Winter Wars '25

UPDATE: We have expanded the Plastic Antweight bracket to 24 competitors! This means a few things for the event, primarily, this is a huge points opportunity!!

To accommodate the new bots, we are starting fights at 11 am. The final check-in time is still noon, so our out-of-state competitors have a chance to arrive, but if you are in-state, please try to arrive early. Please arrive with your bot ready-to-compete, check-in gets you on the bracket. There is no "break for lunch" as in the past; the larger bracket should allow for competitors to step away between matches and still have at least 20 minutes for repairs. We will be running the same queue system as Western Allied Robotics events: while a fight is happening, the bots for the next three fights need to be ready. When called, competitors will bring their robot and transmitter to the judges table for staging; if the robot is not ready to stage, a timer starts for twenty minutes, and the next match is called to staging. If after the allotted repair time the robot is still not ready to fight, it forfeits the match.

Hosted by DAM Robotics (formerly Oregon State Combat Robotics, OSCR) and open to the public, Winter Wars '25 is Oregon State University's second robot combat competition of the '24-'25 academic year! DAM Robotics members learn the basics of combat robotics through a basic curriculum and hands-on design and developing their own Plastic Antweight and Beetleweight robots. Now is the time to test ourselves against others in the Combat Robotics community!

Winter Wars '25 will take place on Saturday, January 25th, in Oregon State University's Kelley Engineering Center atrium with doors opening at 10:00 am for setup and testing and battles starting at 12:00 noon. As we are a small competition we frequently allow start times later than 12, but it makes everyone's lives considerably easier if your robot is weighed and passed through safety check by 12, so please do not show up at 11:45.

Due to construction, parking has become more challenging, but OSU lots should be free over the weekend. Lots near Weniger and Rogers hall are reasonably close by.

This event will use our brand new combat arena! It is 6 feet x 6 feet wide and 3 feet tall. The floor is steel with steel kickplates. The floor is painted for grip, though there is not added grip compound. In one corner is a 1 foot square modular pit which currently is set to always be open. The default pit configuration will be always open for this event, and new modules are in design. Our pit has a 1 inch tall lip around the outside. This arena is suitable for beetleweight robots and now that we have thoroughly tested it (thanks Noob Tube) weight bonuses are allowed following the newly revised Sparc Rules: https://clubs.oregonstate.edu/combat-robotics/sparc

At this event we will offer:

• Full combat antweight
• Fairyweight
• Beetleweight
• Plastic antweight

Unlike Fall Fracas, Plastic Antweight is open to all challengers! Bring out your end-game forks, your way-too-big weapons, your beetleweight drives, and your unnecessary tryhard spirits, it's time to battle for unmitigated glory in entry-level combat robotics :)

This tournament, in all weight classes, will be modified double-elimination style with first bracket match winners moving on and losers moving into the second bracket. Losing in the second bracket will knock a bot out of the competition. The winner of the first bracket and the winner of the second bracket will meet in the single elimination finals.

Finally, club funding is down this year, so if you'd like to help us out with arena maintenance and our continual efforts to make it easy for college students to get into combat robotics, we'd really appreciate a donation of $10 per bot. We thankfully don't have to pay for our own insurance at this event, but the club costs a lot to run so if you're able we'd really appreciate this.

Questions? Join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/sbpaTUU4tP