HSRC02 Event Report

Well, Morningstar was finished, on time, and right on the line weightwise. This was a major accomplishment for me, as I had previously spent every moment I could up until the day of competition for all of the other events I have attended, and this was much nicer. It was also nice to have budgeted my weight so that I could have armor, a sturdy frame and a nasty weapon, and still come out on the sunny side of 2lbs. We got to the hotel the night before and checked in with Jim and Joanne. Many thanks goes out to them as well as Jon, Ed, Chris and all the other NERC members who made this an amazing event.

	Here's a shot of Team Nar's pit area. Note coffee maker. This was essential as we got to the expo center at 7am (a tough hour for me as I normally get up to go to work at noon) They wouldn't let us in to the hall till 9 so we all sat around in the corner. Thank god for coffee.
	Here's a shot looking over the rest of the pits. At least the show gave us a whole lot of pit space.
	Here is the big box, 16 foot square. Until now I had not seen the large version, only the smaller 8 foot one at CJRC and ARC. I like the bigger box a lot. I can't wait to get my 12lber ready to compete in here. The larger box also allowed the use of 30lb bots which I was definitely in favor of.
	Ed decided to draft me to help "Rockin Rob" out with intros. It was cool as I wound up with a perfect view of all of the fights, and for the first day I didn't need to fight myself. Mmmmm uninterrupted robot fighting at close range.
	Fuzzy had Andrew build these "Demo-Bots" for the crowd to use. They were really cool. IFI controllers not only controlled the bots but they also were able to sense damage simulations as the shell pieces got pushed in. What a neat concept. They were also remarkably safe for combat robots.
	A shot of the demobots in action, with a cool motion blur effect.
	One of the few ants besides mine that I was really scared of. Outstanding work here, managing to fit an Astro Cobalt 05 running at 12 volts into an ant. We had all previously been led to believe that this would be an Astro powered hammer (after thinking about it I can't see why I fell for that one, but I did). We met later on in the rumble. There are a couple of cool shots of what happened below.
	This thing keeps getting better and better. For any who don't know, this is the famed "911." It now sports Ti armor and an Astro Cobalt 40. Glad I don't have to fight it......yet.
	Gotta love "El-Furro". Gotta want to smash it though. It's just that the thought of taking the head off a Furby is so enticing.
	I'm pretty sure this was called "J.B. Johnson." Basically an Aluminum brick it proved to be fairly durable in the 30 pound class. Simple but effective.
	Ahhh Snowcone. Basically a magmotor and a couple of drive motors, it proved to be one of my favorites in the fight against Freezer. It shredded the wheels sending sawdust everywhere. It then impaled EMF after it ripped off its lean cover.
August 2002 - I keep meaning to update this page, but I keep forgetting and the rest of the pics I have of bot action are a bit blurry. So instead I'll give my performance analysis and some fight details. My one tournament fight was against "Shoe-bot" which I lost. It was rather depressing as he was able to get up under me and ram me against the side pushing the armor sides together and lifting the legs off the ground completely. I hit him a couple times with the disc but was unable to get a grip as his wheels were faster than my legs. I lost by decision (I believe it was 20-25) which at least is not a KO, so I am moving up in the world. After that I had to console myself to fighting in the rumble. I locked the two armor sides together to prevent a repeat of the earlier match and prepared for battle. In the beginning of the rumble I hit John's Astro Eddie in the battery pack. You can see the results on the Morningstar front page. The pack was ripped off, and Eddie flew off the platform. I also hit his 2 foot long antenna wire which entangled itself in my disc preventing it from spinning any more during the fight. Finally due to that hit one side of the drivetrain came loose. I was able to stay on the platform however and managed to survive to the end of the rumble although I was not able to cause any more mayhem. Not too bad of a showing for it's first time out. Morningstar was also voted "coolest antweight" by the other competitors which means more to me than winning any matches. I put a lot of long hard hours into this thing and being recognized in that way by my peers was quite the vindication of all of my efforts. Thanks again to all the drivers tha voted for me. You guys ROCK!!!!