Bone Dead Robotics

The NHRL February event begins a very busy stretch and one that was more impulsive than planned. Due to Vorion not receiving much direct damage from the World Championships and instead suffering from mainly electronic issues, it was still largely together. The intention instead was to run Motorama and March NHRL with Phenomenon being the center of the action. However, due to the low number of entries for the 30lb weight class and a field largely of new bots it was clearly a good opportunity at a run. In addition, last year’s lesson of running the bots as often as possible to understand their weaknesses had to be put into practice so ultimately Vorion was entered.

Repairs

The notable mechanical damage was to the frame rail of the bot that fought Synthesis 30 and the other whose wheel was slightly bent after fighting Pegasus. The frame rail was cut and bent slightly in the back but nothing a good replacement couldn’t fix. As for the bent shaft, that took a great deal more work to free. Due to the bearing acting like a rear retainer for the key (the front is retained by a bolt and washer in the wheel) to remove the wheel forced me to hammer the shaft down into the bearing thereby destroying the key and the bearing in the process. You can see the aftermath of the gory removal above. After completion, the bots were buttoned up and taken to the Hive for testing.

Hive Testing

Both versions of Vorion were assembled and taken down to the Hive for some testing.

After a round of driving, Vorion looked very good with no glitches and very clean control. That being said, Vorion looked this good before World Championships as well so I remained cautious even after testing. While the internals of the machine were largely there, the radio interference caused by all the activity around the main box and even test boxes at NHRL still made me worried about the robot’s actual performance.

Radio Upgrade

The only real change to Vorion was the last minute addition of a Zorro Max controller in the 4-in-1 version. I initially was content to keep the radio system the same after the success at the Hive but after a light nightmare of the machine having radio issues (foreshadowing) I woke up and immediately began researching and ordered before breakfast. First, the Zorro is a controller based very similarly to the video game controller so many of the knobs and switches I would like to use to control the machines are very easy to access unlike the wider, more conventional controllers. Second, many of the legacy receivers I had such as the Radiomaster(R84, R86, R88) and Flysky (FS2A, FS-iA6B) were still ample so the 4-in-1 Multi protocol allows me to consolidate all of these receivers to one radio, expanding my options in a desperate situation (foreshadowing) while having the module on the back allows for a future upgrade to the new ELRS protocol (also foreshadowing). Third, the Zorro Max was chosen specifically because it was the only option available for Next-Day delivery (the regular Zorro model has all the same features). It is important to note that this decision was made the Wednesday before leaving. It was an expensive gamble to make so close to competition, but sometimes competitive paranoia is necessary to get the last essential change that can make or break the entire competition.

Initial mixing was done on 1lb plastic ant Sawfuffle to get weapon and lifter arm control honed. The R84 receiver I planned to use seemed okay, but I remained wary. Another feature I was able to add to the radio (thanks to Liam King of Buzzkill and Bumbleblitz fame) was using a switch to arm and disarm the weapon channel, allowing for safe drive testing outside without fear of bumping the knob and accidentally spinning up (really important for just after weapon locks are removed but the cage doors aren’t closed yet). Though it was a lot to spend the day before leaving I was pleased with the much better usage and increased versatility.

Competition

Initial testing in the test box seemed promising. The R86 receivers behaved well just like at the Hive for safety on Friday but that all changed on Saturday. After a long morning of playing Dragon Ball Fighterz to kill time, I gave myself roughly an hour before my first fight to troubleshoot should the radio issues return. They most certainly did return.

Due to the now many devices now running at Havoc (beyond cameras even crew devices, pit control, other robots, etc) the receivers began to go crazy and glitch. For some reason I had to power cycle the receiver at least once to get it going but even more shockingly if I ramped up the weapon power it seemed to brown out and make the robot forget all but one or two channels. To call it frustrating would be to say the least especially after dying near immediately against Goose (the robot barely made it out of the corner) and limping its way against Slamson (Slamson also suffered electrical issues all weekend but Craig Danby is still one of the best robot people ever). I hold the conviction that if I don’t give my opponent a good fight (especially knowing I’m able to from past experience) is rough not just for me but also for them as they didn’t learn anything so Vorion’s lack of control was unacceptable. After both fights the machine would come back to the pit table and the drive would twitch okay but ultimately a slight movement of the receiver could determine whether a whole channel was lost. This was unacceptable especially since I was now set to fight Synthesis 30.

Synthesis 30

Thanks to Ashley Beckman for the photo!

The fight against Synthesis 30 was the highlight of the day by a wide margin. Unlike the fight before (and sadly the one after), the receiver worked. Using the FS-iA6B, a larger hardcase radio with much beefier protection around the antennae, the robot finally worked without electrical issues. Thanks to the Zoe and Cody of Honey Cracked for the receiver and thanks to the Zorro’s Multi protocol I was able to switch it in quickly before the fight in a situation where if I stuck with my nearly 10-year-old Taranis QX7 (which only had D8 and D16 protocol) I would have most assuredly had the same issues with the R86s and lost. With renewed confidence, it was time for Vorion to throw down against the bot that knocked it out of the 2024 NHRL World Championship.

This snippet of the fight encapsulates all the strengths of Vorion on display: after taking the hits from Synthesis 30, Vorion still maintained full function and used all of those to its strength meaning both lifting Synthesis (especially dropping it onto the blade) and (after removing Synthesis’s longer front forks thereby vindicating my observations against Emulsifier in Finals of 2023 and March of 2024) giving great shots with the severing spinner. Though the chassis was clearly ravaged with shots from Synthesis, all functions were still going. An excellent back and forth between both bots overall and it qualifies Vorion for the 2025 Finals! Now that the necessary mission objective was completed, it was time to see how far it could go.

After taking Vorion back to the pit table, the actual damage to the machine wasn’t the worst, but it also was suboptimal. The big thing was the frame looking as thoughslightly coming apart (as seen on the front junction on the center rails) which means likely the 1/4-20 bolts holding it together were sheared which is a huge problem for transferring forces from the forks to the rest of the frame. Alongside that, the baseplate was cracked some, the lifting tooth fairly mangled, weapon ESC controller power and signal wires pulled out, and the strike through the wheelguards bending the output axle on the left side. While small things like the wires could be fixed fairly quickly, the other damage was structural enough that if it took a shot from Undertaker (which it certainly will) the robot could see catastrophic failure. As a result, the decision was made to switch to the other chassis which had issues earlier in the day.

Conclusion

To fix the issues earlier, an FS2A receiver replaced the R86 as the logic was that the Flysky protocol allowed the FS-iA6B to work earlier. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. The machine was placed in the test box and glitched just like earlier in the day. I then thought “well let me switch the working receiver in and I’m sure it will be fine” but sadly there was no time. The match stewardess saw me testing and told me there was no time and I had to be downstairs right then. I looked over at the Undertaker team who were frantically reworking the machine and they had just picked the bot up from the table and were walking to the pit desk. I knew then it was over. I brought Vorion down with me to the cage all the while warning the Undertaker team about the coming disappointment. It’s common to talk down about the machines so naturally they joked back that I should give the bot some credit but in reality it was far sadder. When the cage door was closed, Vorion didn’t even limp to its magenta corner but rather died in the middle of the arena, waited to reset then continued onward. The fight itself was maybe 30 seconds but really it was just me trying to get anything out of the sad machine and see if anything could be gleaned for myself, the Undertaker team, or the audience. It was supremely disappointing.

I then resolved to never run the old protocol again and to keep myself from running back I threw away all the old receivers, forcing myself to buy a whole new set for next time. George Santayana, a Spanish philosopher, once said “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” so this will stand as a reminder on radio importance.

Takeaways

Mechanically, there are only a handful of very small takeaways. Besides a new lifter tip designed to be welded from much stronger AR500, this was also the first time an Andymark Sport 57 gearbox has ever directly stripped out. I haven’t yet confirmed if this was accumulated wear or all done at once, but it does justify some of the other future improvements coming to Phenomenon at Motorama 2025. The machine definitely needs maintenance, but the general mechanical design is relatively unchanged. Currently Vorion is registered for March NHRL, but there’s a chance Phenomenon may take its spot. All will be known after the next fight comes.

Feel free to check out the other blog posts and read the full robot recaps!