Apex

Apex is a heavyweight robot built by Team Terrafonics, which competed in Series 9 of Robot Wars. Apex is the distant successor to TX-108 and was originally built with a similar hydraulic crushing claw under the name TX-109.

Design
Apex is defined by its huge horizontal spinning bar, painted gold. The robot's chassis is somewhat triangular, with the front section cut into the shape of blades, and the robot runs on a two-wheel drive. Apex is capable of causing major damage, and its HARDOX chassis is durable. Apex also has an as-yet unclear method of self-righting.

Qualification
Apex was built by Craig Danby and Chris Danby of Team Danby. Despite this, Apex applied for Series 8 under the pure captaincy of Chris Danby, where the team becomes known as Team Terrafonics, as Craig Danby had applied with another robot made by the team, Foxic. At the time of applications, Apex was a 100kg robot, with a vertical crushing spike as its weapon, much like its predecessor, TX-108. The crushing spike was intended to pierce through opponents, and also serve as the robot's self-righting mechanism, much unlike other crusher-wielding robots as Razer and Tiberius, which have separate srimechs. However, Apex was not selected to compete in Series 8, while Foxic was. Chris Danby then joined Foxic's team for filming of Series 8.

Following its conversion into a bar spinner, Apex successfully qualified for Series 9, while Team Danby also qualified with Foxic for a second series.

Series 9
Apex will compete in a yet-to-be-confirmed episode.

Results

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Robot Wars Live Events
After TX-108 had regularly participated in Roaming Robots events, TX-109 competed at its first official Robot Wars live event at Newport in 2014. TX-109 continued to take part under the new name of Apex, including an appearance at Barnsley in 2015, though did not find major success.

Apex fought at the Robot Wars World Championships held at Colchester in 2015, where in the first round, it was drawn against Manta, DTK and Titan. DTK was quickly thrown out of the arena by Manta, at which point, Apex broke down. With Manta and Titan both mobile, it seemed as though Apex would be eliminated – however, it was saved by a stroke of luck when Manta threw Titan out of the arena before Apex could be officially deemed immobile. In the second round, Apex faced Thunderchild and Nuts. Thunderchild's flipper was broken, and so could not self-right when turned over by the floor flipper, leaving Apex to fight Nuts alone. However, Nuts was too tall and slippery for Apex to grab properly, and so Apex lost the Judges’ decision. Apex was given a second chance in a losers’ melee against Cherub, but Apex broke down again, leaving it to be turned over by Cherub's lifting prongs.

Apex was converted into a bar spinner in 2016, and fought at the Robot Wars Live Tour in 2016, which was at Portsmouth, but due to safety regulations, could only run its bar spinner at 100RPM. Apex's speed controller burnt out during a battle with Behemoth. For the Colchester event, held in September of the same year, Apex was rebuilt as Big Panda Hatchet, after the series of featherweights under the name of Hatchet. Both robots feature an electric axe, both in the style of a typical axe instead of a proper hatchet, as well as two-wheel drive and a wedge with very little length. However, that is where the similarities end. Big Panda Hatchet did not enjoy as much success as the robot it was based on, losing all of its battles. The reason for this was that Team Danby was building a new chassis for Apex and did not want to scrap the original chassis.

Series Record
NOTE: Tanto also entered the 2016 pilot episode, under new ownership of Team Nebula

Trivia

 * The Series 9 Apex was unofficially revealed in an AI mod for Robot Arena 2, alongside the Series 9 Foxic.