Robotwars Entries

Chompalot:"we are a bit aggrieved at 13 Black for continuing to go at us after we were immobilised, I mean the house robots can have their fun, that's fair enough but what they did was over the top. I wondered if they thought there might have been a judge's decision because stinger didn't do anything, and thought that they should completely stuff us so we couldn't possibly continue? Who knows? At any rate when we next meet 13 Black in the arena there will be a reckoning, and next time we won't be so easy to defeat!"

Our response: We like to think we are one of the fairer teams at the wars, we would never intentionally damage a team robot when there is no need. However, we`ll mark you as a `special case` for any future conflict and show you what 13Black is really capable of.

Note: It is with great sadness that we have to report the FAILURE to qualify of Chompalot for series 7,
maybe we`ll get to kick your a****s next year guys!

To get onto series six of Robotwars, you either had to be one of the 12 seeded robots or win a melee fight in the arena against 3 other robots. Failing that there were also some discretionary places reserved for robots that the judges thought would look good on TV.

We went for our fight at 9am on 5th July 2002 at RAF Newton, near Nottingham. It only took us about 1 hour to get there so we ended up being about an hour early. This gave us a chance to meet some of the other competitors and a look at some of the new robots for this year. We also got soaked as it was good old British summer weather, ie yakking it down.

We finally got in and got straight in line for weighing. We had weighed it the previous night on calibrated scales and it weighed 98.5Kg, here we stuck it on the scales and they said 87Kg!. This didn`t worry us, it was the robot with the massive steel spinning disc behind us that got through on 100Kg - what if we had to fight that?

We then went for photo`s and were shown to a bench where we had to get ready for a technical check, checking we had safety cut-outs fitted and things went the way they should etc. We had fitted `delbot` mixing boards so there were no problems there.

A two wheeled red wedge, with two cut-out horses heads fitted on and two big steel covered wooden wheels. We weren`t really worried about it as it didn`t appear to have a weapon, although the owner (sorry I`ve forgotten your name - please let me know) claimed it could drive underneath us and turn us over.

A flat heavy steel disc spinner, yes the one that was behind us in the queue! This one worried us a bit, one hit from the disc could do some serious damage.

This robot looked like trouble, a set of big blue hydraulic pincers with a crushing force of four tons would do some serious damage if they got into our bodywork. We would have to act fast if we were to get anywhere near to winning this fight.

We had a good look over the others for any weak spots that we could take advantage of and then just sort of hung around till it was time to fight.

In the arena it was pretty bare, no house robots or arena hazards, no pit and no cameras.
The countdown ended and the fighting began, we spun up both discs and went straight for Boudicca, the one that looked easiest to beat (get points for damage at least!) - we knocked one of the heads off and away into the distance which looked funny, then we did some nice damage to the wheels. We then reversed and went for Retribution, hitting it right in the side where we had planned (a bit lucky really!) we kept hitting them as much as we could, making some nice holes in the surrounding armour, Kan Opener joined in too and Retribution finally went into the corner and didn`t move, we took one more go at them just to make sure and made a deep cut into the rear armour which I think was 5mm steel.
By this time Boudicca had come over to join in but it didn`t last long, we sent the other head to it`s predictable end and did a bit more damage, along with Kan Opener hitting it it just came to rest in the middle of the arena, leaving us to face Kan Opener to fight for a place in the sixth wars.
We went in and hit Kan Opener really hard, a blade on our front disc was glowing bright white as it spun round after the impact looking really good - I just stood there staring at it saying `what the hells that?` for what seemed ages, then I realised I was supposed to be fighting and got stuck in again.
We were both running round well until suddenly both of us seemed to suffer radio interference, with the Delbot boards we had, this showed itself as `pulsing`, we`d get full drive then it would cut out, only to cut back in again. We kept out of harms way just to try and stay mobile til the end but we got stuck in Kan Openers pincers, fortunately they were having similar control problems too so they couldn`t do much damage to us either. This went on for a while then suddenly we got full control back, very strange.
The fight was called to an end and we all went back stage, Matt (one of the judges and all round technical person) immediately told us that he was awarding the fight to 13Black with Kan Opener getting a discretionary place. We were well pleased!!

We got the robots back out into the pits and went round each others claiming damage etc.
We then found out that the bright white light we had witnessed was a chunk of titanium we had ripped off Kan Opener and had started to burn - nice!

We discussed the interference problem with the others and found that Kan Opener had damaged the power circuits on Retribution, the resultant arcing might have caused the interference as there weren`t any other good explanations.

We picked up our entry packs for the filming and were the last ones to leave out of our group.
We met loads of other teams and eventually met up again with John Heatlie and his sons with `Corkscrew`. He showed us a home video of Corkscrew attacking a water cooler, I was just glad we hadn`t had our qualifying match against that robot instead. It has got to be one of the most violent robots going around at the minute...(pun unintended!)

We got back home and started repairing the robot ready for Monday morning and the first of our filmed fights, apart from resetting the disc bearings and putting one of the drive motors back in line we all we had to do was sort out the radio reception. After much playing around on Sunday with various earth connections and aeriels I had to leave Richard to work on it into the late evening, I got a phonecall that night to say that he`d almost given up when he accidentally discovered that everything worked very well if all the screening for the receiver and aeriel was insulated from everything else, ie floating. With the TX aeriel down he could still get a signal from around 15m away, and with full antenna it was around 100m indoors and around a corner!

Our first rounds were shown on Friday 20th of December 2002.
the following taken from Digiguide (http://www.digiguide.com)

Our first round consisted of a four-way melee with Chompalot, Thermidor II and Stinger. We also had Sir Killalot and Dead Metal to contend with.
It started well for us as Stinger and Thermidor battled it out on the other side of the arena, we got straight into an attack on Chompalot,
they took a fair amount of damage without too much trouble and we even had chance to try and knock Stinger into the pit in between taking pot shots at Chompalot. At one point however Chompalot got a bite into our rear disc and didn`t want to let go but it didn`t take long before they seemed to stop working, we hit them a few more times to make sure and because there wasn`t really anything else to go for, Stinger had damaged one of Thermidor`s wheels sufficiently to leave them without full control and they ended up driving into the pit - but Stinger were also having trouble with their new batteries and were all but immobile. It was enough to secure us and Stinger a place in the 2nd round.

Our second fight was against one of the winners of the other 4-way melee, Double Trouble, another twin disc robot but on a smaller scale.
This round would be overseen by two house robots, Matilda and for the second time Dead Metal.
From the word go we had Double Trouble on the run inflicting some excellent damage to their bodywork and even managing a double hit taking a body panel out with our front disc and the back disc then sending one of their discs sailing through the air!
The rest of the round went well with us taking more pieces of their robot, although our front disc stopped working about half way through the fight - we later found that the motor magnets had moved and jammed up against the end of the motor armature! to counter this we put the robot into a full body spin and amazingly Double Trouble drove straight into us taking some severe damage but were still mobile. We carried on in reverse using the rear black and white disc to attack with, Double Trouble had taken a large amount of damage already but to the robots credit it just kept going and going! eventually our second disc packed up for the same reason as the first and that left us both pushing each other around. Soon after this the fight ended and it went to the judges who unsurprisingly gave the fight to us due to the amount of damage inflicted.

So on we went to the Heat F final, this was against Stinger who were seeded number 11 in the UK series. This was our first fight against a seeded robot and looking at past series it was obvious that Stinger would be very difficult to beat - you just can`t damage it and it runs anyway up, it`s axe type weapon also comes down with one hell of a whack too and in the pits you always know when it`s fighting due to the sound of it hitting the floor!
The house robots for this match would be Sir Killalot from the first round and yet again Dead Metal (it must like us!)
The fight started off fairly slowly, both robots circling round each other trying to find a chance to move in, suddenly contact is made and we come off well. Again and again we move in, attack and pull back allowing the discs to spin up again, Stinger hitting us hard too but doing little damage except to the surface composite layers of the front disc. We managed to knock off one of Stingers tyre protecting plates which gives us some valuable damage points and manage to corner them a couple of times against the arena walls, all good for points!
By an amazing stroke of luck we drive into Stinger at an angle and manage to carry it into one of the corner patrol zones, totally unplanned but Sir K is there in no time at all - Stinger is picked up in THAT claw and taken for a spin in the centre of the arena, Dead Metal immediately slams into the side of us and pins us to the arena wall, not that we`re going much further as `cease` is called and the result is decided by the judges...

After what seems an age Craig Charles asks the audience who they think won, from where we are standing it sounds like Stinger have got it but no! the judges give it us for all four categories - damage, control, style and aggression!

We have beaten our first `seeded` opponent and won the shows Heat Final in what was to be our most important fight so far!

13Black is through to the semi-finals and along with that an invite to fight in Robot Wars EXTREME later in the year!

We were moved to the pit tables right up near the stage for the semi-finals filming, the atmosphere was so different to when we were fighting in the heats - almost vip treatment really!

We were now up against the winners of each other shows, Dantomkia, Hypno Disc, Terrorhurtz, Razer, S3, Firestorm, Wild Thing, Dominator II, Tornado, Bigger Brother,

Because there are twelve semi-finalists of the series, there then follows six one-on-one fights which gives six winners and six losers. The six losers are split into two three-way melees and the winner of each one goes back to join the winners and make the numbers back up to eight. These eight then fight in four one-on-one fights, two one-on-one fights and finally the final one-on-one `Grand Final`.

There were several extra reporters there for local newspapers and TV programs, as we were the nearest based team to Nottingham I think we got a bit more attention and were filmed for East Midlands News (If you taped this then I`d be very interested in a copy!) among others.

Our first fight was against Firestorm, we had hoped we wouldn`t go in against a flipper early on so we had been lucky, unfortunately two of the best flippers were still in the competition so we knew it was only a matter of time and this was it. We just didn`t want to go over the edge of the arena and risk destroying a disk on landing!

Anyway, we finally got into the arena and the countdown began. We knew Firestorm was quick but b****y hell! we got one attempt at them before they were round and under the side of us, carrying us on top to the arena wall and attempting to flip us out. Fortunately for us the gyro effect of the discs can have strange effects when we are airborne and we didn`t go too far - we did end up on the wall though and despite taking the discs up to full speed (for probably the first time in combat) we couldn`t shake ourselves free. This gave the match to Firestorm for disabling us and we certainly couldn`t argue with the decision.
When we came out we met up with Phillipa for our first `Losers interview`, "I know why you call it 13Black now" she said, "because it lasts 13 seconds!" - ha ha... onto the losers melee...

The `losers melee` for this show was Dantomkia, Wild Thing and ourselves 13Black. Dantomkia were ready to go after suffering very little damage in their previous fight against S3, Wild Thing however were a different story, they had encountered Razer who had taken out just about everything in the robot. Some of the teams helped out with batteries and other components and it took most of the day to get them working again ready to fight.

We were all excited about this one as it meant another chance to stay in the competition and as we queued up and entered the arena the tension was incredible!

The fight started after the usual introductions and by now the audience certainly knew who we all were, Wild Thing being a veteran of previous series but Dantomkia and 13Black were relative newcomers and were surprise entries into the semifinals, word had got around though and this was a well anticipated match, the last of the day too I seem to remember.

It started off as a bit of a free-for-all with each of us taking pot shots at the others, Dantomkia flipped Wild Thing into a corner then rapidly got under us and got a really good throw, it looked spectacular and it was a miracle we didn`t go out of the arena, I think we went about 15 feet across the floor without touching it then slid along the arena wall before coming to rest upside down next to Wild Thing. A bit of a jamming session follows with the corner just a tangled mess until finally Wild Thing breaks out - only to do a lemming and drive straight into the descending pit!
That left ourselves and Dantomkia to fight it out, we edge out into the arena still UPSIDE DOWN. Our discs give us limited maneuverability and everyone present a bit of a surprise...

Are you still reading? it`s way past my bedtime you know.
I`ll try and finish this review soon I promise. Actually I can`t remember what happened so I`ll have to have a look at the video again, that`s if I can get the wife to let me near the remote....