Editor’s Note: Today we welcome a guest blog from Team HUGE member Brendan Steele, talking about the victorious debut event of his 12-pound robot SLAM PLAN.

SLAM PLAN is a 12 pound hobbyweight version of HUGE. It has various differences from a typical HUGE, like the theming not matching any other HUGE that has ever HUGE’d. Built by me (Brendan Steele), it was designed as a test platform for the heavyweight. It is also the evolution of my first robot ever, BIG-ish - which was a 15 pound clone of HUGE started in 2019. Though truly, deep down, it’s more of a response to the question no one asked: What if you min-maxed HUGE more than it already was?

Inspiration

The inspiration for Slam Plan largely came from a different 3-pound beetleweight robot named “Yuge”, built by Shawn Sergev, which did something we had never seen before - they built the entire chassis as a single baseplate. The electronics are simply ziptied to the base and then a dust cover is attached on top of it. Jonathan and I had several back-and-forth conversations about how CRAZY this was and I wanted to replicate it, but to put my own spin on it.

The 3-pound robot “Yuge”, built by Shawn Sergev

Slam Plan Design

On Slam Plan, there is no top plate or lid to the frames - it’s just open & fully exposed. That’s by design. HUGE is already so tall that most bots can’t hit the frame. Plus, most top armor you put on a HUGE is too weak to survive a single hit, so why waste the weight on it? You lose if they hit the top regardless. The bottom side of the frame is what gets hit the most (if it even gets hit), so that is where that weight/armor was allocated. In addition, the anti-tip poles that normally stick out past the wheels are removed from this version, as it was discovered that with skillful operation, it’s possible to tip the bot back over from its side.

The S-style blade from the 250lb HUGE has been further optimized from the heavyweight version, and is even more aggressively shaped to cut through opponents. . It is waterjet cut from AR600 steel, has a 30 degree rake angle on the teeth, and a very extreme relief on the trailing edge. This blade is designed to win weapon-on-weapon hits with eggbeaters and drum spinners. That also means this blade is meant to spin exactly at 250 miles per hour - the real-world actual measurement is 245 mph*.

*Motorama has a 200mph tip speed limit, so I adjusted the max throttle percentage in the radio to comply with this rule.

The craziest change is that the blade is driven by a large spur gear instead of belts, as I was sick of seeing our HUGE’s lose due to the belts being snapped or falling off. The gear doesn’t isolate the motor as well as a belt in theory,* but I did numerous tests to ensure that the motor and gears would be fine - and it seems to have paid off. The gear on the motor is 3D printed Taulman Bridge Nylon, and the weapon gear/hubs are printed from Overture 95A TPU (both printed fully solid). White lithium grease is applied to the gears occasionally to keep them running smooth and prevent melting.

*We thought! The motor sees about the same wear & tear with the gear drive as it does with a belt, although there isn’t constant tension on the motor/axle like there would be with a belt. This actually lets it spin smoother than a belted setup! The magnets inside the motor do still have a limited lifespan from shock damage and tend to give out and shatter after around 8 fights per motor.

Full weapon assembly, showing off the gear-drive

Specs for Nerds

Total Weight: 11.95lbs
Drive system voltage: 4s, 650mah battery
Weapon system voltage: 4s, 1600mah battery
Drive top speed: 15mph
Weapon top speed (AR600 blade): Limited to 200mph for Motorama
Weapon energy (AR600 blade): 800 joules @ 200mph

Fight 1: Night Crawler

Make it stand out

Night Crawler is built by Pete Covert of Team Copperhead, and is literally a 12lb version of Copperhead. He has a really cool build video of the bot here.

After HUGE’s defeat of Copperhead in Battlebots WC7, their team’s strategy went back to spinning upwards with the eggbeater. As a reminder, at BattleBots Team Copperhead spun their drum backwards to try and deal out larger hits, but it made them too uncontrollable to protect their drive system.

The fight started out in Night Crawler’s favor as the eggbeater was winning weapon-on-weapon hits, up until I stopped babying the weapon system on Slam Plan and let the blade spin at full speed (within the 200mph rule). Slam Plan won every single weapon-on-weapon hit after that, disabled the beater, and chipped away until Pete tapped out. First win!

Slam Plan damage: Wheel rubber removed, wheels mildly bent, back leg chunked off a bit, blade teeth worn down greater than expected, blade very slightly bent.

It doesn’t look pretty anymore but that’s not what matters. Functionality is what matters, and it was pretty untouched!

Night Crawler damage: Weapon belt disintegrated, wheel cover removed, TPU weapon guard removed, TPU fork guards removed, S7 beater mildly damaged, one wheel locked up near the end of the fight as well.

FIght 2: Axis of Evil

Axis of Evil is built by Brandon Zalinsky of P1 and Starchild fame, and is an updated 12lb version of Starchild. The blade on Axis of Evil is much larger than heavyweight Starchild (proportionally) and could easily hit the frame of Slam Plan if given the opportunity.

The fight went crazily similar to the heavyweight fight - the first hit disabled Axis of Evil’s weapon and it was defenseless from then onwards. There was one scary moment where Axis of Evil managed to get a lift under Slam Plan and ram it full speed into the steel kick plate while Slam Plan’s blade was running full speed - luckily nothing got damaged. Shortly after that, an entire side of Axis of Evil got ripped out: wheel + motor & gearbox, with guts attached. Win 2 by tap-out!

Slam Plan damage: More tooth wear, weapon motor screws loosened, weapon motor shaft collar backed out a bit allowing the can to slide back and forth.

Axis of Evil damage: Wheels bent, weapon hub + belt destroyed, tegris standoff arm frayed, nylon chassis split in half.

Fight 3: Energizer

Energizer is built by Zoe Lambert of Team Honey Cracked, a staple of the NHRL scene and truly an all around great team. Energizer is a 2 wheel drive wedged vertical spinner utilizing a hubmotor style spinner instead of a belted/geared spinner - the motor lives inside the weapon. No belts!

The fight against Energizer went almost entirely Slam Plan’s way - the harder material of Slam Plan’s blade was biting into their softer AR500 wedge every single time and sending Energizer flying. One side of Energizer’s drive had its wheel blown off, and so it was crab walking the majority of the fight. However on one hit Slam Plan just stopped dead in its tracks with no response - my heart stopped with it - until suddenly all control just resumed like nothing happened. We think the receiver briefly lost power, however we still have no idea what actually happened. It made a full recovery and continued delivering massive hits and damage to Energizer.

In the end, Energizer was left in the corner motionless and was counted out. Win 3!

Slam Plan damage: Wheel rubber slightly damaged again, weapon ESC got very hot (re-melting hot glue).

Energizer damage: TPU wheel guard ripped apart, left wheel obliterated, AR500 back plate has been nibbled.

Fight 4: BumbleBlitz

BumbleBlitz is built by Liam King of Team Honey Cracked, and is a 4 wheel drive hammer-saw bot. It has quickly risen up as one of the team’s best robots.

BumbleBlitz capitalizes on the weak top armor on opponents the same way that HUGE-style robots do. It is the only other bot capable of reaching the frame of Slam Plan (at this event), and on that note, I decided to leave the open tops on Slam Plan untouched. I was feeling super confident. If I needed to protect the electronics, I could flip the body over and keep the UHMW baseplate facing upwards as defense.

This was a blink-and-you-miss-it fight. This was hubris taking effect and biting me in the butt. Liam got two clean swings in with the arm, both landing perfect hits over the top of the frame. The first hit caved in the left side drive motor (like LITERALLY caved it in) and the second hit unplugged the drive battery and snipped the ground wire in half. I tapped out after noticing the power was off. First loss, on to the loser’s bracket.

Slam Plan damage: Caved in drive motor, snipped & unplugged drive battery.

BumbleBlitz damage: Wedge got scraped up a bit, that’s all.

Fight 5: Voxel 12

Voxel 12 is built by Michael Schorr of Team Defective. It is a 4 wheel drum/eggbeater spinner, very similar to Shreddit Bro.

Voxel 12 has seen great success at NHRL, reaching the podium twice in 2023. He chose to run these interesting TPU outrigger forks, presumably to help with stability.

Now that Slam Plan was in the losers bracket (and in fact this was the losers final - loser got 3rd place, winner goes back up to the grand final) the stakes were way higher. We had to win fast.

With the benefit of the mismatch between a HUGE-style robot and a small vertical spinner, we were able to quickly wear down Voxel 12 and eventually disable the weapon, then the drive. On to the finals!

Slam Plan damage: The AR600 blade bent very slightly from a weapon-on-weapon shot to Voxel’s drum.

Voxel 12 damage: Shredded bottom plate, side armor ripped up, weapon pulley wrecked, weapon belt detached and wrapped around cleated wheels, one side of drive locked up

Fight 6: BumbleBlitz (Final)

Fighting BumbleBlitz again in the final!

Knowing we had a shot at 1st, and how the previous fight had gone, we had to win fast and not take any damage. Most double elimination tournaments allow the winner of the winners bracket (in this case it would be BumbleBlitz) a single loss just like everyone else - which means I would have to win against BumbleBlitz twice to take first place. However, due to time constraints (and forgotten to us) the final was just single elimination - so the winner of this fight takes it all.

We had to change the armorless strategy for this fight as we didn’t want to take any chances - so we removed the rubber from a set of wheels and added a thin coat of hot glue to the outside for grip. The removed rubber saved about half a pound, which was enough to add 1/4” tegris top plates to cover at least some of the electronics.

Learning from our last matchup, I was more aggressive in attacking BumbleBlitz and was able to bash him away each engagement, to keep his weapon away from my electronics. With BumbleBlitz’s wedge lifting up at the perfect time, I was able to catch the edge of the solid plow and throw BumbleBlitz nearly to the ceiling! After taking some damage, BumbleBlitz tapped out and Slam Plan was the 12lb champion!

BumbleBlitz’s damaged arm belt, and damaged front plow

Slam Plan damage: Frame got scraped, bottom plate had a curl taken out of it right below the weapon battery, leg got sliced a tiny bit.

BumbleBlitz damage: Titanium wedge written off, arm belt ripped

Conclusion

SLAM PLAN has been in development for a long time and so my expectations for it were high, but it still managed to exceed expectations. The weapon gear drive was flawless and the “no top armor” thing only bit me once. That being said, there are more developments still to come and they will make Slam Plan even more effective and deadly, so stay tuned!

5-1 record: 5 knockouts wins, 1 knockout loss

Night Crawler: 2 min, 4 seconds win by tapout
Axis of Evil: 40 seconds win by tapout
Energizer: 1 min, 44 seconds win by knockout
BumbleBlitz: 15 seconds loss by tapout
Voxel: 37 seconds win by tapout
BumbleBlitz (Finals): 35 seconds win by tapout

Some photographs courtesy of JCRB Photography.