Thank you so much for coming to spectate our event, we hope you have a blast! To help explain a little of the carnage down in the arena, we’ve put together this guide as a little assistant..
Brawl ’24 is Sponsored by Accu
Welcome competitors and spectators to the Bristol Bot Builders Beetle Brawl 2024! Accu is thrilled to be sponsoring the event for the first time, building on from our successful partnership in combat robotics with Labman FightFest. It’s great to be part of this dynamic and innovative community once again and we can’t wait to see the carnage unfold… If you’d like to find out more about us and what we do, feel free to scan the QR code below – we’d love to support your next project. Best of luck to everyone fighting and enjoy the brawl!
To learn more about Accu, click here. Accu is the new kind of component company. Whether you need 1 component or millions, our industry-leading ecommerce store offers clear online stock visibility for over 500,000 components. Engineers and innovators are empowered by same day dispatch and fast, accurate delivery. Get Building Tomorrow – one component at a time.
What are combat robots?
The first sentence of the ‘Robot Combat’ Wikipedia entry sums it up quite succinctly; ‘Robot combat is a mode of robot competition in which custom-built machines fight using various methods to incapacitate each other’. You’ll see various weapons in use today, but there are a few (largely safety based) restrictions: No fire, no liquids, no explosives, and no electrical-based (eg: EMP) weapons.
Some of the bots fighting today:
Just some of the 50 robots who’ve come to compete today!
How do fights work?
Robots will be loaded into the box for their fight in different areas of the arena, and from the start of the fight will have 2 minutes to beat their opponent. They can do this in two ways:
1) Immobilise their opponent: Any method that stops the opposing machine from moving outside of their circle for 10 seconds (not including being pinned). Usually these will be the most destructive of outcomes, although can also be achieved by lifters and flippers if the opponent can’t get their wheels on the ground any more.
2) Put their opponent out of bounds: The 2 ways you can do this are via the out-of-the-arena section behind the corner wall, or by putting your opponent in the pit. The pit can be activated after 30 seconds of the fight, using the button on the corner wall. If the robot hits the floor of the pit or ‘OOTA’ area, they are immediately eliminated – regardless of any bouncing!
If the fight goes the full 2 minutes, the fight is decided by our panel of judges. They’ll judge on 3 equally-weighted criteria – weapon effectiveness, control and aggression.
A robot being pitted – one of the ways to win a fight
What’s the format of the tournament?
There’s over 50 robots competing today from across the UK and Europe, they’ll fight in:
Round 1 – 3-way melees
Redemption – 1v1s for the losers of the melees, shuffled.
Round 2 onwards – straight knockout 1v1s for winners of Round 1 and Redemptions.
You’ll be able to follow along with the tournament bracket using this link during fights!
18 of the teams are from various universities and schools. They’ll fight in their own part of the bracket. The university winning bots will join the national teams in either the quarter or semi finals.
What are beetles?
Beetleweight robots are much smaller and lighter than their 110kg brethren you see on Robot Wars or Battlebots! Beetles are limited to 1.5kg, which makes them much more compact, cheaper and easier to work on while still packing a punch, with big hits that span the whole box!
While you’ll see intricately designed beetleweights making the most of technology like 3D printing or CNC machining, there is just as much a place for more simplistic builds, with one of the most common materials for beetleweight building being sheets of HDPE; the same material as your plastic chopping boards, and workable with simple tools!
Antweight: 150g
Beetleweight: 1.5kg
Featherweight: 13.6kg
Heavyweight (TV): 110kg
How do I get involved?
If you’ve got the bug, why not try building yourself? On our site, you can find various build guides for different weightclasses with recommended parts lists as well as our own parts shop, which includes drive kits. We also have a super supportive Facebook group and Forum where roboteers from around the world support each other with their questions and queries. We run events almost every month and hope to see you at one of our future events!
