Sin City Shakedown 2019 Event Report
Just 2 weeks after October Obliteration, I rebuilt Sandstorm to compete in Las Vegas at Sin City Showdown.
Sandstorm V2.3
Since getting my 3D printer, I’ve been able to rapidly iterate on robots at a pace that I’ve never been able to do before. Previously, I’ve outsourced 3D printing and other processes since I didn’t have easy access to this stuff on my own.
V2.3 is the third iteration of the second major version of Sandstorm. The biggest change was scrapping the small diameter disk spinner and reverting to the old AR500 weapon from V1.2. The reach of the small disk was not nearly enough to properly transfer energy into opponents and its diameter meant it had even less inertia than either of my previous weapon designs. Reverting back to the larger diameter disk solved both of those issues.
Additionally, I’ve added a new wedge setup inspired by Lynx. It included pockets to mount magnets to ensure they stuck to steel floors better than springs.
Fight 1 — Vs Kelpie
Prior to this fight, I was repairing an issue I encountered during safety checks where the carrier pins inside of one of my drive gearboxes decided to shear themselves. Due to my assortment of gearboxes in hand, I wasn’t able to find a drop-in replacement before the fight. I resorted to reassembling a similar gearbox of a different ratio, leading to a less than ideal driving setup.
The fight itself started about as well as I’d hoped. I drove conservatively because I wasn’t sure what would break next. Kelpie got a lot of good flips on me before the newest failure popped up — pinions slipping against the motors. This disabled one side of my drivetrain for the remainder of the fight. This was particularly frustrating since I thought I took measures to prevent that exact issue the night before. I reassembled the gearboxes with fresh motors and fresh pinions with loctite to help retain the pinions on the shafts.
The fight later ended with both side drive pinions slipping and a KO for Kelpie.
I was able to get a fun recovery done with a half functioning drivetrain later on in the fight:
Result: Loss via KO
Fight 2— Vs Gothmog
Both robots in this fight were frantically repairing issues from their earlier fights. For me, I was fixing my drivetrain while Gothmog’s team was debugging some electrical issues.
I was fully prepared to go 0–2 and start packing after this fight.
Loading in, they told me that they were likely going to have issues, with their final power-on sealing the deal. After doing a quick connection test, their robot shut off with no way to recover before the fight started.
I did the same thing and noticed that the glue I used to set the pinions probably didn’t cure in time so my drivetrain was going to be as wonky as ever.
The event organizer agreed that since both of us were having issues, there would not be a count-out and the match ended whenever the last robot would stop moving. With both robots having major issues, I asked the Gothmog drivers if they wanted me to hit them. They wholeheartedly agreed and I spent the match wailing on a dead robot with my weapon. I was able to do more damage than I’d hoped, shown below:
Not a win that I’m proud of, but luckily I was able to do some good damage on the way.
Result: Win via KO.
Fight 3 — Vs Rickety Cricket
Rickety Cricket was probably the most destructive robot at the event. It was a full 3lb spinner with a walking drivetrain which meant their robot qualified for a weight bonus.
Prior to the fight, I told the driver that this was likely my last fight with this robot and that I wanted him to do as much damage as possible.
In prepping for the fight, Rickety Cricket released magic smoke and was rendered dead for the event. Rather than repeat the Gothmog fight, Rickety Cricket bowed out and forfeit before taking to the box.
Result: Win via Forfeit.
Fight 4 — Vs Wumbo
A legendary fight a whole year in the making. Jeff and Wumbo were my first pit neighbors way back at Destruction Under the Stars 2018 and I frequently bounce ideas off of him leading up to events. Wumbo is also the only robot other than Rickety Cricket that I knew would seriously damage my weapon module.
I told Jeff that the offer to Rickety Cricket also extends to Wumbo. Do as much damage as you can since this is the last time this version of Sandstorm would fight.
He accepted the offer and we both spun our weapons up to full speed. Sparks flew and my weapon assembly shattered within moments.
Wumbo also inflicted some cool gouges in the weapon bar in the impact, seen above. Overall this fight about as well as I expected.
Result: Loss via Tap Out
Event Result: 3rd place, eliminated in loser’s bracket finals.
Final thoughts on Sandstorm: I’m happy with the bigger weapon geometry and the wedgelet concepts on V2.3, but the drivetrain is something I’ve grown to hate for a few events now. Weapon and wedgelet will live on in some form for V3, but expect a whole architecture overhaul for it.
Sandstorm V3 will debut at LA Maker Faire Bash next month.