Machines Behaving Badly....Brief report.

The event went well.  By cracking the whip and keeping things moving we ran something like 40 matches over a slightly long four hours.  Above is a view of the arena as robots are going in.  We had two arena cams shooting the entire event (note laptop perched on arena), so hope for some edited down footage of the action within the next week.  (?)

Above is one of our three pit areas.  Full field of 24 robots.

Brackets were a complex matter.  Note the steady progression through the winning ranks by a robot named "Chuck Norris".  Because, hey, Chuck Norris never loses a fight.  (and didn't).

The staff at Robot Hospital.  Either my focus or their energies were a bit fuzzy when I took this picture.  Both most likely.  They did quite a few operations today, wheel transplants the most common.  In one rather energetic match one robot lost one of his two wheels while his opponant lost both!

Towards the end we had three or even four robots at a time mixing it up melee style.  It reminded me of middle east politics.

Highlight of the day for me was a kid in the one pound weight class.  He had spend a lot of time working on his machine and practicing his driving.  After winning a match or two and being on the brink of another victory he got pushed into a spinning hazard and ripped to shreds.  He was near tears.  But he rallied, slapped his machine back together again and fought on.  He made it to the final match, with first place on the line.......and got ripped to shreds again.  But he was happy with second place, and seems to have enjoyed the ride getting there.

Hope to have some rather jaw dropping video coming in a bit, but off for three days of out of town work so it will be a little while.

Thanks to the dedicated volunteer help, to the enthusiastic kids and their families.