Originally Posted by D&C Local News

The event's sponsors, Haas Factory Outlet and Monroe Community College, want to help local manufacturers groom future workers, Boyle added.

Greg Needel, 21, represents that ideal candidate, said Boyle.

Needel, who finished 2-2 for the weekend with his creation, Tetracide, is a fourth-year mechanical engineering technology student at Rochester Institute of Technology. "Engineering gets boring when you don't have something to work on," he said.

Originally Posted by D&C Insider Features

The double-elimination tournament will consist of about five three-minute bouts per hour — psycho robot on psycho robot — featuring professional and amateur builders of various levels of techno-sanity. Upwards of 75 builders will have robots accepted into the battle, all competing for a cash prize and (possibly more important) the respect of fellow builders.

RIT mechanical engineering student Greg Needel, 21, of Henrietta will be one of them — along with his heavyweight robot "Tetracide."

Although he's been building robots since high school, this is his first violent competition — and his robot is fierce.

"(Tetracide) has three pneumatic flippers each capable of throwing 800 pounds and a triangular wedge design which makes attacks (on it) difficult," he says.

Winning, he adds, "takes a sound strategy, a good design, strong construction and a decent driver."

And even though he's spent the entire summer assembling the robot, he says he's ready to see its possible destruction.

"In a competition like this where it's really one idea versus another, losing is just like in chess," he says. "You got outplayed, but in the end you learned something."

Originally Posted by Amanda Morrison

Congrats to you guys for doing a great job. The media coverage was pretty cool:





It sounds like you guys did very well, and I was impressed by the amount of media coverage you got. Congrats!

Originally Posted by starbot

Not sure if you remember us, we were Team Alph, the table next to you. I was the one in the alf suit. You guys had a pretty cool design, though with most FIRST teams, it was severly underbuilt and weak for combat (My 12lber had a 2" bore cylinder, so for a heavyweight you should be looking at 5 or 6"). Hope you had fun, and I hope to see you guys with a bigger, better, stronger bot next time!

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

The media knows Battle bots better than they know FIRST due to it being on TV. Plus the public likes when things crash and blow apart so the media is drawn to it. It's is kind of cool but I'd still rather do FIRST (more challenging).

Originally Posted by Amanda Morrison

I meant the publicity that the individual team got - especially them concentrating on Greg as a future hire for companies. Tetracide and Midnight Invention seemed well-received for the media, no matter what competition they were in. The quotes they used were not solely about destruction of their creation or the fierceness of the competition, but also quoted Greg talking about the strategy and design involved, as well as the learning experience behind it. I thought they played him off to be a college student chock full of ingenuity.

I'm sure there were plenty of articles about the competition and teams there, I just thought it was cool considering how many were about Team Midnight Invention. I guess you guys must have had a good impact. :)

Originally Posted by starbot

Not sure if you remember us, we were Team Alph, the table next to you. I was the one in the alf suit. You guys had a pretty cool design, though with most FIRST teams, it was severly underbuilt and weak for combat (My 12lber had a 2" bore cylinder, so for a heavyweight you should be looking at 5 or 6"). Hope you had fun, and I hope to see you guys with a bigger, better, stronger bot next time!

Originally Posted by Greg Needel

my whole body shudders when i see this...sorry it isn't a great angle but you get the idea.

Originally Posted by mechanicalbrain

Oooh that was nasty! Well I have to say that if all that happened was a broken flipper then you guys did one heck of a job building it! I can't wait until you guys get some good pics of the mechanics behind it on your site. What type of weapon did that bot use on you?

Originally Posted by JMH

What happened there looks like your robot blew up.