MassDestruction6!

Mass Destruction 6 was this weekend, and, as usual, was a whirlwind of fun, sparks, and loud noises! The MIT crew brought a bunch of new robots all which were either hilarious or awesome.

Daphne and Ananya made a plastic ant named Greg, which made it to the semifinals, placing 4th.

Austin made the sleek Riperoni, which placed 3rd in beetles by bouncing around the arena, "munging things up".

Mike had his usual 7 minute Korea, but due to spending all his time helping build the new robots, it broke after a few matches and he proceeded to help the other teams in the pits.

Noah brought And Destroy, a horrifying horizontal spinner, made of the side of a power supply and a big wad of aluminum.

And Jamison brought DDT and Wheels of Misfortune, our 12 lb multibot.

I brought two old robots, Ricochet and Minitaur, and one new one; the other half of the Wheels of Misfortune.In the end, Ricochet ended up maintaining his beetleweight title, going 5-0, with 4 knockouts and 1 judges decision (D2s just don't break lol). Minitaur somehow managed to place 2nd in the plastic ants, even though the drum exploded multiple times, and was only held on by hot glue. Even more surprising was Wheels of Misfortune placing 3rd (probably because it was hilarious/dumb). 

Ricochet

vs Killynder

My first match was against the Killynder which was one of the most unique robots I have ever seen. It's entirely 3d printed, with the black rings and main body being Markforged (out of Onyx) and the clear sides made with a durable FormLabs material. Essentially, the robot is one massice drum spinner, with ~6 drums I think. Unfortunately, he didn't have much time to test the robot (he finished at 4:30am the day of the competition, and so didn't have time to practice driving

vs Foiled Again

My next match was the scariest one of the day. Alex Crease's Foiled Again is a horrifyingly scary robot which uses airfoils on his blade to have more downforce. He came down to MIT a few times to test it in our test box, and I know how wild and powerful it was. Luckily after a few brutal hits, Ricochet manged to knock his receiver out while only losing a small chunk of wheel.

vs Nitrous

The WPI team never ceases to impress. Nitrous was one of the only bots at the competition to use brushless drive, and definitely the only one to never have it fail. After a few hits, Nitrous ended up stuck on it's head and so he tapped out. Not before Ricochet had a wheel fall off though! When replacing the wheel that Foiled Again cut, I accidentally overstretched my snap ring that holds the wheel on. Luckily Jamison had spares and so I was ready for the next match within minutes.

Semifinals!

This match was against Crazy Monkey (D2 kit with the Ti Wedge). Luckily my wedge was closer to the ground and so at every head on collision, my blade struck the underside of his robot. 3 minutes of sparks ensued.

Finals!

The final match was against Jack Barker's Mutated, all the way from New Zealand. Luckily, Mutated was a beater bar spinner, and so in any collision, my wedge would get under him allowing my blade to hit underneath. This happened and the match was quite short as a result.

Minitaur

LololololI didn't realize until well into the competition but after testing Minitaur at home, a couple a stress fractures appeared in the main body (all 3d printed). This led to a hilarious couple of matches (which I forgot to get filmed :(  ).

My first match was against a plastic wedge which went as expected. Eventually Minitaur bit off one of the wheels. Not much happened.

After this match was when I noticed the cracks. I tried hot gluing the frame to reinforce it, but to no avail.

In my next match, I spun the drum up, there was an explosion, and bits of my weapon were around the arena. After that it just turned into a pushing match. In one of many controversial decisions, Minitaur won lol.

I then went on to fight Hurricane where the same exact thing happened. Complete with the controversial judges decision.

Semifinals

This match was against Gregg, another MIT bot. Unfortunately in one of the first collisions, they got flipped over onto their weapon which resulted in the judge's deciding in my favor.

Finals

After gluing and electrical taping the weapon back on for the umpteenth time, I accidentally glued one of my wheels in place. I was also too busy focusing on Ricochet to notice and so I went into the finals with a hot glued drum and wheel. Luckily it was Jack Barker's Cannibal, a wedge, so he won by judge's decision.