Lemon Vinaigrette

Robot Facts

Lemon Vinaigrette image from Brettzone

Builder	Max Morningstar
Driver	Max Morningstar
Weight Class	3lb
Body Material	TPU Chassis, Carbon Fiber Top/Bottom Plates
Weapon	Vertical Spinner
Weapon Drive	RDY-5536 Hubmotor from Just Cuz Robotics
Drive	Repeat Pros from Repeat Robotics
Power	4S Lipo
Lifetime record	3-2

Overview

In the January 2024 NHRL event, Max Morningstar drove a debut Jot against TriJinx, driven by veteran combat roboteer Madeline, narrowly defeating Trijinx in a Split Judge's Decision after Trijinx arrived to the box with a broken weapon ESC. The fight served as an introduction between the two drivers, who would run into each other again at the June 2024 NHRL event when Morningstar pitted across from Madeline's teammate's robot Floor Letter Word. At this event, Madeline showed off a prototype 4WD vertical spinner bot in the test box, explaining that the design was going to be turned into a kit at some point in the future. Madeline offered to send Morningstar the CAD and machined parts for the kit so that he could help with testing and publicizing the design, an offer Morningstar readily agreed to.

The Aioli Kit, as the design would come to be known, got its general design from the highly successful Golden Brett-winning featherweight robot Emulsifier, which boasts a large vertical spinner. The kit name references this, as aioli is a type of emulsion. Madeline's own version of the kitbot Mayo But Fancy also plays off of this name, and to follow suit Morningstar named his robot Lemon Vinaigrette.

Fight History

NHRL September 2024

Lemon Vinaigrette vs Cookie Crumbler

Lemon Vinaigrette's first match of the day would be against the 2WD beater bar vertical spinner Cookie Crumbler. In the pits before the NHRL September 2024, Lemon Vinaigrette suffered a weapon failure while in a test box. Upon investigation, it turned out that one of the robot's weapon ESC leads had come unsoldered from the main power distribution board. Not wanting this to occur during a match, driver Max Morningstar had a teammate fully resolder the ESC. Ironically, upon entering the box with Cookie Crumbler, all it took was one hit and the other ESC lead popped loose anyway. In a stroke of luck, the same hit that disabled Lemon Vinaigrette's weapon also caused the belt to slip off of Cookie Crumbler's beater bar, disabling their weapon as well. The match quickly turned into a pushing contest, with both Cookie Crumbler and Lemon Vinaigrette managing to score control points. Ultimately, the fight went the full three minutes and was decided in favor of Cookie Crumbler.

Lemon Vinaigrette vs Horrorzontal Destruction

Lemon Vinaigrette entered its second match coming off of a loss, though without any significant damage, to face the overhead spinner Horrorzontal Destruction. Given that it was an overhead spinner, Morningstar knew that all he had to do was flip the opposing robot onto its head and it would quickly be counted out. However, this would be no easy task, as Horrorzontal Destruction's spinner was placed to strike at Lemon Vinaigrette's weapon uprights, and boasted a thick titanium wedge.

The match would end up being very different from what either team expected. While loaded into the cage, but prior to the start of the match, Horrorzontal Destruction's driver was testing their weapon when it accidentally collided with the housebot in the arena. This strike disabled Horrorzontal Destruction's weapon, and it was forced to start the match with its wedge as its only offensive option. This would prove to still be a formidable challenge to Lemon Vinaigrette: the wedge was able to get under the TPU baleen on the front of Lemon Vinaigrette, and for the first portion of the match Horrorzontal Destruction easily got the better of Lemon Vinaigrette, pinning it against the wall of the arena. However, all it took was one solid hit from Lemon Vinaigrette's weapon to take a chunk out of the wedge and knock the robot on its head, leading to a tapout. In hindsight, Morningstar mused that the weapon dying on Horrorzontal Destruction probably ended up aiding the robot, since had its weapon been active Lemon Vinaigrette would likely have had an easier time getting a hit onto its spinning blade instead of having to deal with the robot's wedge. Regardless of the hypotheticals, Lemon Vinaigrette took the win and advanced to the make-or-break third qualifier fight of the day.

Lemon Vinaigrette vs Sliced Bread

Lemon Vinaigrette's final qualifier fight would pit it against Sliced Bread, a unique 4WD vertical spinner with an experimental 3-blade weapon design. In its first fight of the day, Sliced Bread had handily defeated J Lee's robot Aria Bravo. Morningstar, an avid fan of J Lee's Kinekitsu YouTube Channel, jokingly saw the fight as an opportunity to get revenge for J's loss, in addition to securing Lemon Vinaigrette's place in the bracket.

The fight was largely one-sided for the first two minutes. Sliced Bread quickly won several weapon-to-weapon exchanges, and was largely dominating the match. Lemon Vinaigrette managed to stay mobile, but Sliced Bread was clearly up on the scorecards as the two robots entered into the final minute. However, Sliced Bread's experimental weapon proved to be its downfall. A common self-righting maneuver for upside-down vertical spinning bots is to run themselves into the arena kickplates, using the energy from their weapon to knock themselves back right side up. In its zealous attack against Lemon Vinaigrette, Sliced Bread managed to get itself upside down, and then got stuck on the arena while attempting to self right, since the increased MOI of their new weapon caused the robot to get hung up on the wall rather than spinning off of it. After using their unstick, the Sliced Bread team soon found themselves stuck on the wall once more, this time directly in front of Morningstar. Sensing that discretion is the better part of valor, Morningstar allowed Sliced Bread to be counted out, securing a knockout win, entering the September bracket, and avenging Aria Bravo's earlier loss.

Lemon Vinaigrette vs Frostbite

Despite the thrashing it endured at the hands of Sliced Bread, Lemon Vinaigrette was able to enter its first bracket match of the day at full strength. Its opponent Frostbite was an overhead spinner, with a highly compact and low to the ground chassis. The match would ultimately be Lemon Vinaigrette's quickest of the day: after a couple of weapon exchanges the electronics within Frostbite came apart, disabling the robot and earning Lemon Vinaigrette its third KO of the day in less than a minute.

Lemon Vinaigrette vs Vapor Trail

Entering the round of 32, Lemon Vinaigrette would face arguably its most high-profile opponent of the day in Johnny Tsoumpas and Vapor Trail. An aggressive 4WD vertical spinner with a large disk, Vapor Trail's strongest weapon was arguably the person at its controls, a robot combat veteran and winner of the 2023 Sparky Award for Best Young Driver. Morningstar knew the fight ahead would be tough, and would test the limits of Lemon Vinaigrette's durability.

The match was a slugfest, with both Vapor Trail and Lemon Vinaigrette landing solid hits and solid pins on each other. Both robots would go the full distance, ending the match with functional drives and functional weapons. In the resulting Judge's Decision, Vapor Trail was awarded the win, ending Lemon Vinaigrette's run for the competition. Despite the loss, Morningstar was enthusiastic about the performance, and received kudos from Johnny on his ability to effectively maneuver Lemon Vinaigrette throughout the course of the fight.

3lb Rumble

To close out the day, Lemon Vinaigrette was thrown into the 3lb rumble. This was the largest beetleweight rumble Morningstar had ever participated in, featuring robots IMPAKT. Karoomba, ER Stingray 2, Derange, Ghastly, Gh-astly, THE WALL PT. 2, Singularity, and a Repeater. As the rumble started, Lemon Vinaigrette was almost immediately knocked silly by IMPAKT, which dislodged the battery on Lemon Vinaigrette such that it got caught between the chassis and the carbon fiber bottom plate of the robot, high centering and immobilizing Lemon Vinaigrette. The robot would then take even more damage from the hammersaw weapon of THE WALL PT. 2 before it finally ended up getting shoved into a corner by an aggressively driven housebot. The fight ultimately caused Morningstar to retire that Lemon Vinaigrette chassis, including both sheets of carbon fiber and one of its drive motors, which seized up as a result of the sustained trauma delivered throughout the rumble.

Statistics

Info

• Rank: #235 in 3lb.
• Last 5 fights: LWWWL
• Current streak: L1 (0 KOs/KO'd)
• Longest winning streak: 3 (3 KOs)
• Longest losing streak: 1 (0 KO'd)
• Avg fight time (seconds): 155.6

Record

Year	Events	Fights	W	L	%	KOs	KO'd
2018-19
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024	1	5	3	2	0.600	3	0
All-Time	1	5	3	2	0.600	3	0

Events

Date	Fought as	Reached	Place	Fights	W	L	KOs	KO'd
September 14, 2024	Lemon Vinaigrette	Round of 32		5	3	2	3	0

Opponents

Opponent	Fights	W	L	KOs	KO'd	Last Meeting
Horrorzontal Destruction	1	1	0	1	0	September 14, 2024
Sliced Bread	1	1	0	1	0	September 14, 2024
Frostbite	1	1	0	1	0	September 14, 2024
Cookie Crumbler	1	0	1	0	0	September 14, 2024
Vapor Trail	1	0	1	0	0	September 14, 2024

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Full Fight History

Date	Opponent	Round	Result	By	Points	Fight Length (s)	Video
September 14, 2024	Cookie Crumbler	Qualifiers Rd. 1	Loss	Judges Decision	-1.00	180	https://brettzone.nhrl.io/brettZone/fightReview.php?gameID=EX-29d396fdf7754de8&tournamentID=nhrl_sep24_3lb
September 14, 2024	Horrorzontal Destruction	Qualifiers Rd. 2	Win	Tapout	1.20	180	https://brettzone.nhrl.io/brettZone/fightReview.php?gameID=EX-03e0b14541584532&tournamentID=nhrl_sep24_3lb
September 14, 2024	Sliced Bread	Qualifiers Rd. 3	Win	KO	1.13	180	https://brettzone.nhrl.io/brettZone/fightReview.php?gameID=EX-cb83ff0ee0844690&tournamentID=nhrl_sep24_3lb
September 14, 2024	Frostbite	Opening Round	Win	KO	1.00	58	https://brettzone.nhrl.io/brettZone/fightReview.php?gameID=W-21&tournamentID=nhrl_sep24_3lb
September 14, 2024	Vapor Trail	Round of 32	Loss	Judges Decision	-1.00	180	https://brettzone.nhrl.io/brettZone/fightReview.php?gameID=W-42&tournamentID=nhrl_sep24_3lb

* 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.

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Select Fights

Video links coming soon!