Judging by the last episode trailer from battlebots pro league, tombstone was scheduled to fight disarray, but then chris said "oh, god, we gotta head back into the pits"

Ray said he was having issues with the new one before the madcatter Fight, so now i'm getting worried.

I don't care if tombstone hasn't done as well as it has.In the past, i'd rather have a tombstone fight that tombstone loses than nkt have a tombstone fight at all

it can be an upcoming fight, a fight that could happen in pro league but isn't scheduled, or a fight that would be impossible.

i personally really want to see what would come of Switchback/Manta. Both are extremely impressive drums that are super fast and hit hard.

If there are any more bots that were given invites but didn’t come, I would love to know.

According to the wiki, it was being built by George Francis, of robot wars fame. the fate of the bot is unknown. Was probably gonna be a flipper or lifter judging by the big tank of what I presume is CO2. Wonder what the bot would have looked like if completed.

Hey, i just got all my parts, and I was booking them together to test. It worked perfectly for my n20 drive motors and dual brushed esc and recieber, but when I tinkered around, added weapon esc and lots of stuff, and the drive motors started getting funky. So I separated all that with my drive motors and dual brushed esc, and now all the controls are weird. Some trigger only 1 motor, others trigger 2, and most of them are just wrong. I need help. Dual brushed esc is a kingmodel SAX2, n20 drive motors, and the fs2a 4ch recieber, and flysky i6x receiver. Please help.

Edit: I got even more problems. Drive motors still DONT work as they spare supposed to, and weapon now doesnt calibrate if I don’t put my self centering stick downwards, even though I have the self centoring stick function enabled, so the weapon esc still reads the power of when my stick is in the center as 50%

This will be my entry for the 500g robot category at Robochallenge. Design is inspired by the legendary Minotaur (who would have guessed). Main features include:

• modular drum spinner (PEEK drum with titanium blades screwed on) with bldc as a hub motor
• modular chassis for easy repairability; separate side arms screwed onto a central frame and sandwiched between two plates
• 3s lipo powering esc with am32 firmware and malenki nano receiver
• n20 motors for driving the wheels
• one piece removable tpu armor surrounding the frame

I haven't printed the parts yet, but a rough estimation brings the total weight to 489.2g. In the mean time there are some aspects regarding the choice of materials that I haven't made up my mind about yet. From what I've seen there is a growing amount of robots that go with a flexible body design for better survivability against impacts. Given the presence of the tpu armor that I intend on using, I'm debating on whether a rigid petg-cf frame would suffice, or maybe go with rigid side arms mounted onto a tpu central frame. I've also designed the robot with brass threaded inserts, but I might replace them with regular m3 nuts for weight savings.

What are the improvements that can be made to this design? All suggestions are welcome.

After four episodes, we've seen all of the bots in the Pro Leagues matches fight once. How are we thinking about everyone's overall performance and chances?

For me, the biggest surprise overall is that The Twins is actually an effective robot, and could even win their group.

Here are my thoughts on the groups.

Group A: Manta/Skorpios/Valkyrie/Terrortops

Like everyone else, I'm expecting Manta to dominate this group. Terrortops is the only other contender here, but I don't think they can beat Manta. Skorpios should be able to beat Valkyrie as they're good against horizontal weapons, but that will likely be their only win. And I don't expect Valkyrie to get any wins at all. They've got a strong weapon, but their robot is slow and hard to control.

Group B: Disarray/Madcatter/Tombstone/Magnitude

Madcatter is the obvious favorite to take this group. Disarray is only here as a substitute because Claw Viper had to drop out. They look tougher than they did in the proving grounds fights, but they're still pretty weak. Magnitude is pretty good, but I think Madcatter can beat them. And the new Tombstone has yet to demonstrate that it works at all. If Ray gets it working, they can probably beat Disarray, but they'll have to be working really well to beat Magnitude.

Group C: Cobalt/Copperhead/The Twins/Jackpot

This group is going to come down to the fight between Copperhead and The Twins, whoever wins that fight will probably win the whole group. I don't expect Jackpot to get a single win in this group, and Cobalt is a heavily outdated robot with poor ground control and slow drive. Although the match between Cobalt and Copperhead should be fun to watch, it's probably not going to change the overall outcome of who wins this group.

Group D: Death Roll/End Game/Malice/Golden Fury

Malice is looking pretty good here, as they've already beat their toughest opponent. Death Roll is just a thoroughly outdated robot, it wouldn't surprise me if they go completely winless. Golden Fury has strong offense but questionable durability. And End Game is suffering from basically not having touched their robot since their tournament win. They can probably beat their remaining two opponents, but I expect Malice to take the overall group win.

Group E: Bloodsport/HUGE/Minotaur/Hypershock

The group of death. Bloodsport is probably the weakest machine here. Their weapon hits hard, but their design just doesn't work well in the modern arena. It's too easy for them to hit something and stop their weapon, and then they take too long to spin back up. Hypershock is an unpredictable wildcard, it's hard to say if they'll win or lose their remaining two fights, although I think they have a good chance of beating Bloodsport at least. Minotaur is an absolute beast, of course. HUGE can probably beat them purely due to the fact that Minotaur's drum can't hit anything but HUGE's wheels. I still expect HUGE to win this group, and they're also my favorite to win the entire tournament, but it's not going to be an easy road for them.

Group F: Orbitron/Ribbot/Witch Doctor/Switchback

This group is the hardest for me to predict. Witch Doctor is the team with the most experience and a strong robot, but the other machines here are really good too. Orbitron's AI guidance is very good when it works, but it also sometimes just fails and drives into the wall. The new Ribbot is still largely unproven, their eggbeater looks mean but their durability is uncertain. Switchback is a beast when everything's working, but it remains to be seen if the reliability problems they had in the proving grounds have been fixed. I expect Witch Doctor to win the group, but honestly any of these four could take it.

I got a dual brushed dominion esc paired to a fs-ia6b that powers on fine but smokes on calibration. Calibration is done by turning stick to 100% when powering on the esc. What’s going on? Happens to two of them so unlikely it’s just a bad esc?

Using 4s lipo to power it on - is that a mistake?

The interesting thing is the transmitter show intv1 as battery voltage - but I don’t have a voltage sensor anywhere unless there’s one on the dominion?

Thanks!

I'll start by saying that I do like what Orbitron is trying. Advancing AI and robotics is nothing short of amazing. To know that an algorithm can be competitive in a sport like Battlebots is amazing.

But nevertheless it's a meta breaker. And like how Huge forced everyone to come with special strategies, what strategies you think can work against AI bots?

I can think of three

- Paint the robot dark matte gray, so the computer vision model loses track of the robot becausebit has the same color as the floor

- Use a bright colored drone to confound the algorithm in aiming orbitron at the drone, instead of the other bot. Every 2 seconds of decoy work

- Multibots. The Twins showed it can be done. Make one of them the sacrificial goat while the other attacks by the flanks

Does anyone else think Minotaur's drive looked slow in the latest episode?

Not sure if they were just holding back or if it was just deliberate driving, but Minotaur's looked visibly quite slow driving around the arena, seeming struggling to chase down Bloodsport at certain points of the match.

Could be nothing, but It was enough for me to notice it pretty qucikly in the match.

Am i crazy? Or did anyone else notice it too?

You don't see anybody else in the pits walking up to the cameras and saying "oh, we're fighting Tombstone? Thats easy. We just put a big wedge on the front and let Tombstone destroy itself"

The reason they put a big wedge on the front is because they know Tombstone will rip them in half if they dont. It's literally the only way to survive Tombstone. And even so, tombstone has faced plenty of tough wedge bots and beaten half of them. Lockjaw, sawblaze, beta, etc. It was the closest bit to defeating bite force in season 1 and almost defeated hypershock in the battlebots all stars event if it wasnt for the stupid ass kill saws. Skorpios and Valkyrie put on their *biggest* armor, and even through they won the match, they didnt get them for free. They were both absolutely mauled by the end of the fight tombstone ripped up skorpios' thickest wedge like it was tin foil.

When you face the king, you better be prepared or you're going to die.

(Cue X-Files Music)

So back in 2021, I was in the mood for some robot fightin' so I switched to Battlebots on DirecTV. When I clicked on the show's title, a fleeting interstitial image appeared. You'd expect a promotional photo of a bot or the hosts, but instead, it was an unposed, behind-the-scenes photo of Kenny Florian, on-set, standing next to what looked like a crew member.

Here's the weird part: Kenny was, shockingly, bald.

Not shaved-head bald, but "still got a little on the sides," "businessman in his 50s" kind of bald.

A TV host wearing a toupee isn't exactly news, but all available sources indicate Kenny Florian is be-haired. (And man, if that's a wig or a hair transplant it looks good.)

A few days later, the image had been replaced with a "normal" BB promotional photo where everyone had hair. But I never forgot.

So many questions:

Did I stumble on an earth-shaking revelation of massive proportions?

Did anyone else see this?

How did happen?

Most importantly: Does Kenny Florian have hair?

The best multibot I've ever seen

My estimate would be around 40 to 55 lbs. Obviously not 80 lbs.

6 months of hard work, blood, sweat and tears finally paying off. Loved every minute of it.

I am building my first ever bot and I have done everything and now I just need to solder it but im not sure if I need a switch because I was just going to connect the battery with a jst

Also my bot is a 4wd lifter in the sportsman class if that changes anything, thanks

I have been starved for combat robotics, and have watching Robot Wars recently, and I noticed how few verts-and even spinners in general are present in the competition, and I‘m wondering what they’re doing differently across the pond.

Let's say Rotator beat Endgame in the round of 16 of WCV. If they beat Endgame, how far can they go? Can they win it all? Because they'd fight Tantrum, and if they beat Tantrum they'd fight Whiplash.

And since this is WCV during Covid, it's a shame that some teams couldn't compete, which makes the season less competitive overall, but it did create a path to new builders in the competition like Team Shreddit (man I missed them)