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| "Jack the Donkey V1" |
| As you can probably tell if you look at the picture above and the description of V2 at the end of its build, there are some differences. I was wayyyy overweight. I had to take off the skirts and change the front wedge. Besides that, I had to make a lot of cuts. I made weight, though, and looked forward to another tourney with a robot that was now considered a contender. Boy was I wrong! |
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| Jack the Donkey vs. Blizzard |
| Blizzard was built by Mike Konshak, the builder I helped out at Mechwars. I had only fought against him once before, when I got a huge win against Tinbender. His new robot was a hacked Battlebots RC car with saws for wheels and a heavy front plow. He had also overvolted the car. It was my pick to win the tourney. As the match started, I looked like a genius. he got under me and controlled me. Then he made a mistake. He drove over the arena saw. As he tried to get off, he was spun in circles. his wheelspan was perfect to get him trapped. I had no choice but to let him sit, as helping him meant sawing myself. Eventually he made it off. Within seconds of making it off, however, he had managed to upend himself on his plow. I had seen him check Blizzard through safety and noticed that he had added a tab on the top of the plow so that it would sit on his plow. I figured that this was not an unforeseeable situation and decided I would save my batteries and ensure I was good for my next match. He was counted out. Normally, I would free an opponent, but he had done this to himself. i was glad to get a win here. I thought this would set me up for another good tourney run. After all, I defeated the one I thought would go undefeated. I was in for a surprise. |
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| Jack the Donkey vs. Jimmy Crack Corn |
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| My second round draw was Andy Sauro's speedy wedge. He made sure everyone knew that Jimmy Crack Corn was the #2 seeded Sozbot and that it was one of the fastest antweights. i knew I was in for a tough fight. I was prepared to make a trip through the loser's bracket. As the fight started, JCC came out and got under Jack. He immediately took Jack to a wall where he was squarely under my body. his size was perfect so that my wheels were spinning in midair. This is when the match got funny. A spectator asked Andy if he could lift Jack with his servo-driven self-righting mechanism. He said he'd see. He then proceeded to lift me up. This caused Jack to shift positions slightly. If you'll notice on the picture, the lifter pushes towards a side with a small black rectangle right above the wheel. This is an on/off switch. When I came down, I mistakenly spun my wheel in the correct direction and a screw holding the wheel on hit the switch. The referees asked Andy what was wrong. He thought he was stuck. They took me off of him and he attempted to free himself. that's hwen he realized he was dead. Two strange twists of events had given Jack a 2-0 record and 2 knockouts. Would it last? |
| Jack the Donkey vs. Angry Dustpan |
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| My next match was Andy Sauro's other antweight that was being driven by Derek Zahn, who is awesome at driving. It is quite obviously a dustpan on a pair of speedy and powerful wheels. It had had no trouble knocking out all comers before me by shoving them out of the arena. I hoped to change that. I don't remember a whole lot about the match. I had planned to come out backwards. this would allow me to swing my front around and get behind him. It didn't work. after a small amount of tussling, they pushed me out. This was an awesome robot. |
| Jack the Donkey vs. Captain Underpants |
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| Captain Underpants was another Battlebots toy, but had treads and a good wedge. It was well driven and had won quite a few fights. i was very impressed by it and did not look forward to fighting it. As the match began, he got under me. he started to show me the arena. My tires were ripped up by the saw a few times, but I was still fighting. At one point, I kind of took over. I pushed him around a bit. One of his treads fell off. I then tried to aim him towards the saw to remove the other tread. It didn't work. I don't remember if I survived the whole match or he pushed me out, but I lost big time by the end. Jack was out. |
| I had high hopes for Jack in this tourney. I had made a bad group of decisions in the design, though. I did my best and drove Jack pretty well. In robots, half of the game is getting lucky and the other half is hoping your opponent doesn't. I got lucky and it allowed a sub-par robot to finish high. The next version of Jack, Spicy Jack, will be much better, though. |