When I built The Red Turtle in 98, I did not put a clutch on the engine for the saw, and when they made the "all gas engines must have a clutch installed at the engine" rule I decided to just build a new 50 pound robot! so I put on my thinking cap and desided on a desgine. It involved me welding my own frame, something I didn't have to do on The Red Turtle so I asked my step dad to teach me how to weld. So a few scrap peices later I KINDA got the hang of it, I cut the steel frame out of some 3/4" square steel tube stock and welded into place. (Sorry I don't have a pic of just the frame=(.) I then got some steel sheet metal (off of our old broken dryer!) and cut it with a sawzall, and used self taping metal screws to hook it to my frame. I then pulled the coordless drill motors and tires from The Red Turtle and used some plumbers tape to hold them on to the base. ok I had a drive train, now I needed cool whepons, so I went to Sears to see what I could see, I picked a 16" gas chainsaw that was on sale and took it home and cut the handle off, I then cut 4 peices of steel angle iron and bolted then to the engine, then I bolted the engine to the robot, here is a pic of the saw after it was mounted
after I had the chain saw mounted the back looked empty, so I pulled one of the drive motors out of Knome1 and mounted a PVC arm on it, then took a cordless drill and mounted a saw blade on the chuck, so I could raise and lower the arm and cut with the saw, I dont have any pics of this because I found it was to fragile for combat, so I decided to just take the cordless drill off the end of the arm and mounted a pic axe made from some more PVC and a huge 7 inch long spike. here is a pic. of the pic axe mounted.
ok here is a few pics. of it after it was done.
Now I had one thing left to do (I thought) I needed to weigh it, so I put it on the scale and almost fainted when it read "65" on the dial! AHH! I needed to loose weight anf fast with only 3.5 weeks till bot bash 99' so I removed one batterie and it was still over weight and had allot less drive power. So I decided to rebuild the frame. So I cut the HUGE 12" tall frame down to 8", then I cut the 30" length down to 16". I left the width the same because, well it had to be that wide, next I decided to go with alluminum aurmor instead of the steel like on the first version, my mom found me some 1/16" thick plate's so I used 4 layers of it on the sides and 2 layers on the top, (the 4 layers on the sides didn't quite to the job as you will find out later on down this page) I also had to drop the secondary whepon so I could run with the second batterie, but I ran out of weight any way for the second batterie so I just made a steel scoop for the back to use up the rest of my weight. I didn't want gremlin to be the normal silver color so I got a couple cans of red spray paint and went to work, it took 4 coats to get that nice shiny red look he had at bot bash! I painted a face on him next with some detail pens, here is a pic. of the face
and bolted some pop cans on the sides of him for legs, and made some alluminum hands to fit on the ends. Here is a pic of a pop can leg after Bot Bash that is all smashed up, and a hand.
Sorry I don't have any finished product picture "yet" but I will shortly.
Ok I will now try to describe his matches for you, it has been a while since Bot Bash so I don't rember every detail. First I did the obstacle course, I was nervouse in this run because this was my first ever preformance in front of a crowd. the anowncer said "go" and went straight forward, I spun out and hit the wall right then, so I decided to take it a little slower, I didn't have speed control, just home made "on" "off" "reverse" only so my control was limited, I turned and hit the ramp and easily cleared it, (Gremlin had 5" of ground clearence!) I turned after the ramp and headed for the first gate, I made it through but then I went out of control and hit a few gates, so I just did a mad dash for the finish box and made it in.
The second match I had was a sumo match, I was up against "Terabite" build by Dennis Millard, the only robot builder within 200 miles of where I live btw! Any way we put our bots in the ring and the anowncer said "GO" and I started up the chain saw and smacked it into him, it gouged his all. aurmor but did not cut through. I backed up and rammed him again, this time he was pushed out of the arena! but you had to win 2 out of three to beat your openent so we drove our bots into position and started again, we did what looked like a dance for a second then I got a good push on him with my scooper and he went out again! YEA! 1 win for Gremlin.
My next match was against a small but powerfull robot named Death Trap built by Mike Reagan. we put our robots in the ring and started, we pushed and ramed each other a bit, he had far more tork then I did but with lotsa 360's I managed to keep from being pushed out of the ring, then I managed to get a good scoop on him from his side, but then I realized my robot couldn't push his because my batterie was dead, and I also realized he wasn't moving off my scoop, Mike said he had blown a fuse, (later Mike found a fried power switch to be the prob.) and I couldn't get him off my scoop so the match was a draw.
My next match was against a robot called The Missing Link built by Jason Bardis, he was also a power full robot but he was bigger than gremlin, I'n not sure what hapend this match or who won, so if any one can remember Please email me @ theredturtle@usa.net and I will credit your name here.
My next match was against a robot named "Slappy" built by ?, I was lucky that his whepon had been broken in an earlier match, but he was vastly more power full than my robotm when the match started I found I was way faster then him, so I danced around him a few times before I managed to get a good scoop on him with my scooper, but when I did scoop him I pushed him about 2" then he started pushing back, he had 4X drive VS. my two, so after a few second of stalling out my motors, one of them fried, shooting smoke from under my robot. I was unable to fix him in time for a second fight with Slappy so I was out of the Sumo.
I had time during the lunch brake I replaced the fried motor with a cordless drill and I was back in working order. after the lunch brake I found I was up against Death trap, the same robot I fought in the sumo. I went into this match knowing I was going to get flipped but I didn't know how long I could put up a fight so all I could do was try. The match started and I shot forward, I didn't have my chain saw in this match because I didn't have time to put the bar back on it, so I was armed only with my scoop. well I was rammed by death trap and my front castor was knocked off so I was dragging my front end around for the rest of the match, death trap rammed me again and one of my tires broke off, he then pushed me into a wall and proped me up against it! Well one lost behind and I was ready for another, so I put the tire back on and replaced the batterie with a fresh one and waited for my next match, I found I was up against a robot called Carnage it was a scary box shaped robot with huge tires, opem frame, and a axe and a LONG arm, it would 360 and smack people with the axe, I went into this match knowing I was going to loose but I wanted to put up a good show so when the match started I ran right into his axe, it knocked both my castors off, then hit my back aurmor wich broke loose and was hanging off of my frame, I then took a hit to one of my tires and it broke off, so I was spining in circles and carnage took advantege of this and started to smack me with his axe, I took three direct hits to the same aurmor panel and it was bent inward 3"! Here is a of the dented aurmor panel
the dented aurmor broke the mount that held one of my motor controlers, not braking the controler though (WHEW!) so I was still spining when I notice Carnages arm was BROKEN! it had come off it's mount on the last hit, but it broke to late because I coulf only spin around and that did no good. Carnage then rammed my bot and smacked it into the wall and I was dead, a batterie terminal poped loose. So I was out of the fighting, but I had a blast and will be at the next Bot Bash!
