Mad Metal Machines 12

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razerdave
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Re: Mad Metal Machines 12

Post by razerdave »

After a chat with Mario (maddox) I've decided to take the train there and back, but I'll be going a few days early to work on my featherweights.
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Simon Windisch
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Re: Mad Metal Machines 12

Post by Simon Windisch »

OK, Eurotunnel and hotel booked.
Impact
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Re: Mad Metal Machines 12

Post by Impact »

The Registration will start soon, I´ll inform you in near future ...

Edit: Started today :P
(Sorry for my bad english)

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Panzerbot
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Re: Mad Metal Machines 12

Post by Panzerbot »

OMG cant wait to see the dbas` and the other ants from england :D

This MMM has the most ants ever since MMM1 :o 34Ants :D

Greets Kai
maddox
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Re: Mad Metal Machines 12

Post by maddox »

A strange event concerning timing.
Razerdave came over on thursday.
1 thing we wanted to do check out the Satanix's drive issue's, and we tought those to be solved thursday evening.
Friday we dedicated to build his axe for Hells Angel. Didn't go to badly, as you can see here, but needs some finetuning.

Friday evening, we had stonegrill, starting with Dave, mum in law, Babs and me, but later on joined by Leo.
After dinner we put up some candles, got ourselfs a drink, and had some conversation. But went to bed around 11pm

Oh well, Saturday morning 7 am, waking up, breakfast, and at 8 15 the 3 hour drive.

It was a large MMM, with a gazillion ants (actualy, 34), a nice amount of 6 kg raptors and 10 feathers. But the venue, still the rollersport hall of Bochum, is large enough to accomodate events quadruple the size as this.
On arrival, the easy going, but efficient German organisers had the arena ready. Tech checks went as smooth as ever.

The venue itself lacks any availability of drinks or snacks, but Tina , as always, provided coffee and cake in all its chocolaty glory .

The fights, for me it was difficult to keep track. Still recovering from dental surgery, I have 2 modes. Or woozy from the painkillers, or very grumpy because the pain. (I believe the denist anglegrinded the wisdomtooth out.) So, when not working on the feathers, I was lounging in the folding chair. Only the sound of a disk fired up, or the hiss of CO2 could rouse me.

Now, Hannibalito was in fine shape, doing it's thing, every time again. Except 1 fight, the first time in ages, we lost a removable link. This will be adressed without gaffatape (velcro anyone?)

Kashei, what was suffering from a gremlin last event, went from bad to worse.
And after another check and test, we flatlined him. It wasn't nor pleasant, nor safe to operate it. Also, after all those fights, it could do with a tune-up and some maintenance-simplyfying tricks. (need mod 1.5 of 2 gears on the axe, the mod 1's wear out faster than I would like)

Katyusha was doing its usual. If not winning, launching itself.

Satanix was having a ball, everything went smooth. Winning one fight after another.
That combination of MSR12-72 drives and Victor speedo's is not bad at all.

Unfortunatly, due some decisions, we opted to go only one day, so after what we tought the last fight, we started packing. And when we just finished packing, the organisation "calculated" that 4 feathers ended up with the same amount of points. (4 fights, winner gets 3 points, second gets 2, loser 1). Adrenalin, Stalker, Satanix and Hannibalito ended up with 11 points.

We could have dug up the 2 machines from the van, tightened up the bolts, gassed up the bottle, and got cracking again.
That would have put Dirk with a problem. He had to do the same, alas, Adrenalin and Stalker are both his, and he's a superb driver, so handing out one of his machines would disadvantage that robot.
For us it would added a lot of extra time ,what had its own issues.
So, we opted for a more easy solution for everybody. For now, we accept that Satanix won. Hannibalito III came up second, Adrenalin and Stalker 3th and 4th. We'll fight that fight next time.

Lesson learned, next time we'll be there for the 2 days.
Remote-Controlled Dave
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Re: Mad Metal Machines 12

Post by Remote-Controlled Dave »

Excellent report as usual Maddox, thank you.
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Simon Windisch
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Re: Mad Metal Machines 12

Post by Simon Windisch »

We had a great time, the eight hour journey actually wasn't too bad.

One note though, when the Germans say 12 o'clock start they mean that the fights start at 12 o'clock sharp, luckily our robots were ready to go because we were fighting within 90 seconds of arrival at the venue.

Dynamite came second in the big ant event on the Saturday, losing to DBA. Dynamite 2011 R3 will hopefully be ready for AWS36 and it's looking like a possible champion, I just need to keep improving my driving, the surface steering means that it has an incredible turn of speed, while still being very agile.

On Sunday we had mid table obscurity in the random tag team event and Nathan won robot roulette, so we had a pretty good event.

The hotel was very comfortable and quiet, but it was a little too far out of town: it would have been nice to have had a wander through Bochum, as it was we only saw the hockey hall and a nearby KFC.

There were some great drivers, the German robots are not quite as sophisticated as what Peter Waller, Jim and Andrew Hibberd can turn out but I think we've got some of them thinking... Driving on a polycarbonate arena is a little different to painted wood - on this note, the engineering of their arenas is outstanding, the antweight arena is fully automatic with timing, light and sound systems, it has an automated floor spike and folds down flat in about 20 minutes, incredible! and the featherweight arena is similarly impressive.

Dave Lawrie has a near doppleganger, with gaffa tape robots with long names. There are not as many young roboteers like in the UK, mostly they are in their 20s I'd say.

There is a possibility that they might offer an AWS in Bochum, Dirk will talk to the GRA about it, and I said that I'd mention it in the UK and see how many were interested. They would dedicate the Sunday of the Bochum MMM event to it and run standard AWS rules, still a work in progress, we don't know if this will happen.

The Saturday was advertised on local radio and they had about 100 members of the public, I spoke to three people who were really interested in starting an antweight...

So we had fun, the roboteers there were very friendly and We're definitely planning on returning net year, AWS or not.
Impact
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Re: Mad Metal Machines 12

Post by Impact »

Guys, it was amazing :D

Really enjoyed your appearence, it was a good Event and I´m looking forward to see ya again, hopefully in near future. :P
(Sorry for my bad english)

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razerdave
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Re: Mad Metal Machines 12

Post by razerdave »

I should have posted here before, very nice event and thanks to the GRA for running it, thoroughly enjoyed it.

Videos from all 3 weight classes can be found on the 14th post down on this page (Posted by Flatliner), you do have to download them and they can take a while, but its worth it.

http://forum.roboteers.org/thread.php?t ... =4863&sid=
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