Actual Size
Robot Facts
| Builder/Driver | Max Morningstar |
|---|---|
| Team | TRC |
| Weight Class | 3lb |
| Body Material | TPU Chassis |
| Weapon | Vertical Spinner (AR500) |
| Weapon Drive | TBD |
| Drive | Repeat Drive Max from Repeat Robotics |
| Power | 3S Lipo |
| NHRL record | 1-2 |
| Lifetime record | 3-4 |
Overview
Actual Size is a bigwheel vertical spinner robot built by Max Morningstar. Coming off of an educational but competitively lackluster 2024 season with his bigwheel horizontal spinner Jot, Morningstar sought to take some of the experience gained from Jot and translate those hard-won design lessons into a more traditional (and far more competitively viable) bigwheel design.
Actual Size's name and angry eyes are both references to HUGE, the robot that pioneered the modern bigwheel vertical spinner design. The name itself comes from the song She's Actual Size by alt rock group They Might Be Giants. Morningstar prefers the live version of the song that he grew up listening to on CD with his family, which can be found on YouTube here.
Fight History
MIT CRC House Battle - December 2024
Actual Size debuted at the inaugural MIT CRC House Battle, an event hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Combat Robotics Club. Fresh off of competing with Jot at the October 2024 NHRL event, builder and driver Max Morningstar had only a few weeks to turn around a design for a then-unnamed 3lb bigwheel robot with a vertically spinning weapon.
In addition to the time constraints he faced, Morningstar (who had rather spontaneously decided to attend the MIT event) was low on cash and so designed the robot to be as cheap to produce as possible. To accomplish this, the robot was designed almost entirely out of 3D printed TPU, with the only metal components being the weapon blade and two aluminum side plates onto which the drive motors and wheels mounted. The exception to this was the UHMW bigwheels, though here too Morningstar was able to save money. The bigwheels that Actual Size used at the MIT event were actually the exact wheels that Jot had fought with in the January 2024 NHRL event, albeit with refurbished cleats and being driven by gears instead of axle-mounted on the drive motors.
The decision to reuse January Jot's wheels was as much driven by cost as by frustration. One of the biggest recurring failure points on Jot's several iterations were the wheels, so rather than try and develop a new design Morningstar chose to instead use the only wheels he had on hand that had proven their durability in combat. This simplified the challenge of designing the new robot considerably.
While the chassis and wheel designs were able to be crafted directly off of the lessons learned from Jot, one new challenge that Morningstar had to surmount was the issue of powering the vertical spinning weapon and securing the two chassis halves of the robot. For this, Morningstar looked to his other 2024 beetleweight robot, Lemon Vinaigrette, which had used the RDY-5536 Hubmotor from Just Cuz Robotics in the September 2024 NHRL event. Morningstar had been impressed by the hubmotor's ease of use and effectiveness, and saw the motor as a way to seamlessly integrate a weapon system into the robot that could also act as an anchor between the two chassis halves. With the RDY-5536 selected, Morningstar was able to complete the V1 design of Actual Size, assemble the robot, and eagerly set off to his seventh and final combat robotics competition of 2024.
Actual Size vs Flycut
Actual Size vs Basics
Actual Size vs Power Outlet
Actual Size vs Hat Trick
The loss to Hat Trick pushed Actual Size out of the loser's bracket and ended its first event, with Actual Size leaving having achieved an even record of 2-2.
NHRL June 2025
It made its debut at the 2024 MIT CRC House Battle and will debut at NHRL in 2025.
Statistics
Info
- Rank: #76 in 3lb.
- Last 5 fights: WWWWL
- Current streak: L1 (0 KOs/KO'd)
- Longest winning streak: 4 (2 KOs)
- Longest losing streak: 2 (2 KO'd)
- Avg fight time (seconds): 106.0
Record
| Year | Events | Fights | W | L | % | KOs | KO'd |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | |||||||
| 2020 | |||||||
| 2021 | |||||||
| 2022 | |||||||
| 2023 | |||||||
| 2024 | |||||||
| 2025 | 2 | 8 | 5 | 3 | 0.625 | 3 | 2 |
| All-Time | 2 | 8 | 5 | 3 | 0.625 | 3 | 0 |
Events
| Date | Fought as | Reached | Place | Fights | W | L | KOs | KO'd |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 7, 2025 | Actual Size | Prelims Rd. 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | |
| November 1, 2025 | Actual Size | Quarterfinals | 5 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
Opponents
| Opponent | Fights | W | L | KOs | KO'd | Last Meeting |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jet Lag | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | November 1, 2025 |
| Drumder Child | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | November 1, 2025 |
| Reflex | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | June 7, 2025 |
| Chaos Upright | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | November 1, 2025 |
| Dimachaerus | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | November 1, 2025 |
| Pipeline Punch | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | June 7, 2025 |
| TurboFIEND | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | June 7, 2025 |
| Project LiftOff | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | November 1, 2025 |
Click "Expand" to see this table.
Full Fight History
* 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.
Select Fights
Video links coming soon!
