Jot
| Builder | Max Morningstar |
| Driver | Max Morningstar |
| Team | TRC |
| Weight Class | 3lb |
| Body Material | TPU Chassis |
| Weapon | Horizontal Thwacking Spinner (AR500) |
| Weapon Drive | EMAX ECOII 2306 2400Kv |
| Drive | Repeat Drive Max from Repeat Robotics |
| Power | 4S Lipo |
| Lifetime record | 3-3 |
Overview
Jot is a 3lb robot designed and built by Max Morningstar, first competing at the January 2024 New Bots event at NHRL. Morningstar came up with the idea to build Jot while reflecting on the 2023 Championships, in which cam lifter Supreme Ruler and corral bot Full Court made deep runs into the 3lb and 12lb brackets respectively, with the latter taking home the Golden Brett in its weight class. Morningstar wanted a design that could combat these styles of robots while still being competitive against vertical spinning robots. While in the shower, Morningstar was hit by a flash of inspiration, surmising that a bigwheel bot was the ideal counter to both types of designs, being able to bulldoze over corral bots while also being largely immune to cam lifters, which rely on the low ground clearance typical in meta 4WD vertical spinner designs.
In coming up with the Jot design, Morningstar looked to Starchild for initial inspiration. Having seen the Starchild variant Axis of Evil compete in the August 2023 event, Morningstar knew one of the biggest drawbacks to the design was the challenge of lining up hits with the robot's rear-mounted vertical spinner. To fix this, Morningstar combined the big wheels and elongated chassis of Starchild with a horizontal blade, envisioning a robot with a thwacking attack pattern that would be easier to drive and land reliable hits with. Having seen the dominant performance of the thagomizer-style robot Maximizer, Morningstar believed the design would be versatile enough to counter cam lifters and corral robots while still being competitively viable versus 4WD vertical spinners, which typically have less armor on the sides than the front.
Jot's name is an esoteric reference to a comedy sketch made by the podcasting network Headgum, in which two characters discuss ideas for viral t-shirt designs. Morningstar's robot Four Beet Salad, a 1lb plastic version of Jot, is named for another reference within the same video.
Before settling on the name Jot, the robot was originally going to be called Starmizer as an homage to Starchild and Maximizer, the two robots most impactful on the Jot design.
Fight History
NHRL January 2024
Jot debuted at the NHRL January 2024 event, having been designed over the preceding December. Before Jot, builder Max Morningstar had only designed one other combat robot, the horizontal spinner Deep Cut. Deep Cut's chassis was composed of 3D printed TPU sections sandwiched between 7075 aluminum frames. Originally, Morningstar had wanted Jot's weapon to be parallel to the ground and as low as possible for stability. However, as the competition neared and the robot remained unfinished, Morningstar was forced to compromise this design, ultimately using the same aluminum/TPU chassis style as Deep Cut for Jot's first chassis iteration. This resulted in Jot's weapon sitting at a roughly 45 degree angle from the ground. Morningstar knew this would introduce strange gyroscopic forces to Jot, but with time running out he was unable to test the robot and understand these forces until after he arrived to compete at NHRL.
Jot vs Terminus
Jot's first qualifying fight of the January event, and indeed of its career, was slated to be against Terminus, a hammersaw built by the robotics team from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. The fight would have been an interesting one and potentially a devastating loss for Jot, since due to weight constraints Jot only had 1mm of TPU top and bottom armor on its main chassis. Unfortunately, Terminus had issues with belt tension on both its hammersaw arm and drivetrain, and was unable to pass safety in time to compete in the match. Under the new 2024 ruleset, Jot was awarded its first ever win, by forfeit.
Jot vs Little Melty
Jot's second fight was against another Rose-Hulman bot, Little Melty. Little Melty, as its name suggests, was a meltybrain design where the entire robot spins up to high RPMs, turning its own chassis into a primary weapon. Jot once again had a lucky break when the driver of Little Melty accidentally put the robot into the cage upside down, obscuring the directional LEDs that would have allowed them to see what direction the robot thought it was facing. Without these LEDs, the team was unable to effectively control their robot, piloting it into the walls by their starting corner, where the robot remained until the match ended. This was good news for Jot, as unbeknownst to the Little Melty team the hub holding Jot's wheel onto its drive axle was loose, and the wheel had begun to creep towards the edge of the axle as Jot approached its opponent's position. Had Jot maneuvered more aggressively, or taken a direct hit from Little Melty, Jot likely would have been quickly disabled. Luckily, Jot driver Max Morningstar noticed the wheel start to shift and wisely kept Jot's movement to a minimum until Little Melty tapped out, granting Jot its second win and a berth in the January 2024 3lb bracket.
While anticlimactic, this was a critical fight for Jot because it exposed the glaring drive and gyroscopic issues caused by the robot's design. First, Jot's drive was incredibly sensitive. Its wheels were directly driven by Repeat Drive Max motors, which are designed for significantly smaller wheels than those boasted by Jot. Even with settings turned way down on Morningstar's controller, Jot accelerated quickly at even small inputs, making the robot very difficult to drive. This difficulty was exacerbated by the gyroscopic forces caused by Jot's weapon, which made Jot want to simultaneously not drive straight and attempt to roll over when turned. The combination of these factors would greatly inhibit Jot's ability to effectively damage opponents throughout the January 2024 event.
Jot vs TriJinx
Jot's first fight in the tournament bracket was against TriJinx, a robot modeled after the heavyweight robot HiJinx. Driven by a powerful hub motor, TriJinx wielded a large horizontal as its primary weapon. Horizonal spinners traditionally perform well against bigwheel robots. However, Jot's lucky streak continued, and upon reaching the cage TriJinx realized that its weapon was nonfunctional (later revealed to be a result of a faulty weapon ESC). This would prove pivotal during the fight. Due to the aforementioned drive issues, Jot's weapon was largely ineffective, and was intermittently seizing over the course of the match due to excess friction on the weapon shaft. Despite its lack of a working weapon, TriJinx acted as an adept control bot, successfully attempting multiple pins on Jot. However, the spring steel cleats on Jot's wheels proved to be highly effective, allowing Jot to drive up over TriJinx and escape its pins as fast as the robot could attempt them. TriJinx's nonfunctional weapon, and Jot's ability to work its way out of pins, ultimately led to a split judge's decision in favor of Jot, who advanced in the bracket.
Jot vs Sir Spinny
Jot's next opponent was a multibot consisting of a FingerTech vertical spinner and a lifting Viper minibot. In theory, this was a matchup that Jot was designed to dominate. However, given the drive sensitivity and overpowering gyroscopic weapon force, Jot was mostly at the mercy of Sir Spinny, which did its best to dismantle Jot over the three-minute match. Sir Spinny successfully removed most of the spring steel cleats on Jot's wheels, took off both self-righting spikes, and sheared off Jot's weapon shaft, causing Jot's spinner to be ejected from the robot. While Jot was able to cling to life for the full match, the resulting unanimous judge's decision in favor of Sir Spinny was no surprise. By taking this win, Sir Spinny delivered Jot the first loss of its career and eliminated it from the 3lb tournament bracket.
Chaos Rumble
After dropping out of the 3lb bracket (and repairing the extensive damage sustained at the hands of Sir Spinny), Jot entered into a freestyle rumble featuring robots The Fool, Event Horizon, Smol HEX, and several minibots. Also participating was fellow TRC robot Indubitably, which typically had a lifter arm but after sustaining damage to its main weapon servo was being driven as just a wedge. The fight was pure chaos - Jot eventually lost a wheel after a strong hit from Event Horizon, though maintained a remarkable amount of mobility despite having lost half its drive train. There was a fun interaction between Jot and the minibot for The Fool, which had been equipped with a cow catcher-esque attachment designed to restrain bigwheel robots. By the time the minibot made its way over to Jot, Jot had already lost its wheel. Undeterred, the minibot attempted a pin to hilarious effect when the cow catcher got stuck through one of Jot's spokes, entangling the two robots together to the great amusement of both drivers.
Following the rumble, Jot gifted its removed wheel to the Event Horizon team as a trophy from the rumble, and was in turn gifted the cow catcher from The Fool's minibot.
Show Match: Jot and Rewind vs Chainsaw Kitty
Jot's final fight of the competition was originally going to be another rumble once again featuring Event Horizon and Indubitably, alongside the rebuilt robot Rewind that had recently been knocked out of the 3lb tournament. Unfortunately, both Event Horizon and Indubitably ultimately withdrew from the rumble for a variety of reasons. Undeterred, the drivers for Rewind and Jot went to register for a freestyle fight when they happened to run into Kezia Skye, driver of Chainsaw Kitty, coincidentally also looking for opponents for a final freestyle fight for the day. Jot and Rewind immediately agreed to the match, not wanting to turn down a chance to be in the cage with one of the most recognizable beetleweight robots to compete at NHRL. At Kezia's suggestion, rather than being a rumble, the match was conducted as more of a freestyle fight, with Chainsaw Kitty and its minibot Knifecat facing off against the alliance of Jot and Rewind.
Despite the fact that she was facing two full beetleweight robots, Chainsaw Kitty was able to not only hold her ground but put on a dominant performance. By the end of the fight Jot was completely disabled, and would likely have been counted out had it not been for Rewind, which showcased both its excellent durability and skilled driving, lasting to the end of the match even after receiving several devastating hits from Chainsaw Kitty's weapon. Upon further inspection post-fight, it became clear that the hits from Chainsaw Kitty had loosened the gearboxes of Jot to the point where the brushless motors of the drivetrain were able to freespin in the chassis, severing their own wires and disabling the robot's drive. The damage sustained in this match, alongside the driving issues that plagued Jot throughout the day, would be the primary focus of Jot's redesign for its next competition.
NHRL June 2024
Heading into the June event, the primary design challenges facing Jot were making the drive more controllable and figuring out a way to keep the weapon parallel to the ground. To increase drivability, the chassis was redesigned so that there was a secondary axle for the wheels to ride on, connected via belts to the Repeat Drive Max motors that ran Jot's drivetrain. This added an additional reduction onto the wheels, bringing their speed into a still quick but far more controllable RPM range. This chassis redesign, along with the transition from aluminum frames to a UHMW tail, meant that Jot would look radically different from its January 2024 iteration.
Fixing the weapon of Jot took a little more design effort. The challenge was figuring out how to get power out to Jot's weapon, which was located on the end of its new UHMW tail. Keeping the weapon motor mounted near the chassis, like how Jot appeared in January 2024, would mean running an exposed belt all the way along the tail, a juicy target for any opponent to try and snipe. Mounting the motor closer to the weapon would help reduce the threat of belt loss, but similarly expose the motor wires to damage. Rather than try to devise a protective housing for either the weapon belt or weapon motor wires, builder Max Morningstar decided it was safer to direct drive the weapon and to have a dedicated battery and receiver for the weapon motor. The downside to this decision would be that the weapon motor would be directly in the path of attack for any robots with horizontal weapons. Morningstar needed a motor that was strong enough to act as a hubmotor, and durable enough to sustain any direct weapon hits. Conveniently, this seemed like a perfect application for the newly released JCR-4935 motor from Just Cuz Robotics. With a new drive and weapon setup, Jot was coming into NHRL's June 2024 event with renewed vitality.
Unfortunately, much like in January 2024 the biggest issue for Jot would ultimately be a lack of testing. Upon arriving to the June 2024 event and testing the new Jot design for the first time, several problems emerged. First, while swapping to belts on the drivetrain did make Jot more controllable, the belts were prone to slipping on the 3D printed TPU wheel hubs. Additionally, the TPU chassis for Jot, which was significantly thinner than January's chassis due to weight constraints, allowed the drive motors and wheel axles to deflect towards each other, further loosening the belts. The belts had so much slip that Jot failed its first attempt at passing safety because it could not show enough controlled movement. The addition of some flange washers and zip ties were able to stabilize the axles and tighten the drive belts enough for Jot to move, but its maneuverability was hindered for the duration of the event.
Much like how the weapon instability had worsened Jot's existing drive issues in January, Jot's weapon weight similarly exacerbated the maneuverability issues in June. The combination of the weapon weight, the weight of a 3S battery, and the enormous JCR-4935 motor, meant that in order to turn Jot had to contend with almost a third of the robot's weight inconveniently located at the very end of the tail. This not only crippled Jot's turning abilities but also prohibited Jot from making quick Thagomizer-style thwacks with its weapon, cutting the heart out of Jot's overall design philosophy. Even though it would not perform as expected or desired, Morningstar ran Jot anyway, inverting his controls so that the robot drove weapon-first instead of leading with its bigwheels as it had in January 2024. For June 2024, Jot would be less of a thwacking horizontal, and more of a traditional undercutter.
Jot vs Not Sure
Jot's first fight of the event was against Not Sure, an eggbeater vertical spinner with a wide, low frame. Early on, Jot was able to inflict solid damage onto Not Sure, disabling the robot's weapon. However, yet another design flaw on Jot cropped up, one that would not just undermine this match but ultimately torpedo Jot's entire June event. In January, Jot's bigwheels were fastened directly to the self-righting "snowman nose" cones that helped Jot avoid becoming stuck on one of its wheels if the robot was knocked over. Those cones were secured to the motor axles with set screws, meaning that the hole assembly turned in unison as the motors drove the wheels. In June, the wheels were separate from the cones, which were screwed into the end of the wheel axles. Since the cones did not rotate, it meant that when the wheels were pressed into the cones (such as during a pin from Not Sure), Jot was actively unscrewing the only fastener keeping the wheel on the drive axle. This would ultimately cause one of Jot's wheels to slip off of its hub, not quite fully off the robot but far enough that it disabled a drive side even after Jot had already shut down Not Sure's weapon. Given Jot's decreased ability to turn, the faulty axle design that disabled half of Jot's drive, and Not Sure's strong control driving, Jot lost the fight to a unanimous judge's decision.
Jot vs Singularity
Statistics
Info
- Rank: #254 in 3lb.
- Last 5 fights: WWLLL
- Current streak: L3 (1 KOs/KO'd)
- Longest winning streak: 3 (1 KOs)
- Longest losing streak: 3 (1 KO'd)
- Avg fight time (seconds): 129.6
Record
| Year | Events | Fights | W | L | % | KOs | KO'd |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | |||||||
| 2020 | |||||||
| 2021 | |||||||
| 2022 | |||||||
| 2023 | |||||||
| 2024 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 0.500 | 1 | 1 |
| All-Time | 2 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 0.500 | 1 | 0 |
Events
| Date | Fought as | Reached | Place | Fights | W | L | KOs | KO'd |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January 20, 2024 | Jot | Bracket Rd. 2 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
| June 22, 2024 | Jot | Qualifiers Rd. 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
Opponents
| Opponent | Fights | W | L | KOs | KO'd | Last Meeting |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Terminus | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | January 20, 2024 |
| Little Melty | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | January 20, 2024 |
| TriJinx | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | January 20, 2024 |
| Not Sure | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | June 22, 2024 |
| Singularity | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | June 22, 2024 |
| Sir Spinny | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | January 20, 2024 |
Click "Expand" to see this table.
Full Fight History
| Date | Opponent | Round | Result | By | Points | Fight Length (s) | Video |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January 20, 2024 | Terminus | Qualifiers Rd. 1 | Win | Forfeit | 1.00 | ||
| January 20, 2024 | Little Melty | Qualifiers Rd. 2 | Win | Tapout | 1.00 | 61 | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C6iSvDtFB4&t=10049s |
| January 20, 2024 | TriJinx | Bracket Rd. 1 | Win | Judges Decision | 1.00 | 180 | https://nhrl-matches.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/streams/Cage-7-Overhead-High_1080p_121.mp4 |
| January 20, 2024 | Sir Spinny | Bracket Rd. 2 | Loss | Judges Decision | -1.00 | 180 | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C6iSvDtFB4&t=29597s |
| June 22, 2024 | Not Sure | Qualifiers Rd. 1 | Loss | Judges Decision | -1.10 | 180 | |
| June 22, 2024 | Singularity | Qualifiers Rd. 2 | Loss | Tapout | -1.18 | 47 |
* Forfeits before the 2024 season are not counted in a bot's W-L record. Forfeits from 2024 and on are counted in a bot's W-L record.
For more information on how points are calculated for rankings, click here.
Click "Expand" to see this table.
Gallery
Robot Pictures
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Jot as it appeared at the January 2024 NHRL event
Pog Pictures
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Pog used January 2024
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Pog used June 2024
Select Fights
Freestyle fight between a team of Jot and control bot Rewind against Kezia Skye's Chainsaw Kitty at the January 2024 event. Chainsaw Kitty had a dominant showing despite facing two full 3-pound beetleweight robots, disabling Jot and roofing Rewind multiple times.
Hype reel for Jot made using footage from the January 2024 event. Featured are Jot's first test drive (without cleats), the fight versus Little Melty, and the freestyle fight between Jot and Rewind, and Chainsaw Kitty.
