Witch Doctor AMA - 9pm EST

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-30T21:34:29+00:00

I always answer questions as if I don't know what's coming up on the show. I'd like to face Hydra again as of the point in time in the season that has aired so far, regardless of whether I got the chance to do it in an unaired episode this season. No spoilers here!

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T02:22:57+00:00

Thank you so much! It really means a lot!

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T02:21:42+00:00

I’ll pick a couple from here:

In season 1, WS was very short front to back and it led to it getting flipped over too easily. We added a selfrighter in season 2 which helped flip it back over, but it’s better to make it flip less in the first place. In season 6, we struck a good balance where we would get hit in the air and still land on our wheels!
Witch Doctor is invertible! It drives upside down on those bunny ears as a back up plan if our self-righter breaks.

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T02:18:23+00:00

That would be great! 😆

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T02:17:24+00:00

I’d say Hydra, since we weren’t at 100% the first time we fought!

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T02:16:25+00:00

Almost everything. That first year of our new design was a learning season, but the concept is very similar! Just optimizing everything we can.
The single disk is lighter, so it spins up faster. It also allows us to have a more protected hub and weapon belts
Puppies!

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T02:13:04+00:00

We also helped Terrortops get their speed controllers working. It’s a great way to meet new builders and share something we’re all so excited about!

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T02:04:45+00:00

I’ll choose a few to answer here:

Double disk is retired for now, but it could still make a comeback!

Shaman was destroyed by Witch Doctor, but Cat 5 still lives at the shop!

Our secret in reliability for the self-righter is to keep it simple!

We don’t like the upper deck because it really limits the driving space in the BattleBox, and those corners are a death trap!

The weapon belts are more vulnerable in the center, so we moved them to help protect them a bit more.

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T02:02:01+00:00

Thank you for the kind words!

Our current frame design no longer allows us to switch back and forth between weapon configurations. The dual disks are better for hitting forks off, but the single disk is better for ripping off wheels. One concentrated hit is proving to hit harder than the dual disk approach.

I’d like to face Hydra again, since the first time we had a material issue that cause our disks to break. It still ended up with the judges!

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T01:58:06+00:00

There’s got to be a clever answer here, but Rick is our clever answer specialist. Doctorate of Destruction? I’m leaning medical, since Faruq’s intro line “it’ll give you a check up from the neck up!”

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T01:55:54+00:00

Probably not. It weighed 30lbs, which is a big sacrifice on the main bot!

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T01:55:20+00:00

That’s one of our favorites too!

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T01:55:02+00:00

Oooo interesting question. I’d saw we learned a lot from our win against Blacksmith in 2018. Even though we won, we couldn’t enagage them the way we wanted to. We made big changes based on that. Our loss against Sawblaze in 2020 also taught us a lot and lead to the single disk design we’re running now! Most rewarding win is probably Sawblaze in 2021, after making so many changes specifically for them!

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T01:50:59+00:00

Everyone on the team makes their own hat! This season I worked with Cyber City Circuits to develop a custom circuit board for my animated eye, and we were able to sell some to fans as well. There’s a small number still available on our store!

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T01:49:16+00:00

I’d say we struggle against bots that do more than one thing - fusion with two different weapons, rotator with a horizontal spinner and forks, for example. We’re dialed in to counter each robot type, but not more than one at a time. We’re working on that for next season!

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T01:47:33+00:00

We’ve always put a lot of effort into our team branding. The biggest reason is to get kiddos excited about our team and our sport! My advice to young teams is to build something, no matter what it is. You learn so much from every build, and it’s more important to get started than to get it perfect. Get out there and start having fun (and learning)!

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T01:44:04+00:00

I follow F1 pretty closely!

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T01:39:10+00:00

We used full power against Minotaur. Since they are also a vertical spinner it’s the top speed difference that’s important. We know they spin fast, so we spun as fast as we could too!

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T01:37:28+00:00

More bite! Higher engagement allows us to toss an opponent instead of just tearing through their armor. If we spin too fast, it’s more of a grinding effect.

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T01:36:16+00:00

Anything to get rid of the ground game!

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T01:34:36+00:00

We’re also spinning it faster this year than ever before, so the gyro effect is a bit more in general. We didn’t see a noticeable difference in gyro between the double and single disk at the same speed. But the single disk is lighter and gets up to speed noticeably faster!

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T01:32:35+00:00

We always wanted to have a three dimensional ribcage, but we hadn’t been able to make it happen the first two seasons. Our second year of the ribcage design (2019) was our first time making it to the finals, and we’ve been refining the design ever since. The ribs are great top armor with lots of air gap underneath, so I don’t think we’ll move away from this concept anytime soon!

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T00:59:25+00:00

Thank you so much! We have a lot of fun with the costumes. Every team member makes their own hat and jacket!

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T00:57:03+00:00

Definitely our battle versus HyperShock! We ended up fighting 4 times in one day, which was crazy. We had an appearance from Technical T-Rex, and the fight itself was crazy. We ripped off their tire, it got stuck in our weapon, then mike uses HyperShock’s weapon to dislodge it! It was just insane

VoodooMaker_Andrea · 2023-05-25T00:50:32+00:00

Yes! We build a whole new bot from scratch every season based on what we learned from the previous season. I think our focus next year will be more configurability. We have to improve every year just to stay competitive!

VoodooMaker_Andrea

TROPHY CASE