I had begun construction of Ziggo early in 1998, assuming that I would compete in Robot Wars in August. Around May, I was about half done, but it began to look like Robot Wars would not happen. I stopped working as hard on Ziggo in June when it was sure that Robot Wars was cancelled. Then, Gary Cline announced that he would hold an event, just for competitors, called Robotica. I went back to work and finished Ziggo. Then, just a week before the event was to be held, it was cancelled due to a lawsuit.

Since many builders had already made plans to come to San Francisco, a group of us decided to get together to talk. The group called itself the SORC (Society of Robot Combat). People brought their latest creations and did a show and tell. After the meeting, Will Wright and Mike Winter told me of an underground fight that they were going to hold the next day and asked if I'd like to come.

Of course I wanted to see what Ziggo could do, so I showed at the workplace of Rik Winter, Mike's brother. Also competing that day were Will's daughter, Cassidy, Mike's daughter, Lisa, another brother, Steve Winter and Grayson DuRaine. The eight of us came up with a tournament ladder and started the competition.

Writing this in 2002, I don't remember all of the details of the fights, but I do remember fighting Rik's robot, former RW champion KMM, and Mike's 50 lb. walking robot. In both cases, Ziggo performed flawlessly, disabling his opponents and throwing parts across the parking lot. I believe that another robot forfeited the finals match, which made Ziggo the one-on-one competition winner. In the rumble, Ziggo's only weakness was his battery capacity. He could only manage about 10 spin-ups. He had a separate drive battery that lasted to the end. A vote was taken and Ziggo was also awarded the rumble trophy.