Bot Hockey at Nexus Knockout 3

What even is nexus knockout?

Basically check out the Robot Combat Events website for a rundown. Its at Maker’s Nexus in Sunnyvale, CA. Its full combat up to 3lbs, plus bot hockey. This was the same event, two years prior, that I learned about the sport and got inspired to try it myself (See that blog post here). This time, I had my own bot.

Did you do anything to prep since open sauce 2025?

One massive change: I ordered laser-cut aluminum panels for my robot. Exact same design, but more able to take a beating than the acrylic.

The alternate battery covers, with the clean robot behind them. I didn’t want to lose the clear battery cover…

I reprinted a lot of the robot for fresher, stronger parts than immediately after open sauce. I also got rid of the last internal PLA parts and replaced them with TPU.

Night Practice near Scott’s house

The Games

This time, rallying under the unified team Scottbot, we had a full 6 bots - Scott with 1 and 2, Orion with his 3, and me with my single competitor. Lucy was also there to get some experience driving. We were also lowkey cracked.

Morning

Group stage. We lost to No-Ice (just by two points - very close game) and crushed the hockeymaniacs.

We knew No-Ice was going to be tough, and our team was still getting our footing. Hockeymaniacs had some good bots, but I think they were having some hardware issues.

Lunch Break

My friend Bree showed up to hang out, and brought her RC drift cars. They got a bit torn up on the parking lot, but were a lot of fun.

The rest

Smashed The Party Animals, but theyre always fun to play. Met team No-Ice in the finals, and had one of the lowest-scoring matches I think I’ve ever seen. Defense was extra good here.

My bot managed to stay mostly cool, but at the end of the last match the motors were hotter than I had ever seen them. Definitely was driving hard, in direct sunlight.

Next Step

So we won! Next up is open sauce.

The damage to my robot with the aluminum panels was very minimal.