User blog:Combatwombat555/BBB5: The Spooky Social

So about a month ago I found out about a social run by Bristol Bot Builders of antweight robots happening in, well, Bristol. Seeing as I'm at university in Bath, a mere 20 minute train ride away, and that I'm in possession of a Shakey antweight... well, you can see where this is going.

However, I didn't just want to turn up with a stock flipper Shakeybot. For one, Alex Shakespeare himself was attending, and it just didn't seem right to show up with something I hadn't built, make no modifications, and potentially have to battle him at some point. Plus, it was a Halloween-themed social, so the effort was expected. So, Mort the flipper became Spiderbot. The, er, chomper?

Getting to grips with it when I first got Mort, one of my favourite manoeuvres was grabbing hold of other objects and using that to grapple and control them. Why not turn it into a dedicated grabber then? Well, many reasons, but after teeth made from an old water bottle, pipe-cleaner legs and the all-important googly eyes were added, Spiderbot was born and ready for action. Well, nearly- somehow in the past year a wheel managed to shed its tyre (I think, bizarrely, my brother's dog chewed on precisely that and nothing else?), and I had only noticed a couple of days before... And the only replacements were available from... oh, Alex Shakespeare again. Who said I could pick them up from him on the Sunday. Sorted.

First event was the 2v2s (and yes, I'm skipping over the turning up slightly late, being incredibly nervous due to not knowing anyone, getting slightly starstruck by some actual Robot Wars roboteers being there, frantically having to put a new wheel on, and getting a team-mate from a group of people who again I didn't know). I was paired with another Alex who had his own Shakey flipper after his very scary spinner design hadn't quite been brought to fruition yet. So, in a fight with no driving practice with a robot not being used how its creator intended and a team-mate who was a self-proclaimed terrible driver. This could only go well.

And, amazingly, it did. We somehow went 4-0 to make it to the final, and I don't think anyone was more surprised than us. Ok, we lost the final in literally seconds, but still, even to make it there... Full video available here, the 2v2s start from about the 5 minute mark.

Second event, football, with a super spooky skull as the ball. Yeah, they really committed to the theme, even if skulls don't tend to actually be ball-shaped. Eager not to break up a successful partnership, Alex and I teamed up with another Shakey bot of Mike (I believe his name was Mike- apologies if you've somehow gone on the wiki, found this, and your name isn't, in fact, Mike). I don't remember much about our first match (other than we won, turns out spider legs are pretty good for filling a goal and ball control), but for the second my team-mates decided that the best way to not concede a goal.. was to remove it. What followed was about five minutes of carnage where just about every part of the pitch was torn up and used as makeshift weaponry, culminating in me pinning/nomming on their last mobile defender whilst Alex painstakingly manoeuvred the skull/ball in to the net for a 1-0 win. Sadly no footage remains of this glorious melee after the memory card became full after the 2v2s. Sad face.

Next up was the gauntlet. The less said about it the better- turns out, spider legs are great for goalkeeping, not so good for squeezing through tight gaps.

The 1-on-1 tournament, and time for the spinners to join the fray. Slightly dreading the possibility of Spiderbot getting torn apart by a particularly vicious spinner (Shakey's very scary bar spinner Don't Hug Me I'm Scared and Rory Mangles' awesomely-named drum spinner walker Drumbledore were the two big worries), I signed up anyway, and managed to avoid both. I again don't remember much about my fights, other than I won one (against quite a nicely constructed flipper that I think managed to pit itself), lost my next (I believe to yet another Shakey flipper?) to drop into the losers' bracket where I lost again to end my run. That loss was to the eventual and very unexpected champions, a clusterbot (!) of two wedge-shaped coffins which were superbly driven throughout, hats off to them.

Best fight of the night had to be when Don't Hug Me I'm Scared and Drumbledore met, surprisingly in the losers' bracket after shock defeats. I think the video can speak for itself.

The remainder of the evening was taken up by a combination of rumbles (which I seemed to get pitted in pretty much instantly every time, grumble grumble - but did manage to stop Shakey's very scary vertical spinner after some legs got yanked into his disc. Entanglement works! But then we both got pitted together. Boo), 'boss battles' (taking on a couple of beetleweights with antweights is hard), and spinner exhibition fights (my favourite of featured a vertical bar spinner with marshmallow flails that managed to snag its own spinner in its own cape. And then won.).

Spiderbot managed to escape the evening pretty much unscathed besides missing a few legs and receiving a cavity from Shakey's other other very scary robot Ghostwriter, armed with a Sharpie.

All in all, I had a blast. Some incredible fights, some hilarious ones. But more than that: I turned up, not knowing anyone, with a bot made by someone else that my one modification was to make it look like a blooming spider, anxieties going haywire and wondering 'is this actually a good idea?' But everyone was so welcoming, and it's such a great community. If anyone does from there does end up reading it, thanks so much. I'll definitely be back for the next social, hopefully with my own creation this time, failing that possibly a legless/more Christmassy Spiderbot...