New Artwork on Xolotl

 

If there's a reasonably light-colored surface that takes well to Sharpies, why not? I may have named the robot Xolotl Tikbalang, but I'm not above playing with other images and mythologies. I have a Viking rune for strength on my weapon (at least if what my gym says is accurate) along with a falcon's face in front with an eye of Ra and an eye of Horus (at least if my sources are correct), and of course, a wolf. 

Spider Cup 2024 #1: Lancaster Round

 I actually forgot that I had signed up for the Lancaster Round at Spider Cup, but I did it anyway. I didn't shoot a particularly good score for myself, but I held my own against my fellow barebow archers. My division was called "barebow recurve" even though I was shooting a longbow with wooden arrows, and the division is pretty much stripped down Olympic recurves with carbon arrows and allows for string-walking. 

And then there was a fellow barebow recurve archer who pulled this off. I had tons of fun shooting with my friends!

Robot Ruckus at MegaCon 2024 2/n: Antlash

 Antlash decided to pull off a little transformation, living up to its "Tikbalang" surname, although it did get truncated at the event to "Tik". 

The first incarnation of Antlash was a horizontal Fingertech Viper Kit bot. Tripple D, a vertical spinner Fingertech Viper Kit bot at that point, took a judge's win victory. Luckily, there was very little damage, but the young driver demonstrated that it's very easy to get under the horizontal spinner. 

Antlash wound up in the loser's bracket, as it was a double-elimination match. His next opponent was Destroyer, a former Fingertech Viper Kit spinner vertical spinner turned wedge. At this point, Antlash was now the Repeat Robotics Scalar model. Thank you to Team Junkyard Dogs and several other teams for helping R get Antlash ready! It was an Antlash victory!

On day 2, Antlash had multiple fights, starting off with Wheelie Big Deal, a Junkyard Dogs bot inspired by HUGE. Suffice to say, Wheelie Big Deal won the award for Most Wrecked.

With that victory, Antlash went on to face Clowned, an overhead saw made with 3D printed parts. It wasn't exactly pretty, but Antlash demonstrated that it can get the job done!

Then there was the Biscuit, a shuffler with 1.5x allowed weight due to the unique movement mechanism. 

Next up was Crazed Madman, who eliminated me earlier today in a fight where I spent most of it pinned or cleaning the arena floor. I was so happy he was able to avenge me, just as I avenged his loss to Tripple D earlier this weekend.

The final fight for Antlash was against Insomnia, the most feared robot in the entire antweight division. 

R was able to snag an overall third place finish at Robot Ruckus!

Robot Ruckus at MegaCon 2024 1/n: Xolotl

Team Firewolf represented very well at MegaCon! We had Antlash and Xolotl competing. Robert was carrying on the Antlash name, while I was competing under the name Xolotl, even if Xolotl is really Antlash with an upgraded weapon. 

Xolotl is a Fingertech Viper Kit robot with a horizontal spinner. I didn't do so well and won one of my three fights. My cameraman's camera decided to take a deuce on my win against Tripple D, but he got my fights against Tyrone, a vicious horizontal spinner kit from Repeat Robotics, and Crazed Madman, a Fingertech wedge. My proudest moment was doing some damage on Tyrone despite tapping out once I got inverted. I knew I was most likely going to get destroyed if I kept moving. The damage was nowhere as bad as my absolute first fight against Nibbler at the Orlando Maker Faire, but it did involve a chassis transfer and getting a new front wedge. Team Junkyard Dogs is a pretty solid team, and even lasting as long as I did against them was quite the achievement for me!

My cameraman didn't get my second fight, which was against Tripple D, who beat Antlash earlier before getting disemboweled by the likes of Insomnia. Tripple D was a Fingertech Viper vertical spinner until he got destroyed earlier. They came in as a wedge, and I couldn't quite bring myself to destroy a little kid who had just gotten his robot blasted to bits at his very first competition. That being said, I still let Xolotl loose on him at maybe 30-40% power and tried to knock him out as cleanly as possible because I knew he could still take control and aggression points if he inverted me. I did get the knockout victory after a few well-placed hits.

And then there was my fight against Crazed Madman, who was one heck of a wedge driver. Suffice to say, going against a very experienced control bot driver was rather exciting, but I learned that I can indeed drive inverted. I still presented a bit of a hazard to him as an undercutter, even if I had iffy mobility at best. I still did some damage to him, but that AR-500 wedge was a bit of a nightmare!

After our fight, the driver of Crazed Madman and I got a picture together. 

And here's some other fun, random pictures I got, including the judging panel and various Avatar: The Last Airbender bits...

Hopefully tomorrow or sometime this week, I'll have a bit of a write-up for Antlash. I am very proud of R for his deep run in his very first ever competition with a robot he just barely finished at the competition!