BATTLEBOTS 5.0

May 20-27, 2002
Treasure Island, CA, USA

On Sunday we got to Treasure Island two hours early to get in line before signup, but we still were about 25 teams from the front. That was good as it began to rain and most teams were out in the wet for a couple of hours before making it inside. That day it was cold everywhere. The pit arrangement was new, this time. Many teams brought bots for different weight classes, so the tables and rows alternated SHW, HW, MW (2 per table) and LW (2 per table). Instead of having all the seeded teams in one area, they were now mixed in with all the unseeded and rookie teams. I thought that was smart and benificial for the sport to have the known and unknown competitors forced to fraternize with one another. The first couple of days were chaotic as many teams came with partially built and untested robots, which slowed down inspection. inspection was more efficient, even though there were problems with the test box (in the rain) and the many retestes from new bots. Once you were registered for inspection, you just waited until an inspector to show up for your visual. Once that was done you then waited for an inspector to come get you for your functional check. Beware the bots that used pnuematics, long waits for them.

Jeff McLay and his Dad Michael showed up Tuesday, and his Mom Brenda and two brothers, Robert and Trevor, showed up Thursday. We met many new friends and renewed old acquantances from previous competitions. We loaned out many of our spares and helped, and were helped by our pit neighbors. We can't say much on how we did but between Wee Willy Wedgy, Pro-Am, and Agitator, we brought home 10 pogs (denoting wins) and two of our robots made it through two TV rounds and we had the honor of dancing with some of the 'big boys' in the Battlebox. The coolest robot was Warhead from the British Razor team. We stayed through Monday evening, then did an all nighter getting back to Colorado.

Contact HM 303-673-9853