If you’ve ever been to a ComBots event, odds are that you’ve run into Wendy and Matt Maxham. Together they form Team PlumbCrazy — the plumbiest, craziest, yellow shirtediest couple of robot fanatics at the competition (They’re the nicest, too. Believe it- they let me use their drill once!). A big thank you to Wendy, who donated her time to appease this starving intern (did I mention I’m a starving intern?), by giving her thoughts and revelations on robotic combat, and what it takes to make a winner.

In November 2001, Matt & Wendy went and saw fighting robots live for the first time after having seen them on television. Bitten by the robot bug, they began designs for the ‘bot that would ultimately become the crowd pleasing Sewer Snake!

Exclusive image of Sewer Snake’s earliest design

Initially, Sewer Snake’s design had a spinning bar weapon, much like his arch enemy Last Rites. That design was scrapped for a high-RPM drum weapon like Touro [Say- we interviewed those guys, too!]. When everything but the drum weapon on the ‘bot was said and done, the PlumbCrazysons (Wendy and Matt) decided to compete in an event that didn’t allow spinning weapons, which meant scrapping the drum weapon for something that at least looked incapable of killing or injuring passersby. Thus, Sewer Snake and his flipper were born.

Classic Sewer Snake

In that first competition in November 2002, Team PlumbCrazy won their first round, only to have a gearbox explode [spectacularly, we hope!] in their second fight, causing them to be eliminated from the competition. Wendy & Matt were hooked. In 2004, they competed in 7 competitions, amongst various other demonstrations. With 3 bots in 3 different weight classes, they had more than a handful.

Interestingly, Wendy says that she doesn’t like the idea of going in as top-dog in competition. She argues that it’s fun to go in as the underdog, without some big, scary weapon that looks like it could kill you. It’s a lot more fun, she says, because it’s exciting to have to really work for a win. Driving skill becomes a much bigger factor when you have to dodge bullets and find weak points, as opposed to mowing through anything in your way.

Robotic combat is just like any other sport – it’s constantly evolving, and every year the competition gets more fierce. The armor gets thicker and the weapons get stronger, and every year the builders come back for more. In 2005, Team PlumbCrazy designed Angry Asp, a middleweight bot with a spinning drum weapon.

Angry Asp took a bronze medal at the 2005 RoboGames, but has since been modified to have spikes and a flamethrower, in the interest of making the competition more exciting.

Above all else, PlumbCrazians Matt and Wendy look for presentation when building and improving their bots. What will please the crowd the most? (Hint: Big, bright tires!). Wendy believes that often, the biggest factor of winning in ComBots is driving skill. Sure, you can put a thousand hours and a million bucks into a solid titanium robot OF DOOM, but if your driver can’t match the awesomeness of your robot OF DOOM, well, you may as well stay home.

If you go to RoboGames 2010, Wendy & Matt will be hard to miss. Be sure to thank ‘em for donating their time to be interviewed by SuicideBots, and for donating their tools that one time, to be abused by that one guy called Intern [Wait a minute...].

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 6:00 am and is filed under BotLight, Cool Robot of the Week, Neat Stuff, Robot Combat, Robot Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.