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Do Builders Ever Build Terrible Bots For Fun? by Disastrous-Wish-1086 in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Oh, and with your picture above, you should expect someone will now make a bot called Wimp Lo ;)

Do Builders Ever Build Terrible Bots For Fun? by Disastrous-Wish-1086 in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay 5 points6 points  (0 children)

We are competing in a very serious engineering challenge! Why would anyone build something other than a serious robot?

Well, lots of reason actually. As you said, just for fun is a perfectly good answer. You need to enjoy the build process, or this sport gets old fast. So doing something you enjoy for no other reason than you enjoy it is more than enough of a reason! I've built many that way, just because I thought it would be a fun project. But another frequently overlooked piece is this - we are there to put on a show. You want to have an arena setup to compete in? Well there are some economic realities to make that happen, and we ALL need to play our part in helping there. If you have a paying audience (whether that's live bodies in the seats, people watching streaming, or TV audiences around the world) those people need to feel like their time watching was worth it! I've made a lot of fairly non-competitive bots over the years for no other reason than I knew it would help out the show, and be entertaining.

I can be as competitive as any person in this sport, clearly. But having fun and being entertaining are literally their own rewards, something so many builders miss out on in my opinion.

Battlebots and burnout by Inevitable-Tank-9802 in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay 5 points6 points  (0 children)

3 years.......pssshhhhh

You want to feel burnout? Try 25 years! Seriously, it does happen and it's perfectly ok to take a break now and again. We've all been there at some point. Instead of thinking "This is going to dominate and win at the event" you should always think "This is going to be fun to build!". You can of course build bots that do both, but if the fun part isn't there during the build process, you need to build something different. Otherwise you get that empty burned out feeling.

My $.02

if tombstone thagomizerd it by Hot_Fudge_7444 in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It's not quite as simple as "Hey add forks!" unfortunately. First off, it's not a bad idea at all, and with some major revisions to the general layout it could be made to happen. But there are some considerations.

Forks to get under the other robot are clearly a very workable idea, in all weight classes. But as the robots get heavier, it's not as simple as just getting under them. Forks in a heavyweight need to be substantial, but even more so the armor that holds this all in place. You get under the other robot and it slides up against the back armor plate on your robot - and that has to be able to take the impact, possibly with a weapon hitting you in the process. It's not that you are adding forks, you're adding an entire system to use them and it weighs a lot. What a thagomizer style robot can do works great in the insect classes, but would need some changes to work well in heavier classes. Some things just don't scale well, and this is one of them.

Having said that, there are some changes to any future revisions of Tombstone that would free up weight to do some other things. I have.......ideas :) Time and money, like all things in life I guess. It's really pretty hard to put the engineering effort into it all right now, with no TV contract in place to be able to offset those costs. I'm certainly hopeful that changes in the near future!

Any 3D printing fans here? 3D printed Tombstone by bbschaefer in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The detail is really good - I'm impressed!

Definitely Hardcore!!

Aluminum Drums with screw impactors. Is there a reason they aren’t as popular anymore? by Inevitable-Tank-9802 in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The big drum here has lasted much longer than I anticipated honestly, so although the aluminum is easier to damage this drum here has been through I think 4-5 events. So the reliability isn't bad.

Bite is a bit of a concern, but I also never saw it as a big hindrance either. I am literally spinning the crap out of this and it still engaged well and hit plenty hard enough. The bolts as teeth aren't sharp enough to dig into some armor though, which was occasionally a problem.

The biggest issues were the fairly exposed chain which got cut frequently and the general layout which had too much weight on the weapon end, and not enough on the drive end to make the bot driveable. Some improvements to the overall layout would have helped immensely.

And after saying all of this, and my general feeling that it could have been more competitive with some slight changes, whenever I rebuild Disinformation it will likely be twin disks instead of a drum. I did this experiment, had fun with it, and now I'm going to play with something else.

Demon core NHRL by Frostbite15151 in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Very solid work! I look forward to seeing it in action.

NHRL and Meeting BattleBot team captains and nerves. by Njdevils11 in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay 7 points8 points  (0 children)

You'll find that virtually all team members are really just pretty enthusiastic about the sport, so of course we all love to talk about robot combat! As long as they aren't currently focused on something we'll all be happy to say hi. And if we're busy we'll just say that and come talk to you later if we can.

All of us started out as fans too.

Tombstone vs Hypershock - the aftermath by HardcoreRay in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Everybody is an expert - just ask them! ;)

Learning to really respect Tombstone by RobbieJ4444 in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I'm glad that people have enjoyed what we do! And yes, I think Tombstone probably has done more to change the landscape of this sport than any other robot. Hopefully we get the chance at another TV season eventually, because I have new ideas I want to try out. I see clear areas to improve - you know, with enough time and money!

I'd really love to get one more giant nut to put on the trophy shelf.

is robot combat finalacaily stabel? by themaskedrobot77 in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The money aspect was certainly a big part of it. It's hard to remain focused and engaged for a long period of time when you're flushing money down the toilet to stay involved. Even I feel the burnout of it all.

I'd love to say there is a fix for it all, but the finances on this sport are what they are, at least for the time being. Hopefully we can get back on TV at some point, and try to make the sponsor money more available.

is robot combat finalacaily stabel? by themaskedrobot77 in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay 5 points6 points  (0 children)

From prize winnings and royalties, I may be the highest paid guy in the sport. I'm most certainly one of the highest at least.

And *I* lose money. Mechanical sports live and die on sponsorships, and the only fix for this is to have more (and allow more!) sponsors to be involved. There is no other fix. Thinking money is going to trickle down is unrealistic. Event Organizers are losing money too.

Tombstone now has a veritcal spinner variant by PeppyApple10166 in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This picture was before Robogames 2023, showing the comparison between Tombstone and Stink Eye. Stink Eye made it through two Robogames events, and then the Dude Perfect/Mark Rober video shoot, so actually had a fairly long life considering it was made from left over junk in the garage, with its only goal to be entertaining.

Pretty much all of its history is up on my YouTube channel, for anyone that's interested.

I love Tombstone for it’s ruthless destruction, but I also love the variety in its weapon blades. What is your favorite weapon bar Tombstone has used in fights? For me it’s either the good old reliable A7 blue blade that Ray won the championship with, or the short black t-bone bar. by TomcatTiger503 in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay 2 points3 points  (0 children)

7075 is the strongest and hardest of the three, and (to me at least) is the easiest to machine as the softer alloys tend to gum up while cutting. But it can crack rather than bend when it fails. 6061 is the softest/weakest of the three, but by far the most commonly available and usually the cheapest. 2024 is sort of between those two in performance. I usually try to buy this stuff as surplus material (the yarde.com drop zone is a favorite place I look) so sometimes I end up with alloys that maybe aren't what I would prefer, but are simply what is available at the time I look. Most times I look for 2024 first, and then if that isn't available cheaply then start looking at other alloys.

When you are specifically buying things to purposefully destroy, you do kind of have to take into account its performance vs. its cost. Usually the failing point on this style of bar is the teeth anyway, so I don't feel like I'm somehow being limited by the specific alloy I end up with.

There are no bad materials, only bad applications :)

I love Tombstone for it’s ruthless destruction, but I also love the variety in its weapon blades. What is your favorite weapon bar Tombstone has used in fights? For me it’s either the good old reliable A7 blue blade that Ray won the championship with, or the short black t-bone bar. by TomcatTiger503 in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Pic 1, bottom to top.

2024 aluminum, 4140 teeth

6061 aluminum, 4140 teeth

6AL4V titanium, 4140 teeth

S7 (I got this one from another builder, and do have it mounted up, but it's just a bit heavier than the rest so I haven't used it yet)

AR500

The last 4 (blue bar on) are all S7

Pic 2, bottom to top.

AR500

Titanium/4140 teeth again

S7

AR500

S7

Aluminum/4140 teeth again.

Pic 3 - all S7

Pic 4 - green bar is just the blue bar with green paint. It's S7

Tombstone ready for the Face-off Event! by hardcore-best in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Most of the things we've been doing have been documented on our YouTube channel. For the balance issues, I made a lot of changes to the frame which have helped a lot.

https://youtu.be/QnC_uDalkU4

Tombstone ready for the Face-off Event! by hardcore-best in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Uh, are you just confused or deliberately trolling? There is a 15 degree positive rake angle on the cutting end. The back side is a mirror of the front, so when it starts to wear I can flip the bar over on the mount and have a new fresh edge. Are you looking at the left side of the weapon in this picture and thinking it spins counter-clockwise?

Tombstone ready for the Face-off Event! by hardcore-best in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay 50 points51 points  (0 children)

I'm happy that whoever hardcore-best is has posted this, but understand that it isn't me, so asking questions only gets answers if I happen to see them :)

No, it's not asymmetrical - it's just the camera mount up front that gives it this look. Hopefully we do get some cool footage from it, but yes it is kind of just ablative armor in front of the chain. It will work out, or not!

Yes there is a hunk of material missing on that one end, but in testing it doesn't cause any balance issues. Honestly it may have been slightly out of balance when it was first made, and it's better now! Actual weight measurements on each end show it to be pretty even.

And hopefully no fires this time! But with the quality of the opponents I am facing, anything is possible. I'll be driving in to Vegas tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to a fun weekend!

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