These changes were all desperately needed, based on how ReBoot had come together at the Sun Devil Smackdown. Replacing the drone motors and TPU gears with Repeat Maxes was a much sturdier and more reliable choice, and provided a flat surface for the CAMs to lock onto. The Vytaflex casting on the boots gaven them traction that the bare UHMW would never have been able to achieve. The machined spacer for the weapon shaft was a big upgrade from the threaded spacer that used to hold the weapon, which I had chosen for cost-effectiveness but later realized it was a great pain to unscrew. The machined spacer for the shuffler pods replaced earlier 3D-printed versions which would have been extremely fragile due to their thinness.
The leadup to Norwalk, ReBoot's first real competition, was hectic. I was going along with a group for Combat Ready Robotics' annual trip, along with 11 others, some competing, some spectating. I had about six weeks to completely redesign and rebuild ReBoot, and even thought he laser-cut parts arrived the night we were going to fly out, I went into the competition confident in the changes I'd made.
The one thing I changed about ReBoot prior to the Sonoran Showdown was the "wheel guards" (or, as I like to call them, the "shuffle shields")—the