Local bot Stumpy faired well at the 2005 RoboGames, winning
three of five one-on-one fights as well as a rumble, in which 12
antweight robots fought each other to be the last one standing.
Local bot Stumpy faired well at the 2005 RoboGames, winning three of five one-on-one fights as well as a rumble, in which 12 antweight robots fought each other to be the last one standing.
The RoboGames, held in San Francisco over the last weekend in March, drew robot enthusiasts from all over to pit their bots against each other, or simply to check out the latest in robot technology.
Stumpy, the bot with heart, was driven by his creator, Team DMV’s Dave Wiley of Morgan Hill.
Things didn’t start out so well for Stumpy, who went up against ShazBot, driven by Jim Smentowski of Team Nightmare from Rohnert Park, Calif. The fight, which lasted two minutes, was so close that the judges had a tough time figuring out who won. Eventually, the win went to ShazBot.
Things started looking up for Stumpy in his second fight, against Lethal Wedgy. While Lethal Wedgy’s driver is getting better, the bot suffered a bent edge, allowing Stumpy to get under Lethal Wedgy and drive him off the fighting platform.
Stumpy’s winning streak continued against Cadaver, a 4-wheeled box with a high-speed spinning drum in the front, driven by a member of Team Inevitable Destruction from San Diego. Cadaver’s construction, with a weapon that has a lot of ground clearance, made it easy for a wedge like Stumpy to get under it. So Stumpy just scooped Cadaver up and off the fighting platform.
It was the fourth fight that had Wiley nervous, when Stumpy had to fight Kato, a 2-wheeled wedge bot built and driven by Dan Fukuba of Team Slayer, a good driver with a fast robot. But Wiley and Stumpy were in luck.
“Dan was driving two antweights at this event so he was letting his friend, Allen, drive Kato in competition. Because Allen had little driving practice and experience I was able to out-drive him, and Stumpy scooped up Kato and pushed Kato off the platform,” Wiley said.
Stumpy’s luck didn’t hold for the fifth fight, however, as Stumpy battled Tsunami, which was built and driven by an experienced builder and driver from Team Sinister of Burbank, Calif. Tsunami, a 4-wheel-drive, carbon-fiber box with a high-speed saw for a weapon, is death for other bots.
The fight lasted for most of the time limit, and Stumpy made several tries to push Tsunami off the platform, but the experienced driver managed to get away each time. Finally, Tsunami flipped Stumpy over, hit Stumpy’s upturned leading edge and kicked Stumpy off the platform.
The one-on-one fights were followed by three rumbles in which 12 antweight robots fought all at the same time. Stumpy got pushed out of the first one early in the fight, didn’t fight in the second rumble as he was getting new batteries and won the third rumble after a tough go. The last bot Stumpy fought to win the rumble was a 4-wheeled bot armed with a high-speed spinning saw blade named Corrosive, built and driven by Bradley Hanstad of Team Think Tank from Pasadena, Calif. Corrosive made a high-speed run at Stumpy’s rear, and Wiley turned Stumpy around just before Corrosive got to him, leading Corrosive to drive up Stumpy’s ramp and fly over the platform wall – victory for Stumpy.
In a field of 40, Stumpy placed 18.
