Check out this fight in BattleBots Season 4, Episode 2.
What went right, and what went wrong? First thing’s first, we didn’t split! We knew this was going to be a big test for the new design and it delivered against one of the biggest spinners in the game. Son of Whyachi has a massive rotating cage assembly, and the track record of a previous heavyweight championship, so we knew this would be a really tough fight.
The fight was going to plan initially, with our wheels being able to take the hits from Son of Whyachi’s spinning hammers, bouncing us away, and letting us come back in for more. Not many bots can take numerous hits unscathed from a weapon like that! What didn’t work was the length of our bar. We were hoping to get SOW’s hammers slowed enough to climb over them, where our bar’s length would let us just hit farther up on the tribar, on the long red bars, or on the top hub. But they were just unstoppable. Next time, we hope to run a longer bar and really make some good weapon contact with them. This can take some of the load off the wheels as well, since every engagement won’t necessarily just be a full-force hit straight to the wheels.
After about a minute and a half of abuse, SOW dragged down the wheel until they were able to hit us up near the hub, breaking off a whole section and disabling us. It also bent a driveshaft on the hit. Electronically, all was well and happy, and after inspecting everything very closely we charged the batteries, changed the wheel and axle, changed out half the frame (more on that in a second) and got ready for our next fight!
Photo credits: Dan Longmire
Photo Gallery
Son of Whyachi during the 2019 season
Less HUGE than before. Temporarily.
Angry eyes attack doesn’t seem to be working...
Really though, our big plan for this fight though was to get them to break themselves on our wheels. We got close, and did some damage! But just not enough before the wheels failed on us. See SOW here flying away, to terrifyingly slam the wall right at our feet. The whole driver’s box shook.
The biggest hit of the match. Full force, to the side of the bar. We’re certain that many of the hits in this fight would have split last year’s version of HUGE, but we're proud to see it recover from this massive hit relatively unscathed.
The final casualties. One wheel and support leg damaged but usable, and one wheel kept as a souvenir and test piece. As well as a slightly bent drive shaft, showing us that we need to up the thickness there for next year. Battlebots 2020 goals? Making sure a chunk out like that can’t stop us from crawling around. We also have lots of ideas of how to prevent cracking like this again, while maintaining the wobble that’s gotten us so far. But we can’t just share all of our secrets now can we!?