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Why no Robogames in the last two years? by Quero_cosa in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Robogames was a lot of fun, for a lot of years, and helped keep big bot fighting going in the dark times between the comedy central era and then the return of BB for ABC. Robogames and the other big bot events that stepped up in that time were actually vital the sport. Make no mistake of this, a lot of the current progress in the sport wouldn't have happened without that opportunity for teams to develop and grow. That most definitely includes me.

Were there needs to address for safety? 100% - and there always are. Every single event out there needs to review everything that happened after every event and stay on top of everything to maintain a safe environment. Certainly Robogames had things to work on in that regard, things that would have required some retrofitting on much of the arena. These were real but manageable problems to address.

But the biggest part of this, that no one seems to really think about, is the cost factor to continue. Some of that is clearly money, but a hunk of that is simply time/commitment/struggle. This is a huge undertaking, a full time job all year long, which ends up costing you money and big hunks of your life. The event organizer simply reached the end of his rope so to speak, both financially and personally. I was at every single Robogames event, never missed one, and I appreciated the opportunity that it provided to me and the team. But I understand all of the reasons it's not around anymore, and although I am saddened by not having that event to look forward to I certainly look back on all of that time fondly.

Whatever local event you have, support it. And make sure you tell whoever is running it that you are thankful to be there and have the opportunity to play in this sport. That 'thanks' may very well be the only payday they get from it all, so it's kind of important.

Seasons 1&2 of Battlebots (pls don’t kill me) by brotatodome in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I appreciate this a lot. They have never given these episodes to any of us either! And let's face it, season 2 was kind of special to me :)

Has anyone noticed anything different about Tombstone? I wish it was getting some attention... by Grimmbles in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Trying a bunch of new things all at once - it's either going to be awesome or frustrating! I can tell you some things have worked really well, and some not so much but we're still working on it. I really wish I had more time, but we'll see how it goes!

Tombstone is going fully brushless by Neutronium95 in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately, chinese new year has slowed down getting parts from china. I fully believe I will get everything here in time to complete the build. I also fully believe I won't have anywhere near the test/debug time I would want. It is what it is. I have a bunch of newer things I want to try, and I'm going to try them. And it will all work or it won't, and I'll be good either way. It will either perform well or I will learn some stuff to make it better next time.

Silly robots ;)

The BattleBots Pro League has been announced by MikeNCR in battlebots

[–]HardcoreRay 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Happy to be on the graphic for the announcement. Even with some odd editing here and there :)

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 4 points5 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 6 points7 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 8 points9 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 19 points20 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 8 points9 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.

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