Welcome to LiveRC's weekly column, "Talk-It-Up Tuesday!" Here we spend a little time talking with industry icons including racers, manufacturers, team managers, developers, promoters, and everyone in between! Sit back, relax, and go behind the scenes as we interview them all!
I met James Arluck of Livermore, CA, during the big nitro off-road boom of the early 2000s, as many of the events in Southern California attracted racers from the top half of the state. He was active in all sorts of racing classes, and even won the ROAR Nationals in 1/12-Scale Stock back in 2007.
He was probably best known, though, for the t-shirts that Tyler Vik made with his face on them.
Back in May, I got one of those annoying Facebook notifications asking me to like a page that a friend had suggested. James requested that I ‘Like’ the Wrecks robot that would be competing in the reboot of the BattleBots TV series, and I was floored to see that he was part of the team!
I started kicking the idea around with him on putting together a Talk It Up Tuesday interview to talk about his BattleBots experience and how it related to RC racing. With competitors and fans alike anxiously awaiting confirmation of a second season of BattleBots to return to TV, James agreed to give LiveRC readers a look inside the world of competitive robot combat.
AW: What is your RC background?
JA: I've been racing RC cars since the early 90s. I started out racing 1/10-scale off-road at Hobby Haven Raceway in Livermore, CA. Over the last 25 years I've raced a bunch of different classes including electric touring car, 1/12-scale, 200mm nitro touring car, electric off-road, and nitro off-road. Currently I'm racing 1/8-scale off-road pretty much exclusively.
AW: How did you get involved with Battlebots?
JA: Back in 2000, my college roommate built a robot for one of the early seasons of Battlebots back when it was on Comedy Central. He knew I was into R/C so I helped him out with setting up the radio, speed controls, etc. My school (University of California, Santa Barbara) let students build Battlebots as design projects, so I built one for the next event and continued from there building a new robot each season. I graduated from UCSB about the same time that the Comedy Central show was cancelled but there were still local events I could compete at, so I continued building robots up until 2005. After that it got too expensive to both build bots and race RC cars at the same time. I stopped building robots until this year when the opportunity to build a robot for the ABC show came along.
AW: Have you always been a part of the same team?
JA: For the most part, I’ve always built my own bots with a little help from friends here and there. However, I have been friends with my teammates for years since they built their own bots and we would see each other at events. Knowing the size of the bot that ABC wanted and the timeframe we had to build it, we decided to pool our efforts to get one done in time for the event.
AW: How long does it take to design and build a robot?
JA: It depends on a lot of things, such as the size of the bot, your budget, how many things you can do yourself versus sending to outside vendors, etc. To give you an example, Wrecks is a 250-pound robot that we started designing in early March, started building in mid April, and finished in time to compete at the end of May. So the total time from initial design sketches to ready-to-fight was just under 3 months.
AW: What is your role on the team?
JA: My main role on the team was figuring out a lot of power systems design. To spin the blade we used a 15-horsepower electric vehicle motor and it was my job to figure out how to keep that fed for a 3-minute fight without dumping. I did a lot of testing on different LiPo and LiFe batteries, different voltages, different capacities, etc., to find the best solution. This job also involved soldering together several hundred A123 LiFe batteries using braid and a 500w iron! It was like soldering together old NiMH RC packs but with an iron that weighs 10 pounds. I also did a lot of the assembly and testing work once it came time to assemble the robot and get it battle-ready.
AW: Can you explain more about the design of the robot?
JA: Our robot can best be described as a gyroscopic procession vertical spinner. It uses a vertical spinning blade as the weapon but also to make it move. Instead of having separately powered wheels or legs to make it move we tilt the blade side to side and that's what makes it "walk". It's similar to how turning the front wheels in the air with an RC car makes it change directions.
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Here is Wrecks' footage from the test box pre-event. That blade is a lot louder and scarier up close!
JA: Unfortunately, we didn't do so hot this time around. We finished the bot in time for some testing before the event, but it's so dangerous to operate outside of an arena our driver didn't really get much driving practice with it. So he had to feel out and learn how to drive the robot in the arena during our first fight. We ended up getting flipped over early, and even though we were able to flip ourselves back over and finish the fight and rip a side off the other bot, the judges awarded the fight to our opponents.
AW: What have you learned racing RC cars that you’ve adapted to BattleBots?
JA: Quite a bit actually; the meticulous preparation, adapting to changing conditions, and learning how to adjust your setup to compensate. Identifying failure points and trying to eliminate them early so you don't take yourself out. Driving-wise, the same things that make you good in RC also apply to driving bots: hand eye coordination, keeping calm under pressure, deciding on a strategy and sticking to it, etc., all transfer over to bot driving.
AW: What’s the best part of fighting with robots?
JA: The community. The robotics community is filled with hundreds of great people from all over who all share this awesome hobby. We all talk to each other, build these crazy machines, try to destroy your buddies’ robots, and when it's all over you can all laugh about it later. Another builder lovingly refers to it as his "dysfunctional family reunion.”
AW: What’s the biggest bummer?
JA: Losing because of something stupid. If you screw up or drive badly and end up getting killed that's okay, but going ten feet and having a wire come lose and kill you is a huge letdown.
AW: If someone wanted to get into Battle Bots-style competition, what would be a good place to start? JA: There's a lot of great resources available online to help new people find events in their area and get started:
Great source for historical event info, build tips, and has a great store to buy parts from: www.robotcombat.com/
Builder's Database, the site where event organizers post event signups: www.buildersdb.com/
The largest open robotics event on the west coast, held in Northern California every spring: www.robogames.net/index.php
AW: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
JA: I want to thank my teammates Dan, Orion, Micah, Joe, and Adrian. Also Trey and Greg from Battlebots for hosting the event and letting us compete. Without the support of our our sponsor Van Bebber Bros, Inc. (http://www.vanbebbersteel.com/), we wouldn't have been able to get Wrecks together so quickly. I'd also like to thank my RC sponsors, Kyosho America, AKA Racing, LRP Electronics, Team Powers Internaional, Sidewinder Fuel, Nor-Cal Hobbies, and RC-Trim, for all their help and support. For all things Wrecks-related check out our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/teamwrecks
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