Gh-Astley
Robot Facts
| Builder | Jonah |
| Driver | Jonah |
| Weight Class | 3lb |
| Body Material | TPU & Carbon Fiber |
| Weapon | Horizontal Spinner |
| Weapon Drive | (TBA) |
| Drive | 2WD....1 Wheel Drive post Catalyst matches |
| Power | 3S |
The newest addition to the Rick Roller stable...Gh-Astley!
Here's our timeline so far. Lead designer/driver, has always loved bots and constructing/deconstructing things. Discovered Battlebots a few years ago and was hooked. Came across NHRL in November 2022 and attended the Championships. It was amazing! Talking with the staff there, we learned how accessible the sport really was and boom, off to the races. Rather than start with a kit, we decided to get raw materials for the chassis and cobble together Rick Roller from scratch...to figure some things out. 2023 was a season of experimentation and learning (Don't forget to check the build log on the Rick Roller wiki). We can't say enough how amazing this sport and community is, competitors, staff and volunteers at NHRL, everyone!
As the year progressed the bug set in and by summer, design ideas for January 2024 started flowing. Being a huge fan, our lead designer Jonah wanted to try a completely different style bot. Inspired by some of the great horizontals like Caldera, Beetlejuice, Spartan, etc. Gh-Astley started to evolve. First the weapon...because what 12 year old isn't going to go weapon first on the design? Forget drive, impact toughness, etc. Start with a cool looking weapon. Thus we have the tri-tipped blade of Gh-Astley. Now Rick Roller had very little 3D printing but that's such a big part of the weight class...it was time to really dive in and learn. The chassis is mostly TPU with some Carbon Fiber top plates. First design looked awesome, fit together perfectly, held the motors in place and was good to go. Totally nailed it...as a sweet model to put up on the bookshelf. Fitting a battery and electronics would be like trying to squeeze a 30lb rumble into cage 2...interesting, lots of stacking and twisting, but ultimately an ineffective and impossible task.
Not wanting to stop at style of bot and chassis material, the decision was also made to try all new motors, electronics, and a round belt instead of timing belt for the weapon. Unfortunately, the round belts were proving to be a bit much and putting too much tension on the motor but not gripping the pulley when loosened. Not enough time to source proper timing belts, so we 3D printed some out of TPU, which spun the weapon but were admittedly not ideal. Something that will definitely be on the upgrade list for v.2!
After some adjustments and practicing a lot with fusion, Gh-Astley was complete. 100% kid designed from the ground up. A totally new bot experience, learning to drive a horizontal style, figuring out the intricacies of a different motor/weapon design, but super excited and ready to have a blast as always in Norwalk! At least the testing stage will be set at the New Bot event and an opportunity to share in the nervous excitement of fellow builders testing out new ideas and creative visions. Can't wait to jump into the cage with another driver working out a fresh new design and maybe equally as nervous and excited about how their vision will fare!
First matchup?....Blue and White Synthesis er...Catalyst. A Builder/Driver that brings a ton of experience + destructive force in the vertical field. Absolutely top notch brutal build quality and a nightmare first match. But being fan first when the news was broken about the matchup upon return from school, our Designer's response was "Oh no!...well, it will be cool to meet Corey!". Looks like it will be up to the mini-bot to swoop in for an assist. What's that? Catalyst will have Chainsaw Kitty's talented mini-bot driver? Cool, Cool, Cool...Sounds like we'll need some spares of everything!
January 2024
New Bot, new adventures...new challenge to put it all back together after being decimated by one of the best! First up is Catalyst. Good news is our weapon spun up...and a sweet weapon it is. The Sherikan-style design was a goal of our (now 13 year old) builder/driver and then we built a bot around it....more of a weapon delivery system than carefully crafted robot. Lucky for us, Corey is a cool dude and probably took it easier on us than he could have. Things started to get confusing on the stream as there is another "gastly" Pokemon themed bot and the announcers understandably mixed us up.
Sidebar: Our Gh-Astley is a continuation on the Rick Astley theme from Rick Roller.
One giant hit from Catalyst and our Carbon Fiber top plate was split as we were thrown almost to the ceiling. On the second hit, the right wheel was like "I'm Out!" and the weapon belt thought that was a grrrrreat idea and bounced as well. Thinking Catalyst might be coming for our family next, it was a quick TapOut at 25 seconds in...better than 20 seconds?
Next up was Hotcake: Unfortunately a forfeit...we always love to fight!
On to "Proof of Concept: Concept Proved! A hit from this good beater, our top plate cracked the weapon motor housing and caused it to separate enough for the weapon to be intermittent. All part of a new bot and really new builder (2nd bot in less than a year competing). We'll learn and upgrade for next time!
April 2024
Learned a lot in January and made some subtle but important tweaks. Our captain has poured a lot into this bot. Really taking note of what didn't work and exploring different designs. V2 of Gh-Astley is a tighter frame, no longer rounded off in the back and more compact with wiring. Thinner Carbon top and bottom with the bot name cut into the top (Sharp design choice kid!). Aluminum rails now hold the weapon/shaft. This one is coming in hot!....oh no...literally coming in hot! Friday, April 19th approximately 2:30pm, one more quick test in the home box before heading off for safety and smoke! A quick dash to the backyard and the what seemed like removing 1,000 screws from the top plate to see a completely toasted ESC. BTW - preaching to the choir here, but there's no smell that can linger in a basement like burnt electronics, so slight delay while we gather every fan in a 2.24 mile radius to air things out before mom gets home!....No other way to put it, devastation. Down to 2 more ESCs and 3 motors. Looks like only one motor lost, so we swap out the fried motor and ESC and make the call to give it one more test (outside of course!). It moves and the weapon spins, but oh no! Smoke again and flames come shooting out of the top. This time we put in fewer screws but this sucks! We've learned a lot but diagnosing trouble of this magnitude is still waaaaaayyyyyy out of the wheelhouse. Now 4pm, we quickly dissect another bot to grab some Geckos as spares and head off to safety with a plan to completely gut the inside and try an all new system while hoping to lean on the community knowledge to at least point us toward a cause of the problem...
Well, we made it through safety! A little pleading with our captain to take it super easy on the drive/weapon until the first match. Hey, if we're going to blow up our bot, let's at least have an audience and put on a show!
If you follow along with our Rick Roller storyline, you know that we think very highly of the community and how supportive everyone is. Game day/morning, we were talking to our friends from the local ASML team. We've never actually faced them in the arena, but the've always been super supportive and incredibly nice. So awesome that our captain has mentioned ASML seeming like a cool place to work...but not sure if they're recruiting on the middle school circuit. Anyway, we explained our dilemma and sure enough within probably 10 minutes, they offered to lend us a back-up ESC AND diagnosed our issue to a bad 3rd coil on one of our motors....incredible! Nice to have an answer and put to rest our theory of it being demon related (we're not engineers by trade and do live in a very old house).
Well, we made it through safety! A little pleading with our captain to take it super easy on the drive/weapon until the first match. Hey, if we're going to blow up our bot, let's at least have an audience and put on a show!
If you follow along with our Rick Roller storyline, you know that we think very highly of the community and how supportive everyone is. Game day/morning, we were talking to our friends from the local ASML team. We've never actually faced them in the arena, but the've always been super supportive and incredibly nice. So awesome that our captain has mentioned ASML seeming like a cool place to work...but not sure if they're recruiting on the middle school circuit. Anyway, we explained our dilemma and sure enough within probably 10 minutes, they offered to lend us a back-up ESC AND diagnosed our issue to a bad 3rd coil on one of our motors....incredible! Nice to have an answer and put to rest our theory of it being demon related (we're not engineers by trade and do live in a very old house).
Statistics
Info
- Rank: #217 in 3lb.
- Last 5 fights: LWLWL
- Current streak: L1 (0 KOs/KO'd)
- Longest winning streak: 1 (0 KOs)
- Longest losing streak: 2 (0 KO'd)
- Avg fight time (seconds): 145.1
Record
| Year | Events | Fights | W | L | % | KOs | KO'd |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | |||||||
| 2020 | |||||||
| 2021 | |||||||
| 2022 | |||||||
| 2023 | |||||||
| 2024 | 3 | 10 | 4 | 6 | 0.400 | 1 | 3 |
| All-Time | 3 | 10 | 4 | 6 | 0.400 | 1 | 0 |
Events
| Date | Fought as | Reached | Place | Fights | W | L | KOs | KO'd |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January 20, 2024 | Gh-ASTLEY | Qualifiers Rd. 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | |
| April 20, 2024 | Gh-Astley | Qualifiers Rd. 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | |
| October 26, 2024 | Gh-Astley | Opening Round | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
Opponents
| Opponent | Fights | W | L | KOs | KO'd | Last Meeting |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cattywampus | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | October 26, 2024 |
| Nergal | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | October 26, 2024 |
| Hotcake | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | January 20, 2024 |
| Woodpecker | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | April 20, 2024 |
| Redline | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | October 26, 2024 |
| Catalyst | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | January 20, 2024 |
| Proof of Concept | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | January 20, 2024 |
| Little Bob | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | October 26, 2024 |
| Jack Ketch | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | April 20, 2024 |
| Shark Attack | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | April 20, 2024 |
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!
Gallery
Images coming soon!
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