Seeking the Truth
Drive: Banebots 16mm 24:1 gear motors
ESC: Barello Ant 100
Receiver: Microbotparts Micro Receiver MBP-9G4 (our buddy Brady!)
Transmitter: Airtronics VG400
Battery: 8.4V NiMH antpack
Baseplate: 1/32 G-10 Garolite
Wedge: 1/16 G-10 Garolite
Side panels: 3/16 Polycarbonate
Wheels: 2-1/4" Liteflites
Tape: Black Gorilla Tape
Version 1.3 Improvements
Total rebuild after getting destroyed at Motorama 2008. No changes from V1.2
Version 1.2 Improvements
Gorilla tape around the top cover to hold it on. Twice now its flown off when fighting. Problem now is we'll be tight during the weigh in
Version 1.1 Improvements
Removed wood motor mounts and mounted motors directly to the polycarbonate
Added a stiffening bar to the front underneath the wedge
Added stiffening polycarbonate to the rear to tie the whole frame together
Switched to #2-1/2" wood screws throughout to add strength
Added 24:1 gear motors to be used in small arenas to slow down the bot and increase pushing power
Permanently mounted rear top plate with a Gorilla tape window for power plug access
Wound antenna wire in a large circle underneath the wedge to improve reception
Switched to 2-1/4" wheels to allow running inverted
Cool symbol on wedge to intimidate opponents
Logan drove Seeking the Truth and WON the ant weight division! He went undefeated all the way through the championship fight. This is the 2nd competition STT has won. Too bad they don't submit points to Botrank at this one. I only uploaded the interesting videos. Pushing contests didn't merit inclusion even though STT won them all.
Videos:
1 - Seeking the Truth vs Rippy 1 (34.1MB wmv) WIN Click here for streaming video
2 - Seeking the Truth vs Rippy 2 (13.9MB wmv) WIN Click here for streaming video
3 - Seeking the Truth vs DDT 1 (3.2MB wmv) WIN Click here for streaming video
4 - Seeking the Truth vs DDT 2 (13.1MB wmv) WIN Click here for streaming video
5 - Seeking the Truth vs Fear (15.4MB wmv) WIN Click here for streaming video
Logan drove Seeking the Truth for the first time in competition. He did great! In going 4-2 he tied for 5th out of more than 30 other robots. STT was trashed after this competition, so V1.3 will be fighting next
Videos:
1 - Seeking the Truth vs Purple V2 (20.6MB avi) WIN Click here for streaming video
2 - Seeking the Truth vs Closing Time (9.6MB avi) WIN Click here for streaming video
3 - Seeking the Truth vs Dolla Dolla Bot (14.0MB avi) LOSS Click here for streaming video
4 - Seeking the Truth vs Buggy 2 (6.8MB avi) WIN Click here for streaming video
5 - Seeking the Truth vs Beloved Shardy (16.4MB avi) WIN - We'll readily admit this win was controversial. Click here for streaming video
6 - Seeking the Truth vs Jack (20.2MB avi) LOSS Click here for streaming video
Motorama 2008 Antweight Brackets
Seeking the Truth made a pretty good showing. We dominated several weaponed bots and won judges decisions which is really rare for a wedge.
Videos:
1 - Seeking the Truth vs Wired Wedge (7.7MB wmv) LOSS
2 - Seeking the Truth vs Sigma Virus (6.6MB wmv) WIN
3 - Seeking the Truth vs Micro TK (9.1MB wmv) WIN
4 - Seeking the Truth vs No Name Yet (5.6MB wmv) WIN
5 - Seeking the Truth vs Yelo (7.3MB wmv) LOSS
Motorama 2007 Antweight Brackets
Christy had to forfeit her last fight (against Fluffy Bunny) as we only have one radio and both our bots had to fight each other
Videos:
1 - Seeking the Truth vs Crocbot (0.7MB wmv) WIN
2 - Seeking the Truth vs Total Revolution (3.9MB wmv) LOSS
3 - Seeking the Truth vs Squid Squisher (2.5MB wmv) WIN
4 - Seeking the Truth vs Back to Basics (2.9MB wmv) WIN
We placed 4th out of 13 bots with a 4-2 record, 2 of which were forfeits as they were scared to face us! STT was ranked #52 in the country after this fight. Footage is a little bad as this was outside during a tropical storm remnant
Videos:
1 - Seeking the Truth vs Spinny Thing of Doom (4.5MB wmv) WIN
2 - Seeking the Truth vs Yelo (2.6MB wmv) LOSS
3 - Seeking the Truth vs Robo Knight (3.9MB wmv) WIN
4 - Seeking the Truth vs Sweet Revenge (1.0MB wmv) LOSS
WINNER in the ant weight division with a record of 5-1
Videos:
1 - Seeking the Truth vs The Silver Bullet (13.9MB wmv) WIN
2 - Seeking the Truth vs Squid Squisher (3.2MB wmv) WIN
3 - Seeking the Truth vs Hit or Miss (Round 1) (0.5MB wmv) WIN
4 - Seeking the Truth vs Slider (1.3MB wmv) WIN
5 - Seeking the Truth vs Hit or Miss (Round 2) (0.6MB wmv) LOSS
6 - Seeking the Truth vs Hit or Miss (Round 3) (0.9MB wmv) WIN
Videos:
1 - Seeking the Truth vs Get Stuffed (7.9MB wmv) LOSS
2 - Seeking the Truth vs T4 (5.0MB wmv) WIN
3 - Seeking the Truth vs One Fierce Deer Fly (7.3MB wmv) LOSS
4 - Seeking the Truth vs Robo Knight (Exhibition Bout Round 1) (3.9MB wmv)
5 - Seeking the Truth vs Robo Knight (Exhibition Bout Round 2) (7.4MB wmv)
Event Report:
The fun started the night before Motorama when during a practice fight with Logan, Mark noticed one of the wheels was shaking. He picked up Seeking The Truth (STT) to see if he could find the problem and noticed the gearbox was separating from the motor. Our motors are mounted in such a way that we can’t get them out without taking apart the whole bot. We also never separated the gearbox from the motor so we weren’t sure we would be able to get them back together. So, I sent an emergency message to the NERC forum looking for ideas. We got a few good ones and came up with a solution that we hoped would hold up. Unfortunately, the solution made it so our one wheels didn’t fit on as tightly as it previously had. This came back to haunt us in the competition.
Friday morning we arrived at the Farm Show Complex and got set up on our pit table. We were there almost 4 hours before fighting started, plenty of time for me to get really nervous! Fighting started and we drew the first fight. This is the second competition we’ve drawn the first fight. I guess it is good because it gets me started right away instead of sitting around getting more and more worked up.
Our first fight was against Get Stuffed. The bot is a vertical disk that is ranked #13 in the country. Seeking The Truth doesn’t have a weapon so I was really scared to be going up against a weapon in my first fight. The fight started and we were both having signal problems. Signal problems are really frustrating! You can’t get the bot to go where you want it to go, no matter how many times you tell it to. Luckily, he was having the same problems or we would have been destroyed. I hit him a few times and was doing pretty good considering the problems. He hit me hard and sent us flying in the air. The bot landed pretty hard but kept running without missing a beat. One test down for us, we can take an impact and still run. We ran around a bit longer and he got a hit on my wheel (yes, the one that wasn’t on as tight because of the gearbox problem) and the wheel fell off. I tapped out at this point. In retrospect, I should have continued with the fight, there were only 20 seconds left and I had been doing pretty good at being aggressive and not taking damage. I probably still would have lost the decision but it would have been nice to finish the fight.
In the pits, we took the wedge off the bot and rearranged the antennae wire to try to solve our signal problem. A lot of bots were having signal problems in the beginning of the competition. I’m still not sure what was going on. We talked to another team in the pits and decided to try some Loctite on the wheel to prevent it from falling off again.
Our second fight was against T4, ranked #255 in the country. They were having problems and never got the bot running during the fight. I hit them twice and then ran around the box to make sure our signal problem was solved. It was, and we won the fight by TKO.
Since we were in the loser’s bracket we thought we would get the opportunity to fight some of the other non-weaponed bots. Since STT is really fast I thought we would have a good chance at beating some of the other non-weaponed bots. But it was not to be. For our third fight we drew One Fierce Deer Fly who is ranked #73. This bot belongs to the guy who has the #1 ranked beetle. Everyone was dreading having to fight this bot. He lost his first fight because his weapon wasn’t working. He postponed our fight and ending up having over an hour to fix his weapon. By the time we fought him, his weapon was working perfectly. I got some good hits on him and sent him flying over the top of our bot a couple of times. One time he ripped the back cover off but it was only held on by Velcro and wasn’t a vital piece. I then decided to aim for the back of his bot instead of taking direct hits from the weapon. This was a poor choice as it gave him access to the side of us. He hit us one time and sent our side piece flying and then hit us again and knocked our wedge off. At this point I tapped out. I now know to aim for the weapon and ram them as hard as I can hoping to knock them over or break their weapon. Our wedge is strong and can take the direct hits.
We were now out of the competition and could look over our damage and watch the rest of the fights. This last fight was really intense and it took me 15 minutes or so to stop shaking. In his next fight, One Fierce Deer Fly’s weapon wasn’t working again and he lost. Our official story is that we broke it.
Mark was an excellent pit crew! He took care of fixing any damage, charging batteries, tightening set screws on the wheels, and keeping me calm. Having our own bot fighting seems to be a little too emotional for Logan. He is really scared of our bot getting destroyed and wanted me to forfeit the last fight. I think it was good we took damage because we could show Logan how it looked bad but actually it was all very fixable. I also walked him around to other bots that had been damaged to show how they were fixing the damage too. We brought STT the next day and fought in 2 sparing matches with RoboKnight, so Logan could see that STT still worked.
We learned so much from our last fight and I’m glad we fought him even though it cut our day short. We wouldn’t have learned anywhere near as much by fighting other non-weaponed bots. We have many plans for improving Seeking The Truth and I know better how to drive against weaponed bots and when to tap out and when to keep fighting. We also have plans to start a weaponed bot soon and spent a lot of time looking at the weaponed bots to see how they did it and what designs looked the best. We’re still debating what type of weapon we want.
I was terrified of fighting a weaponed bot, but after fighting 2 and surviving, I think that fear is gone. I’m actually looking forward to taking on another weaponed bot!