d12 spacer in between, and on the other side is the action surge second set of attacks.
Action Surge
Starting at 2nd level, you can push yourself beyond your normal limits for a moment. On your turn, you can take one additional action on top of your regular action and a possible bonus action
I dove into the deep end with this, and I have not even gone to my first event. I also made a huge assumption. Between watching Battlebots on TV and NHRL on Youtube, I thought it was normal to have 1) a team of people working together, 2) matching branded clothing, and 3) swag to hand out. I needed a logo, I needed stickers, I needed shirts… I am so grateful that my sister was able to jump in and help take some of my initial designs and turn them into a logo for shirts and stickers.
The First Fight
Parts are printed, aluminum bars and polycarbonate sheets from Granger were hand cut into forks and lids. AR and AL weapon blades were delivered from SCS and it was time for my first event. Something magical happens when The Mighty Pong and David Small get together. As a new builder, I think most people would agree looking back would agree there is a bias towards bots without an active weapon. Receiving a win by FF my first actual fight was Round 3 vs this odd bot with a large waggle stick named Unknown Avenger, should be a piece of cake. Loading into the arena the driver of Unknown Avenger looked oddly familiar, then I noticed Bunny from Team Malice standing near him. 3… 2… 1… Fight! https://challonge.com/ns5hwj4l
My idea worked. Just like that it was screaming across the arena into the wall next to Unknown Avenger. I hit him, I flipped him. Sparks are flying, we are pushing each other around equally. Wow driving is hard, going straight works sometimes and the gyro from the weapon. You can not easily practice with that at home. Starting to calm down a bit, focus in, slow down. Pinned up against the wall. I got this, I might not be able to do any damage to that tank, but I have control, I have aggression. 1 minute remaining, oh ya the pit. Pinned in the corner, I realized too late—it had been his strategy the whole time. Just playing around with his food, now to clamp down and drop me in the pit for the KO. I do now remember how I got back to my pit table or how long it took, but I do remember standing there holding my robot and shaking as the adrenaline was pumping through my veins.
I would lose to Leach in the second chance bracket and be done for the day taking zero damage. I did have some odd drive problems in my second fight. Looking at the video recorded by my wife I noticed that one side of the drive was not always spinning.The foam tires that made contact with the hub had stripped and was no longer acting as one. Thankfully there was a planned rumble, time to swap out the wheels and charge the battery. Finally I took some damage, took a huge hit from Wumbo and hit the roof and landed hard on a front fork. This bent my 6061 AL fork and also jumped the pulley off of the motor.
If You Give a Bot a Wrench…
I wanted more, but I would not have another opportunity in Arizona till the end of the year. The next close event that I could go to would be SCAR Destruction Under the Stars. For the most part nothing broke, I bent a few aluminum forks and my light weight aluminum weapon blades, I needed to work on the tires. I did get worried about the brushless motors' wires breaking and found Just Cuz’s brushed motors with the real cheap replacement motors. I also wanted more drive time, this next event also had sportsman beatles. If I only replace my metal weapon with a TPU weapon I can get 2x the stick time. It’s Mimic time, when making the initial stickers Action Surge was drawn as a Mimic. Now if I am making a copy of my full combat robot to become a sportsman and I am all about the d20’s Mimic is the perfect name. Just need to figure out how to design and 3D print a tongue.
Iteration is key in this sport, and I felt at a disadvantage. Unlike high school or college teams, I didn’t have a school lab, team mentors, or built-in design time. I had evenings, a printer, and a very patient spouse. The difference between science and goofing off is in science you document your results. In an ideal world you should only change one thing at a time, document the changes and continue. I wish I had followed that advice.
The Grind and the Glory
Mimic had 2 fights and blew out one drive side, I had not thought enough about reparability in my design and did not have the ability to get him back up and running for the 3rd fight. Switching to brushed motors was supposed to simplify things. Instead, it left me guessing—were the motors bad, or was it the ESC acting up? Without experience diagnosing brushed setups, I was flying blind. In full combat I received the opposite opponent types then my first event. Hangry Hedgehogs is so small but has a super heavy weapon that hits hard. Time to replace the badly designed forks and bent aluminum weapons. BRICK is just that, a titanium cube that will not die. I managed to squeak out a win and just needed to replace the wheels. Sean’s XtrikePoint is a killer. I thought I had an answer to the hammer saw, but the real weapon wasn’t the blade—it was Sean’s driving. After that quick loss it was on to fight Wicked Twister where somehow I survived all three minutes. This was a small night event that did not start till 4 pm and ended around 11pm.As I packed up in the dark and loaded the car, it finally hit me: I took 3rd place. The next day while my wife drove home, I was in fusion designing the next version of Action Surge.
