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OUNDLE
MILL
2001 B
This meeting at Oundle was the third we have been to, and was probably the best attended so far. As always, it was organised by Martin from Anthrax (sorry, Draven) and Mark from Executioner. For a change Tornado didn't suffer any major problems (this venue has been a bit of a jinx for us before), but we did have a rather intimate encounter with a new crushing robot, and some of the events of the day were to lead towards the creation of the Event Safety Document...
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We prepared Tornado at Daves in the morning, meeting Ed from Storm before we left for Oundle. When we arrived the event had already started, and quite a few robots were set up in the car park.
Present over the course of the day were: Killerhurtz, Terrorhurtz, Anarchy, King B Powerworks, Executioner (minus Mark who had to work)...
...Draven (Anthrax), Kan Opener, Velocirippa, Bulldog Breed 3...
...Steel Avenger, Spam, Shredder, Dominator 2...
...Stinger, Behemoth, Onslaught, and of course Tornado. Others (without photos above) were Chaos 2 (minus George), and Mortis Infranor, with Sump Thing and the Savage Toaster also turning up later.
Adam Clark brought along his wonderful cow bike, and an RC VW camper that did continuous donuts...
Yes, that's a jet engine on a goped... We didn't see the attempts to start it, but we are assured they were amusing!
Draven demonstrates its self righter.
Jon from Spam brought along the chassis of Judge Mech for everyone to trash - and we all had a good old go! Draven did best, showing just how good their crusher is when it works - unfortunately their drivetrain let them down again, but at least they remained under control and didn't catch fire!
Excecutioner wasn't going to let Draven do all the crushing...
We spent some time testing Eds telemetry (logging) system, to see what information we could record in a reasonably strenuous test environment.
There were quite a few little tussles between everyone who was running, including Behemoth, Onslaught, King B, Draven, and Bulldog Breed, although most people focused their attentions on what was left of Judge Mech.
Best Comedy Weapon award went to Steel Avenger - John, what are you like!
Also having a go at the remains of Judge Mech was the spinning disc robot Shredder - we don't think it should have been running its weapon at all, and when a bit of polycarb flew towards Dave and I, enough was enough - Dave went over and had words. Having a spinning disc run up at an event like this is not what we would expect to happen and it's not something most teams would dream of doing. My words about this incident on the Robot Wars forum sowed the seeds for the Event Safety Document, and I know the Shredder guys realise their mistake and are sorry for it now - everyone has forgiven them.
We had a big tussle with Kan Opener, who had a few goes at getting hold of us - they finally managed and made a bit of a mess of the top of the chassis - not the sort of damage we would expect at an event like this.
Alistair was apologetic - he hadn't been at the controls - but Kan Opener was damaged pretty badly too, they had made one of their compression rods bend by 90 degrees! However, nothing expensive was damaged on Tornado and we had been planning to strip and repair the chassis for a while anyway.
We also used the get together to have a meeting with the Storm team - this gave us a chance to discuss a few things we have been wanting to talk about.
There weren't that many robots still running once we'd finished our meeting - King B and Bulldog Breed were still going, and Draven used the dusk to make titanium sparks on the tarmac...
This led up to the fireworks, an excellent display for the £15 including meal cost - apparently they were getting rid of old stock, and a few blew up at ground level... It went on for about half an hour, the only problem being that all the smoke and blown up bits of shell were blowing straight towards all the watching roboteers!
The meal was as good as always, but somehow there seemed to be less to chat about - everyone knows everyone else quite well now, and there were less questions to ask. There were a few antweight battles on the table, and we saw the new PS2 game that Ed brought along - it seems we are not part of it, and although we didn't get a go, it seems that the kids enjoyed it.
Towards the end of the event, Ed from Storm did some Ti swapping Martin from Draven, while we looked over Martin's Delorean. We stayed almost to the end, leaving when most of the others did, then drove back to Daves and unloaded Tornado.
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