Robot combat counts as a sport, right?
Anybody watching the new season of Battlebots on Discovery? First episode of the season had some great fights and big surprises (is Captain Shrederator good now?), and a ton of things catching on fire. They made some rule changes this year that I'm not so sure about, but there are a lot of really interesting bots fighting this time.
I only got into robot combat just last year when my partner convinced me to watch the 2020 season with him. I became way more obsessed with it than he ever was. Now I like to build bots for the lower weight classes - usually 3d printed fairyweight (150g) or antweight (1lb) bots, but the 250lb monsters on TV are definitely way more exciting.
What's your favorite robot? Do you like big spinners like Uppercut or Tombstone, or unconventional designs like HUGE or Smeeeeeeeeeeeeeee? Are you also disappointed that Duck! doesn't have a face this season? Is Blip the cutest bot to ever compete? Tell me your Battlebot Battlethoughts.
End Game is going to win the giant nut again and it gives me no joy to report this.
New fights every Thursday, plus a bonus Sunday fight on youtube!
All I remember from watching this was just the robot with the lawn mower blade on it that just trashed everyone else. Is it still just spinners win everything
The meta right now is that vertical spinners with good drive tend to win more often than not. But the selection committee makes the field very diverse! You get vertical spinners (see Uppercut or Deep Six), Horizontals (Tombstone, Hijinx, Valkyrie), flippers (Hydra, Blip), and plenty of others. And even within those categories you get a lot of diversity in design.