Sumo-bot 6 took place at the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum. This is the yearly "big" event for the LRGoAA. While not as large as Sumo-bot 5 the previous year, it was still a huge success. The venue was great and there were plenty of entries in both classes.

I entered a bot named "Spear", for obvious reasons, in the open class. By far the physically simplest sumo-bot I had ever entered, it also had the most advanced sensors and programming package. I attempted to use LIDAR, with mixed success. Most of the problems boiled down, as always, to insufficient testing time.

You can view a preview page I set up for a couple friends here.

Click on any thumbnail below for a larger picture.

Three-quarters view.
Front view.
Side view.
Rear view.
Top view.
Bottom view.
Here the sensor assembly has been removed.
You can see the drive gears peaking out here. Note the RCX mount - it's not rigid, instead being mounted on an axle to allow it to be tilted back with respect to the body. I kept reinforcing the mount as the day went around, but it still wasn't as strong as I would have liked.
The RCX and all of the sensors are removed. You can see the drivetrain here; the two motors on each side drive a larger gear mounted directly to the driveshafts.
After finishing disassembly, this is a birds-eye view of all of the parts used. I didn't get a piece count, but I would estimate 300.