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.
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.
To the Top 16! Next we fought the versatile Vasquez family, and their bot Whiplash. It's lifter-spinner combo has been a deadly weapon in the past, giving us worry about hitting our frame. Plus the lifter can control us and their tough armor is a formidable wall to break through. But HUGE always has some tricks up its sleeve!
Jasper was a test of our offensive capabilities. They’re a tough brick of a robot, and aren’t afraid to jam their hammer/lifter into a spinner and take the hits. As one of the lightest spinners in the field, this was a big worry to us. We make up for not hitting as hard by hitting where nobody thinks they'll need armor (top), too bad Jasper was all armor!
What went right, and what went wrong? 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. This 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…..
