Introduction
Hive Hysteria is a unique event as it is by far the closet event to compete in the 12lb weight class. I had grand plans to compete with a new 12lb robot as well as good old Pinevictus. Let’s see how it went. Shoutout to Zoe and Team Honey Cracked for putting on a great event!
The design of my new 12lb robot was a long and convoluted process. That is not going to be covered in the context of this event report. Maybe I will write about the design…
The event was slated for July 25th. Let’s walk back through the timeline. I finished the design and ordered my parts from LT Century 3 weeks earlier. Hoping to get the parts in right before the competition, my fate was left to the machinists. Fast forwards a couple of weeks it is July 24th. My DHL package had delivered, all electronics and hardware were already purchased, and it was time to begin the build around 7pm.
After wrestling the parts together, it was great to see that everything just about fit. Some work with a file, rotary tool, arbor press, and hammer helped smash all of the pieces together. But for the most part, it was just like building a Lego set. Now for the fun part, wiring it up.
Like many of my other robots, I was assuming a fairly ambitious packing factor when taking into account the wire harnessing. But I had no doubts that it wouldn’t work. I also was able to put my new Hakko FX971 soldering iron to use for the first time. Eventually after some careful “measure twice cut once,” I had a functional harness that I was pretty sure would fit into the bot. First, I needed to confirm motor functionality and program the speed controllers. The Scorpion 14-120 ESC was easy to adjust settings with the configurator tool, and the TBS Lucid AM32 ESCs were the same old programming as ever. After all the motors did what I wanted, it was time to package it all up for the competition.
Buttoning up the robot came together beautifully, and I was incredible happy to see how it looked assembled. It was now time to pack everything into the toolboxes and prepare to depart.
Oh yea, I also built some Pinevictus-es with the help of my brother Tyler.
The format of this event was to assign a scheduled opponent for the first match, and then robots could choose their following opponents. Thankfully, Skywalker and Pine both passed safety with no issues. More testing time would be nice, but I snuck Skywalker through safety right before the drivers meeting to kick off the fights. My first fights would be Void in 12lbs, and Thunk in 3lbs.
Skywalker Fight 1: Void
The first match of the day for Skywalker was against Void, a 4WD vertical spinner. This robot is in the Pramheda family, but sports a hubmotor. A seasoned NHRL competitor, Void would prove to be quite the match. I hastily buttoned up the robot and set it into the box.
With no testing under its belt, I was quite unsure of what was going to happen. I did know that Pinevictus is a great robot, and I figured that if I was able to replicate that driving, it would be spectacular. Anyways, once the fight started the energy in such a big spinner was felt throughout the room. Any strategy went out the window and I was focused on lining up as big of hits as possible. I won the initial exchanges, and then one of my front titanium billets was ripped off. Not ideal… then my weapon shaft blew up and the weapon stopped. In the moment I didn’t realize this was the failure, but prayed that my expensive electronics were still OK. Void lost a side of drive, and I was able to control the fight to the end. Skywalker gets its first win, and I get my first win in the 12lb weight class.
Post match, a lot of things had broken. I had inadvertently designed in a stress concentration to the front mounting points in my efforts to save weight in the frame rails. The shaft had also fully fractured at the bearing contact. Hopefully material and thickness adjustments will mitigate this in the future… worst case I also bought some solid shoulder bolts in the event that the shafts continue exploding. No electrical damage, and the damaged pieces were replaced for whenever I would need the robot next.
Pinevictus Fight 1: Thunk
With the 12 having a win under its belt, it was important to not forget the mission of conquering the 3lb division. Thunk is a hubmotor beater bar, with a cool 2D beater bar profile. An interesting way to save costs, machined beater bars are in fact expensive.
Going in, good old Pinevictus could usually be trusted to do its thing pretty reliably. I generally like my chances against other 3lb robots, once they get heavier is when the difficulty ramps up. After a few solid hits, I hit Thunk’s hubmotor wires, resulting in a tap out. Pinevictus gets a token, moving on to 1-0.
Skywalker Fight 2: Greyscale
Unfortunately, I lost to Mitchell. You know what they say, “if you lose to Mitchell your life is over.” It was especially unfortunate because I had talked a lot of trash, and was not able to back it up. But how did we get here?
Skywalker was made ready for the fight following Void. Many parts were replaced, and the thing was ready to go again. I had spectacular visions of roofshotting Greyscale out of the arena, and this did in fact cloud my judgement. The match began, and I conducted a full speed box rush. This in fact missed, and in my attempt to readjust, I gyro flipped. This gave Greyscale a few free hits. After self righting, I was able to get his wheelguards and do some cosmetic damage. With my clouded judgement, I again foresaw the roofshots (which did not happen). My weapon shaft ended up exploding again and my weapon was down. I then did some evasive maneuvers, and ended the match crab walking upside down. Not a great look to send the judges, and I ended up losing.
With the same shaft failure mode occurring twice, this did not bode well for the third and final shaft I had. With so much time sunk into repairing Skywalker to fight, I decided it was time to rest him for the rest of the day and do what I could with Pinevictus. Other competitors were ramping up their tokens, and I still only have my 4. The two beater bars looked pretty epic side by side.
Pinevictus Fight 2: Calinaga Buddha
Another fun rematch against “The Freak” and Matt, famously known for Blue Cheese. We decided to go at it in the big cage, as there was a queue for the beetle cage. The only goal for the match was chaos, and that was certainly delivered. Robots flying around, that’s what it’s all about. The Freak ended up coming to a halt just before the timer, and Pinevictus continues onwards with the KO.
Pinevictus Fight 3: Spinny McSpinFace
The next fight was against a menacing horizontal spinner. The builder had told me about his issues with spinning up, and I agreed to give him time to get spun up before the hits. Who doesn’t love massive vertical on horizontal hits? After some massive exchanges, McSpinny clips the belt, and my weapon goes down. I am able to control the rest of the fight however, and Pinevictus picks up another win.
Pinevictus Fight 4: Counterspell
At this point in the day, Pinevictus is beginning to see some wear. The full event prep was handled by my brother Tyler, except he only had the day before to get it up and going. My effort was being sunk into the bigger guy. Thus, I did not have quite the level of preparedness that I usually would going into the event.
Against Counterspell, I took the spare bot off of the table and threw it in the box. This was the one that had fought the Freak. Right from the start, I knew something was wrong as it seemed that only 3 of my wheels were touching the floor, and I couldn’t drive straight. But the door was closed and it was time to send it. This led to a less than ideal showing from Pinevictus, and I was able to get the victory due to the fact of spinning beater bar usually being good at hitting stuff. With that win, I had solidified my spot in the final four bracket.
Pinevictus Fight 5: Carmine
The semifinal fight in the bracket was against fellow beater bar Carmine. Carmine was actually a big inspiration for previous versions of my robot! I had assumed the issue against Counterspell was bent drive axles, which did prove to be half of the problem. Unfortunately the other half of the problem that I did not realize until later was that the entire billet crossframe that ties the structure of my robot together was bent. This meant that the frame rails were not aligned, but it was unknown to me for this fight.
Thus, I entered another fight without the drive functioning as well I would usually like. Carmine was able to beat me up pretty well. She was able to get me stuck upside down, and lined up some great hits to take out my drive gearbox. It was pretty gruesome.
Pinevictus Fight 6: Jackalope
The fight for 3rd place was against fellow NHRL competitor Jackalope and Gwen. I had won our only previous matchup, but there has been tons of development on the rabbit in the last year and a half.
Another finding in the Carmine fight was that the raised kickplates made self righting very difficult with my forks. At the time I also thought that they were hindering my drive, so I just took them off. It worked out this time, and I was able to self right much better. The beater bar is great at munching things that get put in front of it, and I was able to hit Jackalope pretty spectacularly. A few hits later, and the tap out was delivered.
Conclusion
Quite the day that transpired. The robots had been built on Friday night, and a combined 8 fights were had on Saturday. It was exhausting.
Skywalker had delivered and met the deadline. Even though it was barely, the event date served as a very useful critical date to finish the robot by. The robot looked awesome, and I was exceptionally pleased. A few small tweaks, and I would be ready to take on NHRL in October.
Pinevictus again proved that it was a top tier competitor, and I was reminded that I need to be prepared for competitions. I had become slightly complacent, and it had almost cost me on multiple occasions. While another trophy was great to add to the collection, third was not the intended goal. More locking in is needed.
A break for some summer travel before robots resumed for NHRL Pro Tour would be useful to reset the mind. Overall, a fun day at the Hive, and it is always a blast to compete in Maryland.
