Battle Number 2 - 'Skewered' by The Monster!

The enemy - Monster

Well, with a completely DESTROYED speed controller, I was definitely not doing too well. But I was't about to duck and run, so I came up with a plan to build a homemade controller. Sunday morning at 11:00 am, I arrived with a bag of servos, switches and relays fresh from the electronics store. (They were actually open on Sunday! I waited outside their door waiting for them to open, ran through the isles with a basket, grabbing all my supplies- it was a riot! They store clerk must have thought I was nuts!) Then we drove like mad to the event. In about an hour, I had pieced together a makeshift speed controller that turned the left and right motors on and off, forward and reverse, so I actually had limited steering. However, I had to take out one of my four batteries to fit the control box in, so I was running on less power than before....

Literally 10 minutes after I finished the controller, I was headed into the arena to battle another entry- The Monster. The Monster was a fast 4 wheeled robot with a big steel spike in the front. I knew I had to stay away from that spike, but since I had a whole new steering format, it was nearly impossible.

This battle lasted no longer than the first. I wanted to keep Hercules' sides away from that spike on the Monster, to avoid getting rammed by that thing, but because I could barely steer, and was running at about half power, it didn't take long for the Monster to catch me off guard. The Monster came at my side at full speed, and pushed me into the wall, impaling my side aluminum panel, which first cut the ground wire to my flipper-arm motor, and secondly shook loose one of the battery terminals (in our rush, we didn't tighten everything down as much as we had before). Because the batteries were hooked up in series, once the loop was inturrupted, the whole system shut down. That was too quick. Hercules was dead again. (Not nearly as costly this time, but an inch in either direction would have been disaterous as well- either tire or gearmotor would have been punctured.) I told the judges I was out, and they rang the bell. Meanwhile, the controller for The Monster apparently thought that Hercules was stuck on the wall, and came at me again to try to 'free' me to get back in the battle, and luckily hit the front ramp of Hercules instead of the side, harmlessly glancing off the sharp angle. The audience of course boo'ed this behavior, but no harm was done- he apologized, and I accepted. So, it was back to the pit to check the damage.