Death of a 30lber! We were unable to attend "Battle at the Beach III" in Florida this spring but thought it would be a good idea to send Xhilarating impaX along to be driven by a "Guest" member of  team. The bot required a little work after Motorama, mainly the cutting of a new top panel.  This done it was sent of with its little brother "Cheep Shot 3.0" and I also entered CheepShot 2.0 to make up the numbers. The event turned out very badly for Xhilarating impaX. Ground clearance had been slowly reducing with wear to the wheels but the bot had performed without problems at Motorama so I  was not too worried about that. It turned out the floor in Florida had less even seams and was to give Xi terrible problems. Its first and only fight was against Totally Offensive, an opponent who we beat handily at  RCRAII.  The bot got quickly hung up on a seam and immobilized. This is where my second failure came into play. I had given some general driving instructions to the guest driver but had failed to make clear that it  was much better to have survived to fight another day than get destroyed while attempting to win!  On getting stuck against an opponent like TO, I would have tapped out when it was clear that the bot couldn't  handle the floor. As it was TO could get fully spun up and aim his hits at the rear and side where the armour was weakest. The result was almost inevitable with Xi beaten to a pulp and losing the fight. It was clear  after the fight that Xi was not repairable at the event so it was out of the round robin 0-5.   Video from the two cameras. CheepShot 2.0 and 3.0 did much better going 2-2 and 3-1 respectively. I had hoped that CS3 would have qualified for nationals but with only 5 bots  only the winner goes on. The damage to Xi did not look too bad at first sight but when we took it apart for repairs it became obvious that almost every part of the chassis was damaged  beyond repair. Even the RS80D had suffered some damage. It fan was shattered and the fan motor knocked an large inductor off the board. Hopefully a new part kindly sent but the manufacturer will fix it without further expense. It was clear that it would need a completely new chassis and  wheels to bring Xi back to life so we decided to build a new 30lber to replace it. Xi 2.0 will be as fast and powerful but much more heavily armoured and much easier to repair. Xi had been our first really successful  bot, beating some of the best in its class including Helios, Morpheus, Totally Offensive and Eat Hitch and winning the 30lb class at RCRAII. Hopefully its replacement can do even better!