| Ray .::. mandi .::. sam .::. madison .::. |
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06/12/2002 I made it home from the Island. What an event! The biggest yet! Saw so many of my old frieds and met many new ones. Saw so many amazingly destructive bots! Wow! My head is still reeling! The event for Team Raybotics was a challenge to be sure. When Season 5.0 begins to air I'll be able to divulge more details. My event was cut short due to a currently ongoing family emergency so I haven't been very dilligent at updating the site. But every one is home and a good time was had by all! |
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05/07/2002 Shot a short video of Malvolio's new and improved weapon. For the first time with Malvolio I stood behind a sheet of 1/4" lexan with safety glasses on to test the weapon. Hehe, it was scary. |
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04/01/2002 New pictures and a progress report on Malvolio. Lots of stuff has happened with Malvolio. He's almost a new bot... |
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02/02/2002 I posted some more Some Parts pictures. Progress progresses nicely... |
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01/25/2002 Some new pictures in the Some Parts page chronicaling the continued upgrades to the Raybotics Lightweight. Enjoy, |
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01/14/2002 Just a reminder to catch the new season of Battlebots continueing tomorrow night at 10PM on Comedy Central. Malvolio will face off against Bad Attitude in an epic battle that won't soon be forgotten! At least not by me. The BBTI01.2 event report has been updated with the fights leading up to tomorrow nights match. Check back on Wednesday and I'll try to have the site updated with the Bad Attitude fight and anything else I can reveal without breaking the NDA Despite the lack of progress reports I have been making progress on the bots. I'm not letting that new milling machine stay idle very much. I've already got new pillow blocks for Some Parts done and much of the new hinged front wedge. The new wedge tip is being milled out of cold rolled 1018 steel. I'm learning a lot about the odd properties of cold rolled steel. Such as it tends to flex from internal stresses when you mill on only one side of it. Add the interesting effects of heat and you get some weird stuff happening. I'm learning how to deal with these issues as I encounter them. I have been taking pictures but I don't want to post them until I've completed both halves of the hinge. Maybe sometime this week. That's it for now, |
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11/18/2001 Be sure to tune into Comedy Central Sports BattleBots for the season opener on January 8th, 2001 10PM. Also you won't want to miss the January 15th show as Malvolio will be making his Battlebots debut against Bad Attitude. This is a fight you'll definitly want to see. I know I do... I finally finished the BBTI01.2 event report. Review it here: BBTI01.2 event report I'll be spending some time on the bots. As things unfold on the show I'll add more details about the competitions. Suffice it to say, a good time was had by all. That's it for now, |
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9/13/2001 Despite the horrors that are unfolding in New York, I've continued working on Some Parts between watching the news and listening to the news on the radio while working. I uploaded so new photos of Some Parts progress and added a brief build report. My thoughts and prayers go out to all who've been affected by this abominable act by faceless cowards. That includes me and my family. That's all for now, |
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8/14/2001 Wow, it's been awhile huh? Since the last news update I've been quite busy. I've updated my Treasure Island event report a few times, it now has a detailed description as to what happened during my one and only fight. I've started a new page for my new Light Weight, Some Parts. This is very much a work in progress, and I've made very little to date... I probably won't be making much more progress any time soon because I'm off to Yellowstone this next week for a 50 mile backpacking trip. When I get back, I'm sure I'll be hitting the building quite hard. I've already ordered all the parts I'll need for Some Parts, unless any new rules changes force me to alter my plans. I've even got some new parts for Malvolio. So Malvolio and Some Parts should be ready to go for the next BattleBots event where ever it may be held! So that's it for now, |
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6/15/2001 The Battlebots Treasure Island summary is up, although still a work in progress, with pictures. Enjoy, |
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5/21/2001 Well, Team Raybotics is packed, loaded, and headed for San Francisco! If you're going to be in San Francisco, make you to stop by and say hello. One of the best parts of these competitions is meeting all the other people who are as eclectic as me... It's been a busy last few days. Although I've had Malvolio primed and ready to go for a couple weeks, I've been putting in some marathon sessions on Team CAC's lightweight entry Blood Moon. We've basically built this robot in the last five days. Jordan Hackney and Paul Vander Griend did an excellent job and put in some long hours to show their dedication to this effort. What they lack in logistical experience they make up for with youthful exuberance. If see you them in San Francisco make sure to say hello to them as well, I'm sure they'll be excited to talk to anyone that will talk to them. This will be the last update for at least two weeks as I send Malvolio into battle.
I'm looking forward to seeing and talking to everyone in San Francisco! |
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5/7/2001 I've been busy with Malvolio lately and haven't been able to update the site. There's a new brief build report in the build reports. And some new pictures on the picture page. At this point I'm pretty much ready for BattleBots.
I'll spend the next week and a half driving and ordering my swag. I'll
have stickers to give away and hats and T-Shirts for sale. If you'll be
in San Francisco and are interested in some of these items drop me a line.
I'll have enough stickers for everyone but will be pretty light with the
shirts and hats. I'll try to get some pictures up of the items so you
can see what they look like. |
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4/19/2001 Well, I watched Robotica last night and Malvolio still lost against Panzer MK 1! I can't believe it.... Panzer is a great robot built by a great group of guys. I had a lot of fun battling those guys. I'd like to address some issues that arose during
the event so maybe others can learn from my failures: During the figure eight race Malvolio was ahead
and I was actually feeling slightly confident about the event when I slammed
into the guardrail. Ugh, Malvolio stopped moving. I still had control
over the weapon so I was suffering a mechanical or motor controller problem.
Luckily it was just some sheared spring pins holding the drive gears to
the motors. I was pretty surprised that both pins went at the time. Lesson,
use quality components. At the start of the maze I pushed the stick forward
and Malvolio immediately turned to the left. I tried to compensate and
Malvolio turned to far too the right. I was now zigzagging toward and
up the ramp. With the ramp wet and a poorly handling robot, not to mention
my less than steller driving skills, Malvolio got sideways and backed
his drive wheels off the edge of the ramp. Game, Set, and Match. Malvolio
being a two wheel drive bot couldn't to anything but spin his wheels in
mid-air. I cannot tell you how frustrating it was standing there waiting
for Panzer to finish the course so I could go bury by head somewhere... Alas my day wasn't done. Sometime around 2AM they
started getting us ready to run the gauntlet. I was so far behind in points
and it was so late and I was so tired I was very apathetic by that point.
I did want to run the gauntlet though because I was finally going to get
to break something other than my own robot! That Panzer is one powerful bot! I had a great time competing against it. I can't wait to do this whole thing again. Battlebots is about a month away now and I'm chomping at the bit to get another chance to show what Malvolio can, or perhaps cannot, do... |
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4/18/2001 Malvolio squares off against Panzer MK 1 tonight on Robotica. Tune in to The Learning Channel at 10PM to see all the carnage... |
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4/17/2001 There's a great article about me and some other San Diego robot builders in today's San Diego Union Tibune. Check it out. |
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4/10/2001 Put up a few more pictures of Malvolio's upgrades and progress. |
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4/10/2001 I was getting a lot of complaints from Netscape users that my site didn't look very good. Knowing good and well that that isn't true I went through and cleaned things up so everything should look the same for IE users and Netscape users. :-) I also added a bunch of pictures and some video from Robotica that I didn't want to add until the show had aired at least once. |
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4/3/2001 The Robotica series starts tomorrow. If you haven't browsed the Robotica website the check it out.TLC Robotica Also another Robotica competitor has built a rather nice site about the competition, the robots, and the builders My story in the San Diego Union Tribune was postponed and I haven't been given a new print date so I'll post an update here when I hear something new. BattleBots registration is now closed and over 650 robots have been registered via the online registration site. Team Raybotics entry package is confirmed as being recieved. There are rumors that the actual number of paid entries is something less than 650 and that perhaps there will be even fewer robots who actually show up in San Francisco. Even with 300 robots it's going to be robotic insanity in San Francisco come Memorial Day Weekend! It looks like BattleBots will have some creative solutions to manage that many robots. I guess there will be some qualification rounds early in the competition with reduced fight times and with a separator in the box so they can run two fights at a time. We shall see, it'll be interesting and fun either way. |
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3/20/2001 It looks like TLC is gearing up for Robotica. John Hoffman was able to grab one of the commercials they're showing. I hear there are three different commercials running right now. I haven't been able to watch too much TV lately since I'm refitting Malvolio for Battlebots, but I guess I'll have to watch some more now...Commercial 2 If you're in the San Diego area make sure to pick up the Sunday Union Tribune because there may be an article about your favorite robot builder... |
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3/7/2001 Well, I'm back from TLC, tired but happy to have been involved with this event. I had good time, learned a lot, met some very cool people and got to see how a TV show is made, at least partially. For a complete description of the event see my Robotica 01 event page |
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2/21/2001 New build report, pictures and video for Malvolio. It looks like we're ready for Robotica but for the packing. |
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2/14/2001 I added some pictures and video to the Malvolio Pictures page. I also added another build report. Things are getting a little hectic but not because of robot stuff directly. I've been busy ordering hats, T-shirts, banners, and other things to take with me to Robotica. These were things I didn't put into my time budget so where the robot is coming along nicely this other stuff was done in a semi-paniced rush. It's all good though everything seems to be coming together. |
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2/7/2001 Raybotics picks up its first sponsor!!! See Malvolio news for details |
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2/6/2001 Three weeks to go till TLC Robotica. I think I'm starting to feel some pressure. I woke up this morning at 4AM and just had all kinds of things I still need to do on Malvolio running through my head over and over again. The film crew came out this weekend and we spent eight straight hours setting up shots and filming multiple takes of each. It was a whole new experience for me but it was fun all the same. I'm looking forward to seeing the final product when this event airs, I believe starting April 4. Malvolio is making progress, I've put up another build report that details this work. It's starting to look like I'll be working pretty much every evening and all day on the weekends to make sure Malvolio is ready. The more progress I make the more, it seems, I still need to do. |
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1/25/2001 I've been getting a lot of communications from TLC lately. It's interesting getting to experience the creation of a new event first hand. The TLC people are very willing to take input from the builders. I know the builders are really appreciating this, at least I am. One of the writers called me yesterday and spent about 45 minutes interviewing me to build a bio for some of the promotions TLC is planning. Also they will use this information when they send their film crew down. I guess they'll build on the bio by shooting certain types of actions and conversations of me around the house and garage. It's all fun, but it's kind of weird being asked how I would describe myself. I'm not too introspective, so I had to kind of be creative... Team Raybotics has added a member, the first other than me, for the TLC Robotica event. John Hoffman, a local Poway fellow bot builder I met on the BattleBots Forum. John has a lot of Mechanical, Electrical, and Industrial background that will be very helpful to Raybotics. John came by this last weekend and we had a good brain storming session as well as just shot the shit about robot stuff. On a related note, Team Nightmare was finally shown in combat on BattleBots Season 2.0. Nightmare fought Biohazard and lost, but made Biohazard work for it. Nightmare's first hit on Biohazard left a four inch gash in Biohazards skirt, 3/16" Titanium. I also made my National TV Debut. I was the one standing behind Jim not saying anything and just looking good... |
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1/8/2001 Big News!!! At least for me. I've been selected as one of 24 robot builders to compete in the new TLC Robot Challenge. It will be held in Los Angeles March 1-4. It will probably air on The Learning Channel about a month or so later. I'm not really sure how much I can say about it yet but the format looks to be quite different from BattleBots. It will involve some speed tests, agility tests, as well as some aggression type activities. My plan at this point is to modify Malvolio's design so I can compete with him. I'll probably build a new frame just for this competition. Since the weight limit is a lot more than Malvolio currently weighs I'll make this new frame A LOT beefier. I still want to maintain my agility and speed though so I won't be going overboard. Just reinforcing areas that could become weak points in certain types of collisions. My biggest concern at this point is that I might take enough damage that I'd have trouble getting ready for BattleBots some time in April. I think it will be a lot of fun and heck, I'll have at least a month, so I could practically build a new robot in that amount of time..... I hope my wife doesn't read that... |
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1/8/2001 Started a new "News" page because I didn't have one. And, well, I kept having things to say that weren't really applicable just to Malvolio. I needed a place to put Raybotics news as well as stuff about the robot(s). |
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