r/battlebots

Which loss do you find the most infuriating?

Which loss do you find the most infuriating?

Cobalt's loss to Duck in the most infuriating one in my opinion because Cobalt was my favorite competitor going into Season 4, especially after it's strong opening fight against Subzero and to see it lose a winning battle by getting stuck in the arena floor left me fuming.

It also doesn't help that this loss ended up costing Cobalt a secure spot in the Round of 16.

u/Excelsior1985 — 2 days ago

What bot/team is under the most pressure at Pro League?

In my opinion I think that Ray Billings and Tombstone are under a lot of pressure. With more robots incorporating small but powerful brushless systems into their designs, robots are more compact and better armored than ever before. The ground game is also more intense than before. Tombstone is a bot that many are saying is outdated, after all it’s lost 5 out of its last 6 fights. But for pro league Tombstone is bringing so many new things to the table at once to try to modernize the robot. And from his videos it didn’t seem like Ray Billings had a whole lot of time to get all of this done. This feels like a sort of “do or die” type of situation but Tombstone has perhaps the strongest “brand” out of all the battlebots so I don’t think it will be forced out of competition for being “obsolete”, but I do think its performance in pro league will have HUGE ramifications on its reception going forward. But what team/bot do you guys think is under the most pressure?

u/Jamez2021 — 1 day ago

What is a robot that you think had an incredible debut season, but never fully got back on that level?

Conversely, are there any robots that you think were awful in their first season, but improved greatly?

u/Local_Rice_8929 — 2 days ago

Big ass RR2 replica dump

I haven't posted anything in like 80 years so here's a bunch of replicas ive cooked up over last 7 months, ain't all of them, tho, ill have to do a second post

Rusty 2021-2024

Blip 2021-2022

HiJinx 2021-2022

Gruff 2019-2022

Golden Fury 2025-2026

Minotaur 2019-2024

RotatoR 2020-2022

Switchback 2022-2025

Malice 2020-2026

Valkyrie 2020-2024

Orion 2020-2025

Big Dill 2020

Son Of Whyachi 2020

Deadlift 2020

Ive got completely separate variants for most years for the replicas, i just couldn't fit pictures of all of them just know they exist lol

u/Thekingofdoges — 2 hours ago

Problem with weapon motor overheating

I made this battlebot as a project and im having issues with the weapon motor not being strong enough for the weapon and overheating causing the 3D printed mount to deform.

Anyone know any good motors i can use that run on 3S for the weapon? One i have rn is a drone motor 2750kv (~22mm diameter) and the weapon is running a 1:3 ratio via the pulley

Edit: this is the first ever attempt at even trying to make a battlebot but i did have a strong RC background

u/TNTcar1298 — 7 days ago

The four most iconic bots that represent the tv show best. My Mount Rushmore would be; Tombstone, Huge, Witch Doctor and Minotaur.

u/Sensitive_Ad_1752 — 9 days ago

Are ESC caps and/or TVS diodes overkill for US Antweight (1lb) robots?

I have a decently hard-hitting, belt-driven weapon on my antweight robot and at an event this last weekend, in one of my fights I struck the opponent's weapon and an immediate plume of smoke emitted from my weapon motor, which was then down for the remainder of the match.

When I got the bot apart in the pits afterwards, it appeared there was melting/shorting at all three phase wires where they start their windings.

My guess is that the weapon strike caused a very brief but intense overcurrent/overvoltage that melted through the enamel and shorted the stator wires.

I run the smooth-side of an s3m belt to drive my weapon, to try to allow for some slip, but it is possible that the tension was a little on the tighter side, this has not really been a problem before now however.

Would adding a capacitor to the power pads on the ESC offer any benefit here, or cap+tvs diode for spikes?

I know it is pretty common or recommended for beetleweight weapons/6S builds, but hadn't really seen it mentioned anywhere for antweights.

I use the 45A ReadyToSky ESC to drive my weapon motor, which is a decently high kv 2207 that I've been pretty happy with lately.

Thanks!

reddit.com
u/peeaches — 13 hours ago

BattleBots is a a crazy and violent sport and we quite often have to see our favorite bots get smashed up. My favorite bot is Copperhead and I think its fight against Chronos was when it got damaged the most (pictured). What picture shows the most damage your favorite battle bot has taken?

u/Jamez2021 — 9 days ago

Why no Robogames in the last two years?

Why did they stop making Robogames? The last tournament got some nice traction, action and exposure. And for the last two years, without Battlebots tournaments overlapping, it was the perfect time to stay active.

reddit.com
u/Quero_cosa — 5 days ago

My wife and I went to NHRL last night. Jamison was there with Saiko. He took on Pyre in the 12lbs semifinal category. I have no doubt Jamison would be to first to tell you that he and Saiko were getting absolutely wrecked by Pyre and his driver Lars.
Just as all hope seemed lost for Saiko, Pyre just stopped working. Dead on the floor. Jamison steers Saiko into Pyre and starts pusing him, trying to get him to wake up. No luck. Time is ticking, 30 seconds left, KO count down sbout to start, Jamison jumps over to the tap out button to surrender. Right as he’s about to give Pyre the well deserved win, pyre wakes up and starts driving.
Right as the bell is about to ring, Pyre shuts down AGAIN. During the waiting period after the match, Jamison drives Saiko into Pyre AGAIN to try to wake him up…..
Pyre wakes up, and wins the JD. It’s unclear whether Jamison’s actions actually did anything to wake up Pyre, but the fact he went out of his way to help so much…. Jam-O knew he didn’t deserve that win and acted like a real competitor.
Goddamned national treasure.

reddit.com
u/Njdevils11 — 11 days ago

Tombstone vs. Bronco made me wonder. Ray did time the final hit against Bronco such that if something went wrong it would be too late for a count-out. Still, it was a silly gamble, as Tombstone's guts burst forth from its own energy.

In an extreme hypothetical case where TS completely exploded into metal confetti in the final seconds, I wonder if the judges would have scored it differently? And if so, could it ever be enough to lose? (Bronco was a banged-up mess and could barely move near the end. Tombstone looked in good shape until that final dumb move.)

reddit.com
u/Zardotab — 8 days ago

When you look at the judging system and look at the advantages of a crusher-bot, they line up almost exactly.

Damage: The most important category, and Crushers are perfect at exploiting it, and arguably are even better at it than spinners are. A spinner has to hit the opponent several times to finally knock something loose and mess up the opponent. When a crusher bites into another robot it is almost always going to damage something important. Just look at Razer’s battles over the years. Whenever it successfully punctured the opponent’s armor, it pretty much always immobilized it or at least severely hampered it with just a few bites.

Control: As a subcategory of grabber, Crushers are great at exploiting this as well. Quantum for example is great at grabbing the opponent, and taking them on a very violent tour of the BattleBox.

Aggression: Unlike spinners, Crushers don’t need to take a few seconds to spin up before they can deal damage, in fact, the way their weapons work kinda requires them to stay on top of the enemy for the whole match, making them perfect at scoring those.

You want any more proof that crushers aren’t outdated? In 2018, Spectre, aka Quantum with a reskin, won King of Bots, and did very well in the competitions afterwards.

But… you read the title. They’re only almost perfect. So let’s go over a few of the problems.

Durability: Hydraulic systems are heavier than most other weapon systems, so that doesn’t leave a lot of room for redundant components or tough armor for the rest of the bot.

Reliability: From what I’ve seen, crushers are somewhat less likely to outright fail than other weapons, but they run into this problem sometimes where they can’t seem to crush with full capacity, like Razer’s fight with Onslaught, or, more recently, Petunia’s performance in 2019, where it failed to fully crush anything. (On a side note, if someone could explain what causes this, I would be very thankful). There’s also Razer’s early years, where it seemed to just randomly break down for no apparent reason on several occasions.

Skill: Because they’re control bots and not spinners, crushers are naturally more complex to operate, requiring more precise driving and positioning, compared to other weapons that just need to get under the enemy to get the weapon working.

In conclusion: I think if a crusher bot could fix the issues while honing in on what works, then it could be a very serious competitor that could perfectly exploit the rules. Just remember, in Robot Wars, Razer was a crusher, and it was undoubtedly the bot to beat if you wanted to win. So far, it looks like Quantum is hot on the trail of making a successful crusher, but we’ll have to see how it does in the future.

reddit.com
u/Dinoboy225 — 13 days ago

The current pro league finale was my first in person event, and WOW it was good! No spoilers available here, but the competition winner was a huge surprise to me, having predicted about half the finalists correctly. They definitely deserved it, and really had their bots, team, and strategy in order more than any other team did, and it paid off as it should!

Curious to see where this goes in the future as a whole. The emphasis on 'average league' was really odd. They asked a lot of us as the audience, which was a bit exhausting after a while. There was some disarray and chaos but for the most part the production value was, and will be good. They have a lot of good material for editing TV/YouTube with. The teams are absolutely crushing it at getting the youth interested in combat robots, great event to bring kids out for. It's so nice having the tandem of Chris/Kenny/Furuq back, honestly it was pretty unwatchable for a minute there outside of the fights. After seeing the finalists on a board when I walked in, it was super confusing who was fighting when and what fights we were going to get to see (outside of the final)

All I can vaguely reveal is that teams moving forward are going to have to innovate once again to win, because I saw a lot of new things on several bots and from teams since the prior three seasons/leagues that made prior success methods look dated. Combat robotics has a lot in store for us here in the coming competitions! I hope they can get this to where it needs to be.

Also, on the OG logo hat, thanks for sticking by your roots to us who watched back then! When the next event comes around, go if you haven't!

u/Spankedcheeks — 10 days ago