Well in my last blog post, I said I'd try and make regular updates to avoid posting big long comments - that was over a year ago! Should've known that would happen. Oh well, I'll try and do my best to summarise the events of the last 12 months at RogueTwo Towers.

There was no fooling about for the first event of the year. It was the 2011 UK Featherweight championships held at the Gadget Show Live event from 15th-17th April. Initially, Drumroll II and Carcinus were entered, but due to several reasons (poor motivation and a lack of time being a couple) Carcinus wasn't completed on time and didn't compete. This left Drumroll II as the only representative in the competition. It had undergone a bit of a revamp since the previous championships, with a new ring-tooth drum - similar to the old Drumroll - in place of the ali and steel bar combo from 2010. Out went the brushless motor and in went a trusty Speed 900 motor, controlled by a Victor ESC. New wheels, hardox armour, re-arranged internals and a reprisal of the metallic blue colour scheme meant that Drumroll II certainly looked the part and I considered it to be a vast improvement from last year's champs.

But looks can be deceiving, and in almost every whiteboard and competition fight on Friday and Sunday, everything that could go wrong, DID go wrong! From armour falling off/breaking, to the drum performing poorly, to the Victor ESC going up in flames (expensive!), it was pretty demoralising and by the time Sunday rolled around, Drumroll II was cast into the car boot and ignored as I took in the rest of the fights hassle-free.

For something that I thought was a much-improved version, it turned out to be a damp squib. In the end, I think it finished in joint 26th position (shared with Cicatrix, a newcomer from Scotland that I helped build).
Since then, the chassis has been remade, with a change from RG1000 to trusty Nylon 6. I've tried to improve all internal connections to enhance reliability and the Victor ESC was replaced with a simple on/off relay combo.

Robots Live Edinburgh rolled around again and although the weapon wasn't in use, Drumroll II showed some improvement. There were still areas that could do with being refined however, and these will be addressed in a winter upgrade package. This will also include a new brushless motor upgrade for the weapon and the installation of a lithium polymer battery pack. With some luck, Drumroll II will hopefully be much more successful at the 2012 championships. Technically the design is much better than the first incarnation but it has failed to emulate the success of the original Drumroll (which, as Boner, is still performing well) and if it fails badly at the next full combat championship, I shall have to give serious consideration to a new design. But we shall see...

As for Carcinus, its first outing in its new chassis came at Robots Live but just with static claws as the mechanism wasn't completed in time. The drive was just as nippy as before although a little more controllable and the armour held up well. I'm currently considering options for its weapon (horizontal claws, or a vertical crushing one, or a grabber/lifter) and it will be something that progresses over the winter break. I'm not 100% sure what the outcome will be, so stay tuned....

Wow, hard to believe it has been over 6 months since the last update. Quite a bit has happened in that time so I'll try and bring things up to speed.

Drumroll sale - no concrete offers were received during the initial time that it was up for sale and so I decided to hold on to Drumroll for a while and use it as a back-up for the UK championships in the likelihood that Drumroll II wouldn't be ready. However, I soon decided that I wanted to move it on and re-listed it at a reduced price minus some of the components that I chose to keep. Towards the end of August the robot was sold to Gary Cairns who christened it 'Boner' and entered it in the UK championships. More on that shortly.

Robots Live! Edinburgh - The Leicester-based event organisers came up to Scotland for two days in June, which provided the team with the most local event to date. The shows were relatively short as we were part of an exhibition at the National Museum of Flight. Kaizer and Carcinus were on active duty with a partially gutted Drumroll (pre-sale) on static display. Although we never won any fights (meleés aren't our strong point) we had a fantastic time and there are rumours that Robots Live will be back next year too. I've had the videos from this event edited for a while but never got round to uploading them to our Youtube page, but they will eventually be going up there this week.

Kaizer sale - With the money from the Drumroll sale, progress began on Drumroll II. However, with me driving that and my dad driving Carcinus there was no place for Kaizer in the UK championships, so in order to allow Drumroll II to be built more closely to the original design, Kaizer was sold to generate more funds. Ceri Jenkins of Team Psychostorm became its new owner and he competed with it in the championships.

2010 UK Championships - The biggest event of the year and we'd been waiting for it and looking forward to it for some time. Carcinus was entered into whiteboard competition as it was not really full-combat capable but the newly-constructed Drumroll II was representing RogueTwo Robots in the main event. Having only been finished the night before we left, there was no time for proper testing but I was confident that it was ready to compete.
To cut a long story short, it wasn't. It's first fight was going great and it won, but in a dance of victory, one of the teeth bashed against the arena wall and sheared the bolts holding it on. This caused some moderate internal damage and proved a constant thorn in our side for the rest of the competition. Drumroll II never made it through the league system to the later stages but was entered into the Annihilator where it got all the way to the final before losing out to Seraphim on what was a dubious judges' decision. By comparison, the original Drumroll - now running as Boner - did exceedingly well and went all the way to 3rd place (one better than I achieved the previous year). That's what you call Sod's Law! I don't regret selling it though; aside from the problems, I loved the way Drumroll handled and with some improvements I feel it has major potential. In contrast however, Carcinus is in need of a rebuild after being literally ripped apart in a spinner whiteboard battle. The claw weapon has been in need of an upgrade for some time though so now the opportunity has presented itself, so we'll see a new Carcinus and an improved Drumroll II in the New Year.
Videos from the 2010 UK Championships are online. Check out our Youtube page to view them.

Well that's all for now. I'll try and make more regular updates to save me making big long posts every 6 months. Till next time!

Well the new RogueTwo Robots 'brand' has been launched and so far all is well. It has been quite quiet in terms of goings-on so there hasn't been much to update you with here. I am busy with university exams until May 5th so won't be able to crack on with robot work until then, but for a couple of days over the Easter break I was able to get some work done to Kaizer as part of its revamp. The chassis is a lot shorter now and everything inside is very compact, so it should make for a tough little robot. Pictures can be found in the RogueTwo Robots build thread on the FRA forum (see Links page)

Also worth a mention is the fact that Drumroll is now up for sale (also on the FRA forum; see http://www.fightingrobots.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=166&t=3312). As stated on there I have a few reasons for selling it, including to help fund the creation of Drumroll II. I've gone as far as I can go with that incarnation but hopefully someone else can benefit from it. I'm accepting offers until my I'm done with exams (so around May 5th/6th) so if you're interested, get in touch!

Well the old Team Terminal Damage website was greatly in need of a revamp; it hadn't seen an update in close to two years so some change was in order. There has been some indirect coverage of the team through footage from the 2009 Maker Faire where the team took part in the UK featherweight championships and with the robots drawing attention with some improved performances, having an out-of-date website isn't the best thing to boost the team profile, especially when advertising the website on the back of our team t-shirts.

But rather than just updating the current site, why not go for a whole new one? And why not make it coincide with a re-branding to celebrate a new era? Well that's exactly what we've done with the launch of RogueTwo Robots. The website has been kept basic to begin with but hopefully there will be small improvements made over time to give it a slicker look.

There will be some updates regarding the robots soon, so stay tuned for them. We've already attended one event this year under the old guise of Team Terminal Damage but the new RogueTwo Robots era will kick off soon. The 2010 featherweight championships are not yet confirmed but before then you can catch us at the National Museum of Flight in Edinburgh on June 19th-20th for three shows over the weekend at our first Robots Live! event (www.robotslive.co.uk). Hope to see you there!