December 22, 2002:

After two wins in Season 5.0, IceBerg fell apart in the quarterfinals of the SHW division. Frantic repairs after the Phrizbee Ultimate fight were not up to the task, and Maximus out-bullied Iceberg for the victory.

We fared better at the Grand Opening of the Robot Club & Grille, as Danny's middleweight Lionheart won 4 out ot 5 fights to become the middleweight champion in our December 7th tournament.

He also took 3rd place in the hobbyweight division (12lbs) with Mini-Mauler, who went 2-2 with 1 knockout.

Previously, Kelsey's antweight Ice Chip took first place at the NERC's fall event at the Robot Club on October 19-20.

October 25, 2002:

Well, IceBerg proved that it's the whole three minutes that count, as it wins a costly victory against Brian Nave's "Phrizbee Ultimate". Will Team Toad and a volunteer pit crew from Team Carnage, Team UFO, NPC and Robotic Power Solutions be able to repair the badly hurt robot in time for the quarter-finals? Find out in December.

In other news, Kelsey and Ice Chip took first place in the Antweights at the Robot Club & Grille last weekend, beating her dad who took third place with TadPole.

September 28, 2002:

Watch Comedy Central on Saturday, October 12th at 8pm EDT to see whether Phrizbee Ultimate can melt the IceBerg!

September 12, 2002:

We've added Ice Cube to our fight reports from Season 5.0, and also put some action shots from Daniel Longmire Photography to the reports.

And at the Robot Club & Grille, we've chosen a date for our first event...October 19th and 20th. Registration is open to NERC members, and opens to all builders very soon.

August 11, 2002:

We've started putting up fight reports from the prelims for Season 5.0. First up, SnowCone vs. BullDog.

We also have video of SnowCone vs Ink Jet Printer (3.9 mb RealMedia) on our video page.

August 1, 2002:

Danny has been designing all Summer, and we finally are far enough along on his new middleweight for a build report.

Lionheart is a 2 wheeled wedge/rammer/thwackbot, and we hope to have the initial drive tests very soon.

July 16, 2002:

We've had zoning board delays with the Robot Club & Grille, but we expect approval on August 6th. We're disappointed with the delay, but at least we had our first major deliveries: arena parts and 7 pallets of Lexan.

June 2, 2002:

Well, we're back from Treasure Island, and we'd love to tell you all about it. Of course, for those who aren't aware, we've just finished filming the fights for Season 5.0, but the shows won't be cut, assembled, and broadcast until July and August. So for the next three months, we're in NDA season (non-disclosure agreement). So there's very little we can say about how well we did. We're sure that at least one of our fights will be televised, and we'll post the date as soon as we know.

We've finished reorganizing the photo subdirectories on our site, and have put up a couple of photos from Treasure Island in our Team Toad Season 5.0 event report. We'll add a few more soon, and the rest will wait until the TV broadcast catches up.

We're spending June working on zoning and building permits for the Robot Club & Grille. With some luck, we'll be able to open this summer and have our first competition in August. Check the web page for updates as we progress.

May 16, 2002:

Okay, we shipped all our bots out Monday afternoon, in spite of a 30 hour long power failure that threatened to keep us from working through the night before packing. Then the next day, we found that FrostBite 4.0 and IceBerg 3.0 are both seeded #14, and SnowFlake is the 24th seeded lightweight, giving us our most seeded robots ever.

We leave Saturday night, and will be in line bright and early Sunday morning. See you all on the island.

May 11, 2002:

Just 40 hours to go, and we have IceBerg 3.0 ready. That makes 4 out of 5. Only FrostBite 4.0 is left...we got the drive train and radio failsafes done; all that's left is to reassembled the threshers with a roller chain sprocket instead of a V-Belt pulley.

May 6, 2002:

Just six days to go, and we have the three smaller bots ready to go (we finished Ice Cube today). We also have quick updates to FrostBite 4.0 and IceBerg 3.0.

May 4, 2002:

We have updates to both FrostBite 4.0 and IceBerg 3.0. FrostBite gets a new drive train thanks to our newest sponsor, Thomson Micron, and IceBerg gets a brand new plow blade and a coat of paint.

Apr 29, 2002:

One of our biggest groans at TI-2 was the Ice Cube versus Turtle Road Kill fight. Ice Cube not once but twice did a faceplant onto the arena floor and just stood there immobilized. Our solution is a new self-righting arm.

Apr 23, 2002:

We have an update to SnowFlake's web page, showing Jacey and Fuzzy welding the blade onto the front so Ziggo can't rip it off again.

Also, check out our Low tech Battery Discharger made with lightbulbs, a resistor, a pushbutton switch, and a relay that was sitting around unused.

Apr 21, 2002:

SnowCone LW is ready for the competition, having made weight at exactly 60.0 pounds, and having all the components shock-mounted.

Debbie still has to get some practice driving the bigger, faster version of SnowCone, and of course she wants to hit something with the blade to see it go "poof!"

Apr 16, 2002:

Did the first weapon test of SnowCone LW today. The good news is that the blade is well balanced and the torque limiter mount seems to work great. The bad news is that at full speed calculated to be 4,500 rpm, the dang thing is so scary that Fuzzy refuses to go near it with the tachometer. We may never know how fast it really spins.

Apr 15, 2002:

Not too many updates...we're really busy getting ready for the next event in May 2002. But we did make a lot of progress on SnowCone LW over the weekend. We got the frame built, the motors mounted, the electronics wired, and started drive testing the base.

All that's left is cutting the weapon blade and painting the body.

Mar 25, 2002:

We're back from HSRC, and we've started on our HSRC'02 event report. Not much there, yet, but there are two really cool photos of SnowCone's two victories.

Mar 18, 2002:

We updated Mini-Mauler to match Mauler's new paintscheme for Season 4.0.

Mar 17, 2002:

Today was the first drive test for IceBerg 3.0, and the results were great. No video, yet, since rain cut the driving test short.

Mar 15, 2002:

We updated our IceBerg 3.0 build report, showing our finished frame, battery mounts, and wheels.

Next weekend we're off to HSRC'02 with all the Tiny Toad fleet.

We leave Saturday night, and will be in line bright and early Sunday morning. See you all on the island.

Also, check out our Low tech Battery Discharger made with lightbulbs, a resistor, a pushbutton switch, and a relay that was sitting around unused.

Debbie still has to get some practice driving the bigger, faster version of SnowCone, and of course she wants to hit something with the blade to see it go "poof!"

All that's left is cutting the weapon blade and painting the body.

We're back from HSRC, and we've started on our HSRC'02 event report. Not much there, yet, but there are two really cool photos of SnowCone's two victories.

We updated Mini-Mauler to match Mauler's new paintscheme for Season 4.0.

Today was the first drive test for IceBerg 3.0, and the results were great. No video, yet, since rain cut the driving test short.

We updated our IceBerg 3.0 build report, showing our finished frame, battery mounts, and wheels.

Next weekend we're off to HSRC'02 with all the Tiny Toad fleet.