A while ago we were invited to take part in a weekend event run for Schools.  Over the past year schools around Kent have been building their own heavyweight robots - with the help of local engineering firms.  The weekend event was the chance for the schools to pit their machines against each other in a number of events - an assault course (like pinball), races and finally head to head fights.

None of us roboteers were quite sure what to expect - would the robots be mobile even ?  Or at the other extreme, what if the schools hadn't really built them at all, and the engineering companies had made them - we could end up getting trashed !   For this event Storm was running some new test scoops on the front of the machine. 

It was an early start for me on Saturday morning (up before 6) to get down to Kent with Storm and all the parts for about 8am.  We unloaded Storm and went for a wander around the pits.  The schools robots that were there looked good - we were impressed.  The were all based on wheelchair technology - some were still wheelchairs, but the all looked like they would go the distance and they certainly had plenty of excited looking kids milling around them.

We decided to put Storm into the arena to do a bit of arena testing (the floor was supposed to be plywood, but for some reason chipboard had been ordered instead).  We took Storm for a drive about an stripped up a lot of the tape that they had put on the floor (to try to join the boards together and to mark out lanes for the racing).  We were a bit worried as to how the floor would fare, but it was going to be ok for the kids robots, its was our robots that we were worried about.

Storm ran really well all day on the Saturday, it was in the arena at every opportunity as a house robot, and even found time to go in for some football in the afternoon with the other house robots.  

We got the chance to have a tug of war against Tornado, something that we had been wanting to do for ages.  3..2..1... go... Storm and Tornado just sat there, it was hilarious.  Tornado was bouncing around on its tyres, Storm just sat there in hard reverse..... eventually Tornado found some grip and started to edge Storm backwards.... then Storm found some grip and started to edge Tornado backwards.... smoke was starting to come off the wheels of Storm and Tornado !  In the end Tornado just sneaked a win - but it was a close fight and if we had got around to putting the new wheels on Storm, we wouldn't have had a problem pulling them back across the arena.  But its what happens on the day that matters, and Tornado won it.

We also got the chance to do some pretty serious stress testing of Storm in a one on one head to head clash with Tornado.  One of the schools put in the discarded robot shell for Storm and Tornado to smash up.  This involved lining up on opposite sides of the shell and ramming at full speed together into it... the shell flew up in the air and Storm and Tornado collided at full speed... again... and again.... and again.  Absolutely no damage worth mentioning to Storm... few dents, but nothing that was a problem - a successful test !

In the last event on the Saturday though disaster struck (or so we thought).  We were driving Storm around when Bryan reversed Tornado into us with a bit of force and a wheel came off !  It look rather amusing rolling around the arena - but we were worried at this point as we didn't know how it had come off.  If the axle had sheared off, or the hub had broken then we had problems as the design obviously wasn't strong enough !

When we got Storm back to the pits for inspection a very apologetic and guilty looking Team Tornado came over.  Luckily there was no damage to Storm as such.  The retainer on the inside end of the axle had come loose, so there was nothing to stop the axle sliding about.  All it took was a good knock and it fell out - wheel and all.  Took about 5 mins to fix (and we must thank Bryan and Andrew from Tornado for rushing in to help).  We also learnt just how strong our chains are (people have been worried there are too small).  The chain had got totally mashed through the gears and sprockets in the gearbox... and Andrew (Tornado)'s comment was "I can't vouch for the chain surviving this" as he yanked it out.  The chain was untouched however.... prompting Andrew and Bryan to ask "where can we get some of this!!", we'll move replacing the chains down the priority list for a bit I think.

On the Sunday morning we ran for about an hour in the arena, before coming back to the pits with an odd problem.  One of the drive was stiff - it turned out to be some much that had got into the bearing, and a quick clean out sorted it and Storm was back running again.

However.... one of the schools running (who got knocked out on a very very very dubious judges decision) had damaged their robot and weren't going to be able to take part in the finals - they had blown their speed controller.  We'll we didn't have many options - the kids all looked gutted... a real "well we may as well go home" look on their faces.  We couldn't have that, so with the help of the Tornado team, we stripped our Vantec 47E out of Storm, and transplanted it into the schools robot..... and it worked.  They rolled back out into the arena complete with "Powered by Vantec RDFR Control" on the back and of course "Sponsored by Storm and Tornado".

Dantomkia, Tornado and Wolverine learn to wire a Vantec up and find out its easy !

The girls with the robot... ready for action again.

20 mins later... and they're ready to roll.  Now they understand the spirit of Robot Wars !

They were able to carry on with their battles (and had the added advantage that the house robots were under strict instructions from us to keep our Vantec safe) so when they did finally break down, they ended up with a protective line of house robots stopping the other robot from attacking them any more !  Its a shame that they didn't go further, but we're going to have a word with the organisers and see if we can suggest that the schools teams have a 'Mentor' from a Robot Wars team to keep them on the right track.  There was some wonderful innovation shown by all the schools (including the school we helped who actually had a flipper on their robot!) - but with a little guidance, a lot of the reliability and radio problems that they were having could have been avoided !  We'll see what happens, but if they do agree to a Mentor - I think we've already found a school to help out !

As for Storm, we also tested out our new Telemetry system - the results of which can be seen below.... more on that system coming later though !

One of the Telemetry outputs of the event

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