Tournament of Champions
Glitch’s win streak finally ends, but it earns Rookie of the Year!
Pre-Fight
We came into the day prepared to fight! The Witch Doctor team had to fight Whiplash at the beginning of the morning session (12pm), while our fight was at the end of the session (ends 4pm) so we were waiting for a few hours in the staging area.
Since the Witch Doctor team had a grueling 9 fights, they were having difficulties with repairs and took time to change to forks for the first time ever. Production started a dq timer since Witch Doctor was close to missing the session, but luckily they were able to just make it in time, with the session ending at ~4:10!
Fight
The first half of the fight went roughly according to our strategy. We took control of the center, since it was the least risk to get high centered (less floor damage, less arena hazards), almost got a few hits, and our drive was working decently!
Glitch & Witch Doctor’s strategy battle, JCRB Photography
Since there was some time without engagement, the Ref encouraged attacking. We made the mistake of being the first ones to listen. After all, the disengagement was mutual and we couldn’t accelerate forward consistently.
We ventured out of the center of the arena. A few moments later, Glitch’s wheel got stuck in a spike hole. Who could’ve seen that coming?
Witch Doctor immediately took advantage, getting a great series of hits and knocking Glitch near the screws. They followed up with two hits and then backed off.
This is where it gets interesting - our ref called at timeout.
Editing Cuts in Glitch vs Witch Doctor
There’s a little bit of TV magic for this match since otherwise it’d be hard to explain. In the Final Cut there’s ~15 seconds before Witch Doctor’s finishing hit. In reality, it was much more. You can see above where the cuts happens: Glitch’s weapon goes from spinning down to suddenly stopped, and spinning up to suddenly full speed.
The KO time on the BattleBots website, 2m26s, is 20s more than the Final Cut. So Glitch could have been sitting there anywhere from 15-35s. My best guess is 20-25s for a legal timeout, but if any builder has the real clip I can get the right number. (Fun experiment: take out your phone and time 20s).
Whether Glitch should get a timeout for getting stuck on the arena is a question in itself. It’s happened so many times it’s definitely a design problem. So far we’d always been freed or freed ourselves from situations BattleBots has said would be an unstick; I guess we built up a deficit.
Reactions to the finishing hit
Our ref started counting down from 10, then called a timeout. Witch Doctor charged forward and delivered the finishing hit. Glitch landed on the screws, and since they didn’t reverse it was over.
Post-Fight
Immediately after the fight the Witch Doctor team clarified they thought we’d been/were being counted out, and to be fair Glitch had freed itself from floor issues before.
Once we got Glitch back we did an inspection and realized this time we weren’t stuck on the arena, we were stuck on debris (not a timeout!). A screw had gotten lodged under one of our magnets, and we were unable to move to loose.
Damage Report
Although drivable, Glitch took the most damage we have ever taken before and we were able to learn a lot for Glitch V2! We had a bent piece of armor (our new welds held!), a big divot on the bottom, and a huge frame chunk & wheel roller taken out on that finishing hit.
Conclusion
The fight absolutely went the way it should’ve: Witch Doctor took advantage of our design issues, and Mike drove great, choosing to attack and aiming when we couldn’t turn into them. Plus, again it never should have been a timeout with the debris under Glitch.
The fight also aired the way it should’ve: giving the full context would’ve been really confusing for the TV audience.
COVID Wall, JCRB Photography
My one takeaway is as BattleBots grows in competitiveness and potentially does more live events, hopefully these complications in the rules can be smoothed out (imagine the chaos if this was a match people gambled on).
I think the best area of improvement from this match is ref to ref communication with the COVID wall between teams. It also caused a lot of confusion in the Witch Doctor vs Minotaur fight, and having clearly defined hand signals, color codes or whistle codes would significantly help.
Final note: I just want to say congratulations to the End Game team for winning the Golden Bolt, and say thank you to all the other builders and staff that were supporting us and encouraging us before the fight! It meant a lot!
