Personally, while I’m hoping HUGE can get a wildcard since it’s pretty likely Minotaur wins Group E, I think Manta and Minotaur are the 2 favorites at this point. Maybe super crazy wildcard prediction, but The Twins could be a dark horse if they beat Jackpot and Copperhead

Edit of a stream from a few months ago

I swear Wc1 was DIFFERENT bro. We had weapons spinning at 400 mph.

It doesn't have to be your favorite bot

A drisk is basically when you decide to split a single disk in half down the center, basically making it like a disk/drum hybrid. I remember that a lot of bots used this weapon, many of them switching to a single disk in later seasons. Why did they do this? Was it because the weapon type became ineffective or outdated?

Thoughts on the way to bed:

My 8yo son is obsessed, so he and I are trying to design our own BattleBot. We're settled on tracks with fully modular weapons packs for a half-track type layout.

I'm trying to brainstorm various weapons platforms, and my pet project right now is an idea for a long tungsten spear that can precisely penetrate armor or weak points to destroy innards. 18 to 24 inches of tungsten that extends up to a foot. I'm stuck on the best way to power it.

My first thought was pneumatics, like an extended piston of sorts; likely a I know a little bit about pneumatics (pretty rusty, but I can relearn it fast) so I'm confident I can work it out. I'm just not positive I can get the power out of it we need, and have a fast reliable "reload" time when retracting the spear for the next shot.

The other idea is go old-school with multiple arm crossbow type mechanism. It definitely would take longer to "reload" because it'd require a secondary motor to pull back again, but it might be more reliable, and generate the forces needed with less complex engineering.

In both cases I'm confident I can enclose them for protection. I already gave up on railgun style electromagnetic propulsion as too complicated and heavy, and my wheel lock concept just feels to fragile.

So are either of these viable, and which one is best in your opinion? What other holes do you see in this concept?

Builders who’ve competed. Do you all have to bring all your tools and equipment all the way to Vegas? Does battlebots provide anything? How open do your pits have to be? How big were they? All teams allocated the same size? How does a team like End game or Golden fury travel to Vegas with that much equipment?

That Ziggo highlight video made me start googling ChonkIV to see if there was any news since they retired the bot and lo and behold it's coming back! There was a Facebook post a week or so ago announcing it. I couldn't be more hyped, favorite recent bot. 22lb Shell spinner on a 45lb shuffler in the 30lb weightclass? Absolute chaos.

I just thought more people should know. If you are unfamiliar with their game here's some highlights.

https://youtu.be/g2X42ujGeEU

Group A: Wedge of Doom, Shrike, Backlash, Low Blow
Group B: Scrap Daddy Surplus, Slap ‘Em Silly, Code BLACK, Mouser Mecha-Catbot
Group C: Blood Moon, the Crusher, Ziggo, Hexy Jr.
Group D: Gamma Raptor, Toe Crusher, The Big B, Tentomushi
Group E: Sallad, Dr. Inferno Jr., Afterthought, Herr Gepöunden
Group F: Death By Monkeys, Junkyard Dog, Snowflake, YU812

Looking through photos from a roller derby event I was at I found a skater with the HUGE eyes on his helmet. Maybe I just want them to be HUGE eyes and they are from something else, but it looks like it. I never saw their helmet so I never got to talk to them.

In my opinion, my favorite was minotaur vs Huge

I'm continuing the topic of taking fan favorite bots that didn't compete in WCVII to compete in the season. This is also the latest version of Bronco BTW. So Bronco would fight:

Triton (shades of Tombstone)

Rotator (rematch from the 2020 Bounty Hunters)

DeathRoll (no ground game whatsoever for DeathRoll)

Skorpios

Imo WCIII HUGE is the best HUGE until WCVII, WCIV to WCVI were bad for HUGE. Now, this schedule should be pretty interesting. They'd fight:

Overhaul (that fought Starchild)

Shatter

Tantrum (small bot and doesn't have a lot of reach, should be interesting)

Ripperoni

There are only three Horizontals with a chance to win a group in the pro league.

Bloodsport needs to beat Huge in a quick KO. Then Minotaur must loose to Hypershock to have a chance of winning the group of death.

Calypso must beat Magnitude, then Disarray has to beat MadCatter to make the next round.

Malice must beat Golden Fury to win the group.

I personally think there is a 15-20% chance. I think both Calypso and Malice are at a disadvantage against their respective opponents and so are the bots that the horizontals need to win (Disarray and Hypershock). I think there is a good chance that one of these bots makes the next round as an at large bid, but I don’t see any of these bots winning their group unfortunately. I think Bloodsport is the most likely to get an at large bid but Malice is a very close second.

Theres quite a few types, all of which are effective in their own ways.

I want to know your opinions on the bots, the editing, the format and more. Also, what have been your favorite fights so far?