180M Mk. II

Creating the robot

180M Mk. II is an improvement over 180M, which was an entry in the 1999 Midwest Regional Critter Crunch. As the defending champion in the 2 lb. weight class, I decided to improve on the design, and take advantage of the 1.1 pounds that I had to spare last time.

The Mark II robot uses the same aluminum L-channel frame, with a modified acrylic (plexiglass) base. The same modified RC servos that were the drive system have been slightly modified, but remain the same. The largest change is the "bulldozer" servo-actuated scoop that is now on the front. Driven by a micro-servo that has the same torque and speed as the drive servos, Team Saber feels that defending the title should be relatively easy, although we have no knowledge of any other contestant in the 2 lb. class. With the crowd that came to see the 1999 event, we know we'll have our work cut out for us. Hopefully, plenty of driving practice will enable us to capture back-to-back titles.

The Event

Quite a crowd came to the event, with four (4) 2 pound entries and three (3) 20 pound entries. Team Saber also brought Endotherm, our 55 pound-class BattleBots 1999 veteran robot, just to show the crowd what bigger robots can do.