Team Toad: Avalanche

After a seven year hiatus from building big robots, we decided that Combots Cup 2009 provided the perfect opportunity to bring the noise back to our fleet.

Since FrostBite was a trademarked BattleBot used in toys, we needed a whole new name and identity. Avalanche retains the well-known Team Toad plow blade, but we decided to make it a lifter with arms that rotate around the center of the robot's body.

That allows Avalanche 1 to rotate the blade completely around the robot.

While the rotating arms worked well, the pushing blade made for a poor lifter. Once the opponent was a few inches off the ground, it would simply slip back down off the blade.

But the real Achille's Heel of this design was that there was precious little weight left to make the 18" long arms strong enough to withstand the lateral forces from a horizontal spinner like Last Rites.

Specifications

Four 36V NiCad Battlepacks
Four NPC T64 gearmotors driving 10" foam-filled tires
One NPC T74 gearmotor driving a two-stage chain reduction for the plow-blade rotation
One Vantec RDFR 47e speed controller for the drive motors
One Vantec RSFR 48e speed controller driving the lifter motor

Match History

Avalanche competed at Combots IV, losing all four of its fights.

loss to Sewer Snake
loss to Original Sin
knocked out by Last Rites
loss to Brutality

We can claim a Phyrric victory against Last Rites... Last Rites knocked a 3" by 2" chunk of our plow blade off, but that piece flew inside Last Rites and took out the weapon. So we did kill the dreaded blade.

But that hit jammed one of Avalanche's wheels solid. With the wheel stuck, the T-64 motor stalled, melted its lead wires which then shorted out, and the short fried one half of the Vantec speed controller. As we tapped out, smoke filled the arena.

Thus as I like to describe the match, "We were doing really well until we caught on fire."

Build Photos