Battlebots Championship VII Returns January 5, 2023! Also NHRL and more!

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Battlebots Championship VII Returns January 5, 2023! Also NHRL and more!

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

Fish Of Doom posted:

Man this is the first season of Battlebots ever that I'm just not feeling excited about. I think 85% of the field being a vertical spinner now is kinda bumming me out.

Without saying anything that'd go over the line on my NDA I can say that some of the best fights I've ever seen happened this season, and I don't just mean "best at BattleBots" when I say that.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2022 23:47

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# ¿ May 18, 2025 05:36

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

Coaaab posted:

If I am not mistaken, this is him

Yep, that's me.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2022 23:30

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

SLICK GOKU BABY posted:

I guess Discovery ordered more episodes for this season since now it's an extra 2 months you gotta be subscribed if you're watching via Discovery Plus... Although the benefit to Discovery Plus is that the new episodes go up Thursday morning, so the Thursday night episode is already up.

Also a new thing they did this season, Battlebots did the full fight schedule prior to filming. So there's not going to be any teams that only do 2 fights and get in the championship bracket. Not sure how it works with the reserve teams.

But in doing so, Battlebots has also released the full fightcard schedule for the entire season. I will wait to post the link to it though since Battlebots is dumb and the results from Episode 1 are also on that page...

For the fight nights, if a reserve team gets swapped in they take over the schedule of the bot they are replacing.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2023 14:53

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

mossyfisk posted:

Lots of sports have appeal systems like that, because delays cost money.

They should probably show the scoring matrix on screen for a few seconds at some point though, it's actually very specific now and almost no one complaining online understands it.

Yeah, in my experience a significant portion of the complaints about a judges decision end up referring to some made up criteria. It's rare that what I'd score a fight is more than a point away from what the judges scored for any given match and I was heavily involved in writing the current criteria.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2023 15:01

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

Railing Kill posted:

It's a bit of both. I wouldn't imagine a scenario where, say, Ripperoni went 0-4 but was really weird and entertaining and they let them into the tourney anyway. Wins probably matter more, and being entertaining will break ties for teams on the bubble.

People get really upset when you let an 0-4 bot into the tournament.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2023 21:51

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

PostNouveau posted:

I would really hate it if the appeals process was "who can argue their case better?" The fights should speak for themselves, and it's a good idea to have a mechanism where the judges can re-review the footage, but they should be trusted to make the right call on review without someone chirping at them to look at this or that.

Maybe the match steward can shed some light on it since he posts here! I'm probably reading too much into the brief, heavily edited bits shown on TV, but it looked like Malice's captain laid out a good case for what the judges should review more closely, but on the other side, Valkyrie's captain felt super loving awkward and didn't want anything to do with the process and did not muster any arguments for her side. And she shouldn't have to; they're bot builders not lawyers.

But like I said, Lisa's score card changed so much that it seems to me they went back and looked at everything. Ultimately, the process did result in them correcting a bad initial call too.

Haven't watched the edit yet, but the process was roughly this:

Team says they're appealing
I meet with a rep from each team to talk over their arguments
I bring the arguments to the judges who are able to rewatch the fight while considering the arguments. I'm also right there to clarify any criteria questions they may have. (The criteria's solid, but teams always come up with something new)
The judges then can choose to create a new scorecard or stay with what they submitted the first time
Once that's done the results get announced.

I'll be doing the Behind the Bots podcast (they're taking questions now at https://www.facebook.com/behindthebots/posts/pfbid02HkKEC4DyYBbY7iCHQGF3j3icci8BvWAFsF3YGZpqsjkjyJ4ZcahXc4qJfDX4c9Qxl among other places) which will come out on Wednesday. I suspect there will be some detailed discussion of the Valk/Malice fight.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2023 02:18

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

Antivehicular posted:

Yeah, Shreddit Bro's really felt like a Hail Mary, which is sympathetic given that it sounds like that team is at risk of not getting asked back at all after their lack of success, but they had absolutely no case. I can almost understand Shatter playing the "our weapon worked, theirs didn't" card, and maybe just some general confusion because what the gently caress even was that fight, but it was a pretty shaky argument. In general, I suspect the teams aren't taking the right message from Team Malice's successful appeal -- that it was successful because Bunny Soriel had a concrete, objective argument for the judges to consider, and if you can't put together that level of argument, you're probably just wasting everyone's time.

In the Horizon fight, both disks spun at the end. Probably not a shock that the judges were making extra sure they were watching for powered motion after the Malice/Valkyrie appeal.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2023 14:09

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

Antivehicular posted:

Oh, okay -- I thought they'd lost a disk, which would make the Shatter appeal make more sense. Thanks for the clarification!

Yeah, if they thought half the weapon was down the appeal makes a ton of sense. From what I remember talking to the team they'd occasionally run into an issue where after a hit the esc would lose sync with the motor (essentially, motor is stopped, esc thinks it isn't) and they'd have to throttle all the way down to get it sync'd back up. Not sure if that's specifically the issue in this fight but stuff like that can be why a weapon looks dead for a bit then comes back.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2023 00:02

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

Great Beer posted:

Depending on how you define worked, quite a few. Huge, sawblaze, riptide, minotaur (sorta), and mammoth have all had varying levels of success.

Overhaul and mega tento both worked fine, though I'd hesitate to call either of them good. That's more due to the increased lethality between when they were designed vs when they were scaled.

There's things like smeeeee, starchild, or horizon that just don't seem to be (or aren't) working because tiny spinners don't work on things that can tank a hit from something like tombstone.

And then there's shreddit bro which has no concept level flaws but it's full of mechanical ones.

The big thing is that it's a much more direct effort to scale from 30lbs to 250lbs, Season 2 Bombshell was heavily based on my 30lb bot Nyx, and a lot of what I did with Nyx was pretty directly applicable to Bombshell. 3lbs to 250lbs is a lot more work to scale as there's a lot of little details that have to change. Another thing to keep in mind with Shreddit is that by the typical standard of scaling up bots, it's not even close to directly scaled. They've also built an entirely new bot each time, so each one has some pretty major risks for the new bot teething bugs that come with a fresh build. The other thing, if I recall the timeline right, is that the first Pain Train was built less than a year after Evan got started in robot combat. When you see a bot get scaled up and work right out of the gate it's often from a team that has a lot more experience.

Stepping back in time a bit to filming, where my thinking on Shreddit Bro was between the Lucky and Overhaul fights was that it was a bot with a lot of potential. All the pieces were there, when the weapon worked, it worked well. When the drive worked, it worked well. They just needed to get both cooperating at the same time. It's also been said before, but this isn't a situation where they've had months to test and tune. The teams have had between 1-2 days between fights at most, so what feels like weeks to improve is often hours at best.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2023 03:18

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

PostNouveau posted:

Oh yeah, this is neat.

https://www.fingertechrobotics.com/proddetail.php?prod=ft-3lb-beater-bot

Seems like if you had a kid who is into robotics, it's a good way for them to explore it without a huge price tag.

Yeah, the 3lb (along with 1lb and plastic 1lb) class is a great way to get started. Plenty of kit options out there at varying levels of cost/competitiveness and loads of resources on how to build bots.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2023 00:09

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

Nodoze posted:

He's right to a degree but also wrong. Hydra and Claw Viper are both capable of winning the giant nut, Saw Blaze can do damage but it's not out there blowing other bots apart like Riptide or Tombstone do either. He's one of the last 8? bots left right now

There is some sour grapes at play here too. Some designs are just uncompetitive. Duck isn't really great at anything except being a tank but that only takes you so far. Can't be out here blaming KE bots for you not winning anything when you'd also get washed by the other control bots too

I'll second this, the current judging criteria is as friendly as it has ever been in the reboot era to non-KE bots. If everything's still working on your bot at the end of the fight the worst you'll do on damage is lose 3-2. Win aggression & control 2-1 and the fight's yours. Winning with control bots is harder than KE bots, but that's more down to physics than the rules.

# ¿ May 23, 2023 14:11

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

SLICK GOKU BABY posted:

Yea, Team Malice is a really cool team. And them cheering as Faruq announced Minotaur as the winner is truly great. Never was 100% sure what to think of Team Malice, but 100% on board with them in the future, hopefully they can get their reliability down and be a real force in championship VIII!

Not only are they, as a team, fans of the sport, but they put a lot of time and effort into supporting other teams at both the local and national level. On reliability, they were testing some new weapon structure stuff at Robogames and it seemed to work very well.

# ¿ May 24, 2023 22:46

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

PostNouveau posted:

Quarters

Sawblaze-Minotaur: All-timer of a fight. Minotaur almost pulled off scissors beating rock there. That sequence of Minotaur with a flaming rear end flipping Sawblaze over looked like they were gonna do it.

WD-Huge: Dull fight. WD was pretty durable in getting its face whacked over and over, but Huge's weapon didn't break so I am beginning to think no one left can counter Huge.

Ribbot-Hydra: This is the oddest fight of the night. Just tentatively poking each other the first half. Seems like a pretty good strategy by Ribbot!

Riptide-Copperhead: This is a lot to put on a high school student on hours' notice. I don't think I would have done it, just for the kid's sake. Riptide has had pretty easy drives so far, but as this fight showed any fight can turn into a 3-minute technical. Hopefully the kid didn't take it too hard.

Surprised Riptide did not appeal the split decision. lol at the new captain calling being weighed 3 times "adversity".

Semis

Sawblaze-Ribbot: lol at the minute-long do si do. Sawblaze has been popping so many batteries.

Ah, Riptide did appeal. Makes sense.

Copperhead-Huge: Copperhead at least trying something different by spinning backward

Finals

Sawblaze is probably the best counter left for Huge, but still hard to picture a Sawblaze win before the fight. It can't do the one thing it's best at: scoop and slam.

I think this "death of the 4wd verts" package is premature. The dominance of those bots makes Huge most effective because the playoff field was packed with bots Huge is designed to beat.

Cradle attachment does not seem like a good idea to me. You're not going to stop the weapon dead, allowing you to shove Huge around by the weapon. Sawblaze is pretty good at deflecting blows geometrically, but now you're just giving Huge a target.

The big ears are great, though. Boy, did those put in a lot of work. Really hard to say who won there. I do not envy the judges.

Really glad the attachment was ultimately not a throw by Sawblaze. That was a great final.

Jesus these slo mo shots. Sawblaze sniped 3 of the 4 weapon belts on Huge it looks like.

Interesting to see (essentially) a control bot finally win in the most destructive era of the sport.

Thought on the finals matchup:

Sawblaze/Huge is probably my favorite final of the entire reboot. I'd put decent odds that this match could rate as the best BattleBots final outright. Such a good match.

# ¿ May 25, 2023 14:45

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

Borsche69 posted:

mikencr sighting behind the judges after the final. lookin good dude

Thanks, made a lot of positive changes the last few years.

# ¿ May 26, 2023 02:51

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

Great Beer posted:

They seem to make money. How much is a mystery, heavyweight robot parts are definitely a niche market. https://www.teamwhyachi.com/shop.html

Part of that is bot parts are only a portion of their business-

http://www.westarmfg.com/ and http://uddergun.com/ are likely their main income sources.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2023 19:44

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

Given that this is the defacto robot combat thread on here, I'd feel remiss if I didn't post the new 1lber I'm bringing to Dragon Con this weekend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1Lom4jwVCQ

0.050" heat treated 4130 steel chassis on a 1lb bot because I make terrible decisions. Higher voltage than a lot of 3lb bots and all brushless for good measure.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2023 02:35

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

GuavaMoment posted:

What's the stats on the lifting arm? Brushless servo for fine control? Or just a gearbox that you stop before it locks up? Electrical end stops maybe...

It's one of these gearmotors with an extra stage in the gearbox https://repeat-robotics.com/buy/mk3/ along with an external reduction stage on 4s lipo with their AM32 drive esc https://repeat-robotics.com/buy/am32/

# ¿ Aug 29, 2023 16:47

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

Here's another new bot, with this one I came up with the name and built the bot to suit it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4-EwGFc1cQ

# ¿ Aug 30, 2023 21:45

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

Video from Robot Battles 71 is up-

Antweight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYJVpez6DGQ&list=PLXxXO1LhNQxQJRtjAN-LxNlx-dLpTyePV

Beetleweight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKvWViEdw38&list=PLXxXO1LhNQxRppH94Q3TFtkQRv7Tp-uIM

Hobbyweight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHbuc9ZO7eU&list=PLXxXO1LhNQxTl8_wx3Ja6zBlV-HwfLTtM

Featherweight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvFsSO_84FU&list=PLXxXO1LhNQxRrtDIFxlqjT6lfZq08J4D3

# ¿ Sep 6, 2023 05:02

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

Bertha the Toaster posted:

Thanks, will give those a watch soon, I scrolled down enough to confirm this includes your new bot from up the page, I hope you did well. Or at had fun at least.

Edit: I'm such a muppet. I only just put together the colours of Outlier and your avatar/logo.

Holy gently caress, that fight against Swoop, well played Mike, well played. Kept your cool and didn't give up despite losing like half your bot.

Thanks, and yeah, not panicking was the only thing that saved me there, Swoop was a beast.

Bertha the Toaster posted:

That final was really close, I have no idea how they could call that. Also, they didn't actually say the result. Who won!?

If you're talking for 1lb, the winner was ...... Outlier ....... From what I recall it took a bit for the decision.

Some extra detail: Late in the fight you'll notice one side stops working, starts up again, then stops for good. At the end of the fight the other side stopped too. Took the bot apart to see what happened and I managed to melt the little 3d printed motor covers enough that they bound up the drive motors in the final. Pried them off and the drive motors are running happy as ever. Going to rework some bits on the lifter assembly so it doesn't get removed the same way again and set it up for better torque transfer so it should be running better next time.

MikeNCR fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Sep 6, 2023

# ¿ Sep 6, 2023 14:54

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

Bertha the Toaster posted:

Indeed I was, I don't know about you but that looked like a fight where I'd be happy for either person to win it was so close and so well fought by both sides. Regardless, congratulations to the winner, it was well earned.

Oh yeah, I'd have had zero complaints if the judges went the other way.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2023 17:13

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

For anyone that wants to skip to just seeing how High Steaks did, here's a quick montage of its fights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq3ic_x3M44

# ¿ Sep 7, 2023 15:32

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

Chronojam posted:

Clawviper isn't quite a crusher but it's fast as gently caress and if it were a crusher, it would be pretty bonkers. I guess I want to see a stupid fast crusher!

Claw Viper's totally a crusher, it just crushes the other bot between itself and the wall.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2023 02:34

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

dwarf74 posted:

Wow

I was only half kidding. And I undersold it. Holy poo poo what an episode.

Just imagine you're Evan and had to sit around during all of WCVII seeing all the crap thrown at the team knowing this episode was coming.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2023 03:31

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

The discord post was covering changes to the rules, not the full ruleset, so stuff that didn't change (but was related to/closely followed the changed text) wasn't included.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2023 20:04

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

PostNouveau posted:

It doesn't seem like they came down as hard on the uber-control bots as people thought they would.

Yeah, I think there's a perception that NHRL doesn't like control bots, which isn't the case at all.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2023 20:26

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

dwarf74 posted:

Anyone know if NHRL going to put up the full stream from Saturday or just this prime time 4 hour video?

Here's the earlier part of the day - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C6iSvDtFB4

They're doing a new split now where the first part of the day is gonna be on this channel with a much tighter focus on fights, then they take a short break and do the quarter finals to finals during "prime time" on the main channel.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2024 04:11

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

UltraShame posted:

is this a subscription thing or just for free/funzos on youtube?

Free.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2025 14:12

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

RBA Starblade posted:

For what they're working with now I thought the format was pretty good! Just wish there was more, I liked having the episode on and glancing at it between meetings all day lol

Hope it works out for them, NHRL and all that is neat but it's just not the same when the robots aren't 250 pounds

Yeah, I think particularly for YouTube or similar the <30min format works nicely. Seemed like it gave some good opportunities for teams to show their personalities as well.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2025 17:23

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# ¿ May 18, 2025 05:36

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

Looks like 2-3 weeks until the next one comes out.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2025 04:05

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Battlebots Championship VII Returns January 5, 2023! Also NHRL and more!