So, I wrote the last build report Thursday night in a hotel room in Harrisburg. Friday was 150g and antweights day, as well as early safety/checkin for anyone who wishes. There were plenty of larger bots being built in the pits.

Of all the things I forgot to bring, it was my camera’s (sucky proprietary) cable, so no pictures for now. I wasn’t able to secure an arm controller, but did get the following done…

1. Make a arm restraint/guard to follow the rules
2. Make an LED power light. It mights up the back end of the robot as in every version of TB since 4.0
3. Make the charging plug, which worked fine.
4. Install all the hardware. I only put on a bit of hardwareduring the build so each test didn’t involve putting in 30 screws. The bot’s fully loaded.
5. Dropped a 3200uF capacitor on the 5v line. Spektrum receivers apparently have a bad issue with voltage transients and draw an unusually high current. Spikes or dips on the 5v line from regulators not responding quickly enough to robot conditions can cause them to reset, which causes the bot to stop for a few seconds. I noticed this behavior in TB alot, so decided to try it. I approve. It was better that it did this in testing and on the Media Lab floor than in a match against something big and pointy.

At weigh-in, TB came in at 12.0 pounds even. However, the scale measures in half-pound increments, and I haven’t actually put it on a ounce or gram scale yet. So it could be anywhere from 12.00 to 12.24 pounds, which is over. Why the hell is my UHMW box so heavy?

The bot handled great during a quick test drive. I was able to do a fair share of drifting around the test box, and it’s zippy even on 11.1 volts.  Due to the Spektrum capacitor hack, it did not drop out at all.

Anyways, the tournament starts tomorrow. Reports later!