Check out this fight in Battlebots Season 3, Episode 9.
HUGE’s third fight of the regular season was against the hammer robot Chomp. Chomp had been a part of all three reboot seasons, and was returning as a Top 8 competitor from 2016 after famously defeating Bite Force. Coming into the fight at 0-2, we knew that Chomp would be desperate for a win. Chomp was well designed to hurt HUGE because HUGE’s armor was just 1/16” Titanium sheeting during the 2018 season. For standing up to direct hits, that thickness of armor is appropriate on a 3 pound or 12 pound robot, but it could not survive many hits from a robot like Chomp. Given that our sensitive electronics were immediately behind this thin armor, we were really worried headed into this fight!
We knew that our key to victory would be disabling the hammer early, if we had any hope of surviving. “Surrenderbot” served well as a distraction in the early stages of the fight, letting us get in some early damage to Chomp’s hammer arms. A few more direct hits were enough to jam the arms up on the body of Chomp, and from there we were free to hit them anywhere. Chomp did a good job of controlling HUGE with the bent hammer arms, deploying their flamethrower often and pushing HUGE into the screws once. But HUGE’s weapon kept running for the fight, and we pulled out the judge’s decision victory.
This made HUGE 3-0 against three experienced and tough competitors, and we were overjoyed! But it came at the cost of our weapon motors (which finally died completely) and some damage to the body armor of HUGE. Additionally, this fight bent and destroyed our weapon blade, which was bent enough for the pulley’s bolt holes to no longer line up (the blade bent in-plane!). We swapped to a backup blade, and ran around the pits to buy replacement motors from other teams before our next fight.
Photo credits: Dan Longmire
Photo Gallery
Chomp during the 2018 season
First hit of the match, putting a cut into one of the hammer arms
Chomp used the bent hammer arms well to control us, and utilize their flamethrower
The bent arms also made effective armor to protect the soft upper sections of Chomp
The arms also made nice sparks…
Chomp’s hammer arms were in all-new shapes by this point in the fight, but not without dislodging some armor and damaging our motors.
Our destroyed weapon motors. Heading back to the test box after this fight, HUGE reached about half of top speed (on the weapon) before it slammed to a halt. On a subsequent test after replacing the first motor, the second one experienced the same failure.
Quite the trophy from team Chomp! It was amazing to meet them and to see inside their beautiful machine.