Anyone who knows Antlion knows a few things: We love helping good causes and we love Overwatch. 

When Coolermaster came to us to see if we'd provide the audio gear and a donation for an event to raise money for highschool robotics teams in an Overwatch Tournament our fate was pretty much sealed.

So last week I headed down to LA to the Esports Arena to lend a helping hand getting set up.

I'm working hard, I swear!

Setup is always exhausting, and I pitched in where I could, from hauling boxes to doing what I was down there for: Setting up the mics.

The challenge was simple: With the crowd and the announcers we needed our noise canceling mode to be clearly picking up the student competitors without picking up everything else. It took a bunch of trial and error, but in the end we opted for a few key settings:

1) Uni Mode (of course)

2) Our USB adapter

3) Mic Input at 80% with AGC Off

We also opted for using Overwatch's in game voice chat set to open mic.

I also carefully positioned each mic not too far forward, not too far back, and about 2 inches from my face, a little further than normal, but everyone's got a different shaped head so I erred on the side of caution.

The result? Nailed it. We had one complaint on the mic picking up the announcer the entire show. After jumping on stage to quickly sort it out ... someone switched it to Omni mode. One switch later and everything was perfect. Hey, Omni mode really DOES work!

This is the young lady who had the issue in fact, look at that awesome ModMic!

As for the event, the competition was fierce and diverse. These are robotics teams, not Overwatch teams, and we saw the early matches fly along, with some rounds lasting as little as 45 seconds as the skill gap became apparent.

However, when down the the final 4 the matches really heated up! With the final match between Code Orange and Eagle Engineering going 2-2 with a nail biting final match ending with Eagle's victory and the $10,000 grand prize. Over $40,000 in total prizes were raised and given away to these deserving students, even the last place combatants went home with a cool extra grand for their team.

All in all it was a super fun event. I most enjoyed sitting with the teenagers and chatting about gaming, working with games, and giving my sage-like wisdom and advice on how to make it through their next couple years.

Team Eagle Engineering, I wonder if they got to keep the giant check?

See you next year everyone!