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"Achievements: First HeavyWeight in Australia to drive and have a working weapon."
— From the Robowars Australia database


Vertex was an Australian heavyweight robot designed with the intention of entering the cancelled Series 8 of classic era Robot Wars.

Design[]

Vertex was a tall rounded box shaped robot with a wedge on the back. The robot had six wheels powered by a pair of 24v Briggs & Stratton starter motors which could produce between 8-12 horsepower, with four larger wheels protected inside of the chassis and another set of two smaller wheels on the back wedge of the robot to help it drive inverted. Vertex was armed with 20kg vertical flywheel from a car powered by a 20cc McCullogh Chainsaw engine, also featuring a pneumatic self-righting arm on the top of the robot. Vertex's chassis consisted of welded 25mm Mild Steel box-secction covered in 3mm for armour, however this armour was only intended to be temporary. In addition to the two 15ah SLA batteries, Vertex featured a 40-amp alternator from a car which was powered by a chainsaw engine which served as a battery back up charger to ensure that it could run for a full fight without losing power. Minus the speed controllers and radio equipment, the entire robot cost around $1900 to build with some of the parts being donated.

Qualification[]

Vertex

A CAD of Vertex

Construction of Vertex started some time in 2001 and the machine took a further three years to be finished in 2004, possibly due to the complexity of it's internals. The team intended to enter Series 8 of Robot Wars however, this was unfortunately cancelled and Vertex never ended up competing in any capacity.

Series Record[]

Series Vertex Series Record
The First Wars Did not enter
The Second Wars Did not enter
The Third Wars Did not enter
The Fourth Wars Did not enter
The Fifth Wars Did not enter
The Sixth Wars Did not enter
The Seventh Wars Did not enter
Series 8 Did not enter
Series 9 Did not enter
Series 10 Did not enter

Outside Robot Wars[]

Although Vertex was never able to compete after Robot Wars due to none of the arenas in Australia being able to handle heavyweights at the time, it would still occasionally make appearances as a static display, most notably at the third Robowars Australia Nationals event in 2006 and Metal Mayhem 7. During the latter, Vertex would be turned on and ran outside the event venue as part of a demonstration. It is unclear of what might have happened to Vertex after this.

Vertical Limits

Andrew's featherweight Vertical Limits

Andrew Aidulis would compete in Australian Featherweight events for many years with a variety of robots, most notably Hemorrhage, a Featherweight lifter with an angled-spinner on the back which competed at Metal Mayhem 1, Australia's first ever combat robot event and Vertical Limits which was a four-wheel drive Featherweight with a vertical flywheel, much like Vertex.

Aaron Knight would go on to form his own team named Team Knightrous and would go on to build many succesful robots in both the Antweight, Beetleweight and Featherweight classes. Aaron's perhaps most notable robots include Scarlet, an incredibly destructive Antweight horizontal-spinner, MBX (Melty Brain Xperiment), a series of Featherweight melty-brain spinners and Schmackhead, a Featherweight wedge.

Trivia[]

  • Team Vertex share their name with an eSports organisation based in Göttingen, Germany.

External links[]

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