Robot Wars S9 - Week 5 Analysis

The final heat is upon us, and it's the big one. The one we've all been waiting for even since the heats were announced. Apollo and Carbide, the bots that came first and second last year, pitted against each other once again. Only one of them can win this heat. Joining them are six robots who are probably wishing they were in any heat but this one.

APOLLO

Last year, I felt Apollo was a little overrated, and fancied Eruption instead. Then Apollo flipped three house robots, threw Storm 2 clean out of the arena, and went on to win the entire series. Definitely not overrated, then. It's back this year, and like Eruption, the flipper has been upgraded to make it even more powerful. It'll have to go some way to match Eruption's performance in Week 2, but on paper, it can do it.

Let's be honest here: Apollo and Carbide are, in all probability, going to take the last two Grand Final slots. I don't see any other heat final match-up happening, and whoever doesn't win that heat final is an absolute shoo-in for the wildcard slot. So the only question, really, is whether Apollo can beat Carbide again and make the Grand Final the easy way. Oh, and there's also the small matter of whether they can flip Sir Killalot...

Prediction: No reigning Robot Wars champion has ever failed to qualify from its heat. I don't see Apollo breaking that streak.

CARBIDE

If Apollo (or Eruption, depending on your tastes) is the modern Chaos 2, then Carbide is undoubtedly the modern Hypno-Disc: a powerful horizontal spinner that makes an utterly terrifying sound. This year the 25kg bar is even more powerful, spinning at a whopping 250mph - correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that's the fastest weapon in Robot Wars history. The internals have been upgraded to take the added strain, and the drive motors have been beefed up so even if the weapon does break down, it won't be left quite as useless.

As I said before, the fight for the heat win will be between Apollo and Carbide, and the souped-up Carbide might just have the edge on paper. It'll all come down to the reliability of the weapon, and whether they can avoid being thrown out of the arena by Apollo's mighty flipper. As for the rest of the machines in this heat, they'll be fearing the 'death hum' arguably more than Apollo.

Prediction: Win or lose, this thing is going to the Grand Final - and if I were a grand finalist, I'd be scared already.

COYOTE

The remaining six machines in this heat might be outshone by the star attractions, but they certainly aren't to be ignored. Take Coyote, for instance. Builder Jamie McHarg was on the PP3D team last year but has struck out on his own with this awesome-looking clamper/crusher, capable of a tonne of force. Now, I know what you're thinking: "Is that a chainsaw at the back? Are they daft?" Well, with the rise in HDPE armour, chainsaws aren't as useless as they once were - and they'll go through tyres quite handily as well.

Coyote looks awesome as heck, and has a handy range of weaponry at its disposal. My main concern is the armour - the jaw assembly takes up half the robot's weight, and I don't know how tough the rest of it is going to be. The drive also seems a little weak for a robot whose main tactic will be to grab other robots and drive them around the arena.

Prediction: A cool-looking machine, and my favourite to emerge from its opening melee alongside Apollo.

CRACKERS 'N' SMASH

We've seen plenty of nuisance-bots in the reboot, but finally we have a proper clusterbot. Crackers, the green one, weighs 50kg and is armed with a compact lifting arm. Smash, the black one, weighs 60kg and is armed with a hardened-steel spinning drum. Obviously, they're not as strong individually as a full-size robot, but they make up for it by working together, with Crackers pinning opponents off the ground while Smash... well... smashes them. And if one of them is knocked out, the other can keep fighting.

Crackers is fairly well-armoured, but I don't think the weapon is going to do a lot, and if I understand their tactic correctly, it runs the risk of getting hit by Smash accidentally. Similarly, I don't know how much damage Smash is going to do, and its 5mm aluminium baseplate is going to warp harder than the Starship Enterprise the first time Carbide hits it. They're nippy at 15mph, but is that enough to stay clear of danger?

Prediction: Great concept, but is probably going to have a tough time, especially with Carbide in the arena.

MEGGAMOUSE

Formerly Mighty Mouse, formerly Velocirippa, this low-pressure flipper comes to you from the same people who built last week's heat winner Ironside 3. Its unique 4WD system and compact design gives it a zero turning circle at 15mph, and with its low-pressure pneumatics, it should have the stamina to take on the likes of Apollo. It even has a nuisance-bot, Charles the Cheese Wedge, to distract and hinder its opponents so it can flip them.

Meggamouse was my favourite to progress from the second melee alongside Carbide, but then I saw its armour: 6mm aluminium. That's not a lot. Carbide will tear this mouse apart like a cat, given half the chance. Mind you, Mighty Mouse once made the heat final mostly by running away, and the other two (technically three) robots in that melee aren't much more durable, so who knows?

Prediction: The bot with the biggest pedigree in the heat, after the two finalists, but is that enough? I'm not sure.

MS. NIGHTSHADE

If Robot Wars still had a "Most Original Entry" award, this would be the winner. Built by two university students, this tall purple pyramid has six "petals" that work as spiked axes, slamming down in unison to provide 360-degree attack coverage. Apparently it also works as a sit-and-spin thwackbot? It's certainly a unique machine, unlike anything I can remember seeing in Robot Wars.

However, it also raises a few red flags. The team say it's designed to "survive", but they haven't said how thick the steel armour is, or what its top speed is. They say it "can't be flipped", but its narrow wheelbase and high centre of gravity suggest otherwise. They say it can climb out of the pit if it falls in, but if I understand the weapon system correctly, it would just go straight up in the air and back down into the pit again. And how long is their CO₂ gonna last if they're firing six pneumatic systems at once?

Prediction: Unique? Yes. Inventive? Yes. Effective? I don't think so. They're going out in Round 1.

RUSTY

This compact flipper is the distant descendant of Series 7 heat finalist Ceros. Formerly "Ceros 2", it was bought by some students at Glasgow Clyde College and given a massive overhaul to bring it up to modern standards. The flipper is low-pressure and designed to be reliable and low-maintenance, but still allegedly has 1.2 tonnes of flipping power, which isn't bad at all.

Rusty looks like a pretty decent machine all-round: it's not exactly slow at 14mph, the flipper seems good enough, and while the armour could be thicker, that won't be a concern unless it reaches the head-to-heads and has to fight Carbide. Its immediate concern will most likely be Apollo, which can easily throw it out of the arena if they're not careful.

Prediction: Rusty by name, but not by nature, it has a decent chance of making the head-to-head round.

TROLLEY RAGE

The final robot of the series, this classic-looking box-wedge machine was built by roboteer Gareth Anstee along with two university professors, after they were challenged to do so by local schoolchildren. They've gone down the "anyone-can-build-a-fighting-robot" route and built it around an upturned shopping trolley, hence the name. It's armed with a bladed axe and has a top speed of around 10mph.

After my first edition of this article tore into it, Gareth has kindly pointed out to me that Trolley Rage isn't actually as weak as you might expect it to be. As well as the trolley, it has a proper box-steel chassis to provide some actual structural support. I'm still concerned about how well its 3mm mild steel armour will stand up to Carbide, though, and how effective the axe will be. It's in the hands of an experienced driver, though, so it shouldn't be a total disaster.

Prediction: Looks like a bot from 1999, will likely perform like one too. Out in the first round.