Check out this fight in BattleBots World Championship VII (marked “Season 8” on most platforms), Episode 19.

Just another fight right? Just any old fight. No pressure at all. Nothing to worry about. Totally fine. It’s fine. It’ll be fine. It’s fine.

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.

Sadly though, there is always going to be another team dreaming of it too. HUGE’s opponent was Sawblaze, a perennial contender with their rarely-seen “hammersaw” weapon. Each year they slowly climbed from Top 16, to Top 8, to Top 4, and now finally they too will have their first chance at the Giant Nut.

HUGE and Sawblaze are both notable as robots that are extensively tested in smaller weight classes, at local events around the northeast US. And when you’ve been fighting in the same museum basements, farm show complexes, school gymnasiums, and Maker Faires for that long, you will inevitably build up a record of fights. In fact, our paths first crossed at a very important event for Team HUGE: Motorama, February 2017.

A nostalgic interlude:

This event saw the debut of the first ever version of HUGE that we had created, in the 30lb weight class. Team HUGE arrived to Motorama with three robots, eventually finishing in 2nd place both in the 30lb Sportsman division, and 2nd place in the 30lb Full Combat division.

And within the 30lb full combat division, who did Huge meet in the finals? Jamison Go, and his 30lb hammer-saw robot “MegatRon”. In particular, this was MegatRon’s first event with a fully custom hammersaw-style weapon, directly leading to the birth of the current Sawblaze as we know it.

The original Huge, 30lb Weight Class, circa 2017. We have no idea whatsoever why people thought this goofy thing wouldn’t win fights.

As the day moved forwards at Motorama, Huge shockingly advanced deep into the bracket. And considering that we had spent many many months slowly assembling the robot prior to its debut, we had never put much thought into the concept of rapidly repairing it between successive fights. A wide group of people came to our rescue, including eventual Team HUGE members Don & Joe Doerfler, Garrett Santoline, and Alex Horne. Fred Moore, later of Valkyrie and Ripperoni, also had a big hand in keeping Huge functional. These people formed the basis of the eventual Team HUGE, and it shows how important it is to get to local events and meet like-minded crazy robot people engineers.

As Huge climbed up the bracket, it fought a variety of robots and even scored a surprise win over MegatRon. But MegatRon was able to meet Huge in the finals through the loser’s bracket (double elimination tournament). Once there, MegatRon won back to back fights by judge’s decision, pushing Huge around and (in one case) cutting the belt powering Huge’s weapon. Intriguing.

Both final fights are featured in this video. Watch also for the other Team Huge robot to go deep in the Motorama 2017 tournament, the yellow and black lifterbot named “BEEESS??” which also took 2nd place, in the 30lb Sportsman (no spinning weapons) division.

Back to the present day:

Zooming back to the present day, both HUGE and Sawblaze were coming off of fairly smooth victories in our Semifinal fights. We hadn’t even finished our disassembly of HUGE before Sawblaze was announced as the winner of their fight, and we immediately began to prepare the bot to fight a hammersaw once again. We wanted to do a modified version of our configuration for fighting Skorpios - lightened wheels with a significant amount of face armor in its place. This time also running a slightly lighter blade, to steal back a few extra pounds. Changes for fighting Sawblaze involved even more armor coverage on the frame, and we had luckily had time to paint the tegris white since the Skorpios fight. So it could look a little less terrible. From there, it was a pretty simple job to mount up the tegris panels, swap blade and wheels, and re-pack the batteries into the frame. We may have also spent 20 minutes looking for our weapon lock after it fell down inside the tegris panels, and nobody could find it…

Ready for action pre-final. Tegris body armor, lighter blade, lighter wheels.

Sawblaze however, was going with a much less traditional approach. We first spotted it when we had a fishy feeling about how disassembled Sawblaze was, and decided to take a peek inside the welding tent next to the pits. What we saw was almost hard to believe. Sawblaze’s traditional anti-horizontal plow, welded upwards, with all sorts of supporting steel objects spider-webbed inside. There was bars, there was tubing, there was a piece of rebar… An effort to gum up our blade before it hit anything important, and try to keep some measure of control. Certainly a bold strategy, and not something we’ve seen tried, but also one that gives us a great edge to bite and toss Sawblaze with. If nothing else, the final was surely going to be interesting.

The Sawblaze plow, in the process of being welded together.

The Fight Itself:

The final was a tale of two fights. Sawblaze is a robot that we wanted to stay out of the reach of. Knowing that they need to pin an opponent to deploy their weapon, our best defense was a strong offense. We were able to keep Sawblaze away from HUGE with a flurry of hits, tipping them over or throwing them upwards with the force of their own spinner. This was great for showing a ton of aggression and control to the judges, but it was lacking the possibility of a killer blow. For a brief moment after Sawblaze landed upside-down, it looked like we had a chance for a hit on their under-armored underside, and raced in to try to land that killing blow. But sadly, Sawblaze was too fast and was able to self-right in time. Our weapon wasn’t fully spun up in this moment, and they were able to stop it and finally take control of HUGE. They made the most of this opportunity by cutting half of our spinning blade’s belts, doubling our spinup time and reducing the amount of power in HUGE’s blade. This is where the fight turned.

From here, HUGE was on the defensive. All season, our near-instantaneous weapon spinup had carried us to victories by making HUGE so dangerous to approach. And suddenly, that weapon was brought back down to Earth. With half of the belts cut, we still had an equivalent amount of weapon power to the 2020 version of HUGE, but that HUGE didn’t win a lot of fights for a reason. Living on the defensive can only work for so long in a fight of this caliber. And eventually Sawblaze was able to score more pins, do more damage to our weapon, and fully swing the fight in their favor.

This fight was certainly close, probably the closest and most competitive final that Battlebots has had in the reboot era. But by the end of the fight, HUGE was really worse for wear. A mental test that I have heard for JD’s is to ask yourself, “which of these robots could last 3 more minutes?”. Sawblaze was bent, and bruised, but ultimately still fully functional, while HUGE would not pass that test. Our weapon was being driven by a single remaining belt, and we had suddenly and intermittently lost drive in one wheel at the end of the fight. We feel that the judges scored the fight correctly.

The judge’s scorecards. Do you agree? We feel that we would have needed to disable some system (wheel, arm, or spinner) on Sawblaze to tilt the damage category enough to win. Sawblaze is a tough robot to score aggression and control against.

Playing “found the titanium”, one of our hits glanced off of Sawblaze’s top plate on one side.

If we had to ask which of these two robots would go on to win the match…

This hit glancing, rather than catching and throwing Sawblaze, was what ultimately turned the fight around.

Once pinned, Sawblaze scored a lot of hits.

Running away to spin up is hard to pull off against a fast opponent.

The Aftermath:

With the intensity level so high, in a full 3-minute fight between functional robots, the damage was a sight to behold. Sawblaze’s plow was twisted upwards, with all of the steel internal webbing bent into various artistic shapes. And HUGE’s pulleys and frame took a remarkable amount of damage.

All of the rear metal, bent into an S-shape, used to be flat bar stock!

The whole plow also used to be mounted around a 45 degree angle.

Not exactly ideal for when you’re trying to run a belt through that slot.

Damage to the frame near the blade mounting. This is one of those cases where you disassemble the parts, knowing fully that it will never fit back together perfectly again.

A divot in the front of one of our frame boxes, through quite a bit of tegris too! It didn’t fully pierce, but the area surrounding it is warped inwards.

Including this lovely little bent connector that was mounted inside of the divot. It still worked! Until we took the tape off. Then it fell apart in our hands.

As the season closed, we were lucky enough to be awarded the Giant Bolt for being the Most Destructive robot, an amazing prize and reflection of HUGE’s season! This prize is voted by the judges each season, and has been won by an amazing collection of teams. We’re honored to also be the first robot to win both the Best Design and Most Destructive awards during our career! By the time the Giant Bolts were awarded, most of the team was either sick, or on a plane towards home. Team members Garrett, Brendan, and Maddie were on-hand to receive it - fitting because Garrett had to leave prior to receiving the Giant Bolt in 2018!

“don’t drop it don’t drop it don’t drop it don’t drop it”

And with that, HUGE’s season comes to an end. HUGE was not able to take part in the Battlebots: Champions spinoff due to our participation late into the Battlebots WC7 tournament, as they are filmed alongside each other. And it was much too broken by Sawblaze to run any grudge matches. So for now, the robot sleeps in the garage, waiting for another chance to make a run at the title. Whenever they film another season, HUGE will be ready and waiting!

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.

Photo Credits: Dan Longmire, JCRB Photography, Alex Crease