Check out this fight in BattleBots World Championship VII (marked “Season 8” on most platforms), Episode 1. Or check it out below on youtube:
World Championship VII brought a lot of changes to BattleBots to help level the playing field for all teams. On top of a few in-fight changes regarding crabwalking and unsticks, every accepted team was guaranteed a full four-fight season with all matchups announced in advance. This was amazingly helpful for preparing configurations, strategy, and not having to stay up until 3AM to learn your upcoming matchup! It also helped the whole show flow smoother, as we were able to reconfigure HUGE for fights on earlier days, rather than being forced to set up and test everything morning-of. Knowledgeable fans may know that HUGE needs to be split in half to swap a blade, and leaving the pits at night with a pre-split HUGE was never the best look to production people. So we hope that these changes are here to stay!
Also: another year, another HUGE. While very similar externally, HUGE underwent an overhaul inside. Various internal systems were shrunken, so that the entire insides of the frame could be reorganized. This was to move the speed controllers out of the way of damage (both from our own weapon, and opponents) allowing for far more padding and room inside the frame. Plus, everything got lighter in the process as air is much lighter than metal! Here are a few sneak peeks, and a full “What Changed” blog will hopefully come later during/after the season.
Reorganized weapon motor pods, 2021 on left with 2022 on right. The new pod retained all functionality while cutting size & weight. Plus, much stronger!
Reorganized switch blocks, 2021 on left with 2022 on right. Both blocks contain 2 power switches (1 weapon and 1 drive, per side of HUGE). We utilized an upgraded smaller power switch, while orienting both switches for the wires to output in the same direction. This means that the switch block can sit against the edge of the frame rather than in the center, taking up far less space and giving us much cleaner wiring.
So much space!
That said, lets get onto some fights! On the final day of Safety, HUGE was nearing ready-to-go, and had already undergone safety testing. We had a healthy list of things to button up on the robot, but this was by-far the most prepared HUGE had ever been going into a season. Many design decisions were made to retain things about the robot that we knew worked from the 2021 season, and this paid off when we saw a row of opponents that all require different configurations and strategies. We wouldn’t have time to be re-engineering on the fly!
1. Shatter! (Pre-Season Rank #19)
2. Blip (Pre-Season Rank #10)
3. Fusion (Unranked)
4. Starchild (Unranked)
Given our Pre-Season Rank of #27, this schedule felt fair. Two robots ranked above, and two below. Plus those robots below presented unique strategies, including the ever-present threat of horizontal spinning weapons. We were happy to not see a continuous strip of similar opponents like the Switchback->Uppercut->Deep Six situation last year (a situation many other teams also faced), or a schedule of only rookie teams. And mostly excited to try out HUGE against a varied group of opponents! While nobody here seemed like instant-death, nobody felt like a free win either… which we guess is the parity that this new scheduling system was designed for. But like any sport, we take things one fight at a time, and Shatter was our first opponent.
Given the shape of HUGE and how difficult it is to hit, we weren’t surprised when Shatter opted to run their “Mary Special” single-piece hammer. It’s designed with more striking area, and many sharp serrations to try to cut belts. Shatter has a documented history of firing their hammer into any rotating object that comes near them, and we expected a strategy like this to try to cut any of the 8 belts that power the wheels and blade of HUGE. Without the need for ground game, Shatter had the weight to mount extra armor to protect their axe mount, plus an extra layer of top plates.
Shatter’s configuration - Protecting the hammer pivot was a smart use of their extra weight, and forced us to adapt our strategy.
On our side of the pits, we also sprung into action to configure HUGE for fighting a hammer robot. While we had a defined plan for a fight like this, HUGE hadn’t faced a power-focused hammer since fighting Chomp, way back in 2018. At that time, we had no configs, no weight, no plan, and a lot of hope. HUGE was lucky enough to catch Chomp’s wide hammer arms in a way to damage them early, preventing HUGE from having to take any hits. But we didn’t expect to damage Shatter’s hammer quickly, or at all, during this fight. Success for HUGE meant keeping Shatter’s hammer away from any fragile components, and preferably wasting its energy into our wheels.
Utilizing a lighter set of wheels, we mounted a layer of tegris underneath our regular metal top plates, and otherwise intended to basically just take the hits on the front of our frame boxes with our fingers crossed. After weight check, we realized we had a pound to spare and decided to create some extra protection on-the-fly. Lovingly named “the sideburns” these pieces of tegris weighed about 6 ounces each, and we figured that they would be able to take 1 or 2 hits from Shatter’s hammer. In a game of inches, that could be all it takes to swing a fight, so we made sure to use up all of the available weight that we had.
“We’ve been growing these babies for years…”
For the fight itself, the plan was to be as aggressive as possible. Shatter likes to keep a safe distance from opponents and strike with their hammer from afar, so closing that gap would be a risky strategy, but may put Shatter on the run and facilitate a driving mistake. Plus outwardly attacking will help HUGE control the fight, pushing Shatter out of striking range and scoring points with the judges in all 3 categories (Damage, Aggression, and Control). We expected a full 3 minute fight, with a ton of hits traded in each direction, and wanted to set ourselves up well for a judge’s decision victory. Once Shatter guarded their hammer pivot area, it simplified out strategy into “any hit is a good hit”. From there, we just hoped that everything on HUGE would work like it was supposed to!
Let’s take a look at how the fight went:
We started off on the back foot from the beginning, as Shatter outclassed our cart by a mile.
Our first, immediate takeaway is that Shatter is WAY faster than past seasons. When I felt I had some space in the box and looked away from Shatter to spin up, they flew across the arena for a hit on our wheel, pushing us blade-first into the Upper Deck.
Luckily, HUGE hits pretty hard. We’ve been told that this part of the arena is 1/2” mild steel.
You can always tell when your blade meets titanium in the BattleBox.
Surprise! HUGE can sort of get back up when the pole is gone. It takes a lot more finesse - the poles are there to make it completely automatic (as well as controlling our gyro-dancing).
After disabling Shatter’s hammer, they ended up stuck on the rail and counted out. From our vantage point, we didn’t know that they were stuck. I could see into the frame and see components bouncing around, but from above it’s hard to tell what angle the robot is sitting at. I could hear “It’s dead” from the Shatter team, and backed up to take the win. Turns out that just the hammer was dead, but ending here was better than withstanding a ton more damage in Fight #1.
And just like that, HUGE wins its season-opening fight for the first time since 2018! After spinup problems in 2019 and 2020, and drive problems in 2021, entering Fight #1 fully functional was one of our biggest goals for this season. Win or lose, we were already proud to arrive with a HUGE that had a fighting chance in Fight #1 and not require major on-site rework. To have that translate directly to success was only that much sweeter. HUGE scored 15 hits in the space of 1 minute and 40 seconds, leaning on the reliability-focused upgrades while fully-exercising the upgraded drive and weapon power that was the focus of 2021’s HUGE. While HUGE wasn’t unscathed, it was functionally working as well as when it entered the arena, so we were able to quickly refocus on preparations for fighting Blip the following day. But now, onto the damage photos!
Late in the fight, Shatter was able to strike one belt when their axe ended up crammed behind our blade. We’re lucky that it only damaged the one belt. The grooves on this pulley were filed back flush, and it was re-used.
A deep groove on the upper angle, a bent chin-mount, a perfectly-cut-off eyebrow, and a slightly dented top plate were the worst of the damage to HUGE’s frame. Shatter’s ability to divot steel, with half a swing, at a funky angle, is very intimidating.
PINGG. We kind of expected these Titanium stabilizing poles to bend more before breaking. If you watch closely, you can see the pole roll over the killsaw slot, before getting gently pulled under into the abyss. We let the crew guys know about it, and it showed back up on out pit table about 2 days later. Thanks for finding it!
A lot of driving HUGE is adapting to the fight as it goes on, and changing strategy on the fly. We didn’t expect to cut all the way through the plastic & aluminum to peel up Shatter’s top plate from underneath. But once we saw it working, that quickly became the target.
The front however was also not spared.
In a remarkable twist, HUGE also removed the eyebrow from one of Shatter’s angry eyes.
While this isn’t the prettiest, the armor here did its job. It was spaced out from the drive motor enough to prevent our blade from impacting anything important.
A cracked, split, and bent pringle made of 0.4” Titanium. We felt good about the power that HUGE showed in 2021, but being able to utilize it this many times was eye-opening.
And just like that, HUGE races out to a 1-0 start! Our first since our rookie season, and well-deserving of some team-wide milkshakes. We hurried off to reconfigure HUGE to fight Blip, and kept an eye on the Seems Reasonable pit next door. We saw a large cardboard box go into their tent, and come out covering Blip…
If you’re interested in Shatter’s view on our fight, check our their corresponding blog post here!
Thanks to HUGE’s sponsors, Mouser Electronics and TTI, Inc. Whenever you need electronic components next, either for hobby or professionally, remember that Mouser and TTI make it possible for HUGE to compete at Battlebots. We couldn’t do it without them!
If you’re interested, also check out our merch store to pick up HUGE gear, or your own pair of angry eyes!
Photo Credits: Dan Longmire, JCRB Photography, and the Shatter team