Fight Breakdown
Jonathan Schultz
HUGE vs. Sawblaze - WCVII Fight #9 - Finals!

There isn’t much that can prepare you mentally for actually having an opportunity to fight for the Giant Nut. Many members of Team HUGE have had opportunities to win events in the past, whether that be local events or NHRL tournaments. And we’ve even actually won some of them! But the specific stresses, the atmosphere, the effort level, and the costs of Battlebots just make it something exceptional compared to anything else. This is the moment you dream of.

HUGE vs. Sawblaze - WCVII Fight #9 - Finals!
Fight Breakdown
Jonathan Schultz
HUGE vs. Copperhead - WCVII Fight #8 - ...

With a win in the Round of 8 over Witch Doctor, we realized that World Championship 7 was crossing from “a great year” into something even more magical. To be fighting for a spot in the finals, after the last 2 seasons HUGE had, served to show how far we had come and how much we had learned.

Copperhead would be our third opponent in a row that was a very short, compact, and highly-competitive vertical spinner. For lack of a better term, we had talked a lot of smack talk for a long time about the small-vertical-spinner type of opponent. And in our last two fights, HUGE lost the use of its weapon due to getting punched very hard upwards (MadCatter) and hitting a very solid object (Witch Doctor).

As for Copperhead, looking at the bot, they appear to have two main design goals:

  • Punch things upwards very hard

  • Be a very solid object for people to hit

Crap.

HUGE vs. Copperhead - WCVII Fight #8 - Semi-Finals!

HUGE vs. Fusion

HUGE vs. Fusion - WCVII Fight #3

HUGE vs. Fusion - WCVII Fight #3

We’re 2-0, and feeling great, after wins over Shatter and Blip! HUGE’s next test comes in the form of the dual horizontal/vertical spinning weapons of Fusion. Horizontal spinning weapons in particular are a longtime nemesis of HUGE-style designs as they can chop down our wheels and disable us. Fusion is the spiritual successor to a robot named “Son of Whyachi”, who did just that during the 2019 season. Luckily we’ve learned a lot since that fight and our fingers are crossed that we can change our fortunes this time around. Fusion has been looking extremely strong so far this year, most notably splitting Witch Doctor’s entire weapon hub, which was held together with identical screws to the ones used in HUGE’s weapon hub. We’ll need to win quickly to avoid too much damage!