AVC 2015 - Combat Entry - Angry Accountant

Archive Sparkfun Promotions and Competitions
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Seeing as the AVC event as added a one pound combat class, I’ve decided to dust off “Angry Accountant”. She had a good run in the Combat Robotics circuit from 2004 through 2007, but has been quietly resting in a box since then. Many details of her dark past are accessible from http://teamcosmos.com/angry/angry.shtml.

Here one of her more entertaining fights: http://youtu.be/YhOflMhHAuA

Fresh out of the box she looks like this:

http://teamcosmos.com/angry/2.0/top.jpg

She’s completely missing a weapon motor, the pulley is in bad shape, and the battery is undoubtedly dead. Over the years she earned many battle scars, especially near the front.

http://teamcosmos.com/angry/2.0/damage.jpg

Under all the electrical tape “armor” are three speed controllers, two small gear motors, and a micro RC receiver. I doubt many of these particular items are for sale any longer, 10 years is an eternity in hobby electronics. Hopefully they all still work, I don’t look forward to finding replacements.

http://teamcosmos.com/angry/2.0/notapetop.jpghttp://teamcosmos.com/angry/2.0/notapebot.jpg

I’m looking forward to the event, and am curious to see what other people come up with.

Pete

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I picked up a few new batteries for Angry. It’s amazing how cheap LiPos have gotten since the last time I looked. A small 500 mAh 2 cell (7.4v) LiPo costs about $5, much better than the roughly $20 I remember back in the day.

I charged up the battery, weighed in, and gave things a shot.

http://www.teamcosmos.com/angry/2.0/NewTape.jpg http://www.teamcosmos.com/angry/2.0/NewWeight.jpg

The performance was worse than I remembered. Taking a closer look, I found that my old belt driving the weapon motor was pretty loose. Making a new one (and a few spares) got her back to her scary state.

http://youtu.be/CotWugdnSI8

I’ll probably do a bit of practice driving, and figure out something to do with that .8 ounce I have left…

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I would say adding more protection and/or a way to roll it over once on it’s back.

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Dang - you don’t want that thing running wild and wide open through a room full of shoeless people

That rotating club (?) has some serious momentum - I love it!

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Angry went 2-2 at the competition. Not as well as I hoped, but not bad for a no effort showing. I had a blast at the competition and meeting a few new faces.

I thought the competition ran smoothly. There was a lot of spectators, it was great to see so many people interested in fighting bots. One complaint I heard from a few people at was that it was too hard to see the action. There were so many people lined up that if you weren’t in the first few rows you were out of luck. Maybe bleachers or TVs showing live action? It’s a good problem to have.

This competition coupled with the new Battlebots show on Sunday really has me fired up to build a new robot. Thanks Sparkfun for putting this together!

Pete - Team Cosmos

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Team Cosmos rang a bell! Pete, we competed together in the 2001 BotBash in Phoenix. My robot was Kram, a 13lb. disk spinner. My son is building an ant for 2016 AVC, maybe we’ll see you there.

Kelly Small