Chaos 2

"Coolest flipper? Can't beat 'Chaos 2'"

- Aaron Joerger

Chaos 2 is a robot from Robot Wars, it competed in Series 3-6 and also both series of Extreme, Chaos 2 was designed and built by self-employed, Ipswich based, mechanic George Francis, and operated by Team Chaos - Francis, joined by Ian Swann and his son Richard. The robot never changed in appearance; a small black wedge robot armoured in aluminium and polycarbonate and armed with a powerful pneumatic flipper. It used several parts such as the wheels, casters and differentials from its predecessor Chaos. However, this light armour and small body tended to cost it in later series, as it remained up to sixteen kilograms lighter than almost all other opponents.

Chaos 2 won the UK Championship twice, the only robot to do so in UK Robot Wars, a feat that Terrorhurtz and Iron Awe would later emulate in Roaming Robots after Robot Wars ended. It was the first robot to use its flipper to throw its opponents out of the arena altogether. Chaos 2 was also the first to defeat Hypno-Disc in Series 3. Its flipper is considered to be the most powerful in Robot Wars, although it is not as powerful as the catapult-style flipper of Wheely Big Cheese. However, its weapon is superior in terms of efficiency, but has a limited supply of CO2, which provides the power for the weapon. Its flipper also functioned as a self-righting mechanism when the robot had been flipped over, righting the entire robot in a half-somersault so it could continue fighting. "Ever since helping Rex to build Recyclopse, I wanted to harness the power of Recyclopse's tongue in a more effective way. By hinging the flipper at the back (instead of the front), you only have to poke a small part of the front blade under your opponent to be able to chuck them."

- George Francis

Chaos 2 is an inaugural member of The Combat Robot Hall of Fame. It also has its own pullback toy, minibot toy and an Ultimate Warrior DVD/Video. After its final appearance in Robot Wars Extreme Series 2, it underwent massive repairs to bring it back up to running order, even though it no longer actually battles, instead operating today as a display machine at charity events alongside robots such as The Steel Avenger, Stinger, Cassius and other famous Robot Wars robots that are now retired.

Appearances in Merchandise

 * Chaos 2/Pullback
 * Chaos 2/Minibot
 * Chaos 2/Robot Wars: Metal Mayhem
 * Chaos 2/Robot Wars: Extreme Destruction (PC/Xbox)
 * Chaos 2/Robot Wars: Arenas of Destruction

Series 3
This was Chaos 2's very first appearance, and its first steps into Robot Wars history. In the first round, it started much faster than Crocodilotron, which ran away from it. Chaos 2 got under Crocodilotron and flipped it into Matilda, before flipping it again into the arena wall. It then tried to attack Matilda and broke the house robot's chainsaw chain. A similar battle ensued against Sonic, with Chaos 2 throwing the robot around the arena effortlessly. It reached the heat final against the other favourites, The Big Cheese. The robots had hesitant starts and the Big Cheese got under Chaos 2 and lifted it. Even though Chaos 2 was the much smaller robot, it then managed to flip The Big Cheese. Chaos 2 flipped it back on its wheels as it charged towards the wall. The Big Cheese then proceeded to lift and flip Chaos 2. Chaos 2 immediately re-righted itself using its flipper and flipped The Big Cheese again. Big Cheese was unable to right itself, very similar to how Chaos could not self-right. Big Cheese was attacked by the House Robots and eliminated.

Chaos 2 entered the Semi-Finals, throwing Trident clean over. With the shiny robot unable to self-right, Chaos 2 reached a grudge match with Mace 2. This was a rematch of the Series 2 battle between Mace and Chaos, which Mace won. In this match Chaos 2 used its flipper, but did not flip Mace 2. Chaos 2 drove in for another attack, but could not get under Mace 2's lifting ram. Chaos 2 bounced Mace 2 once, before flipping it over for the victory. The Grand Final kicked off with a battle against Firestorm. Neither could get under each other, until Chaos 2 flipped Firestorm. Before it could self-right, Chaos 2 pushed it over to the arena wall and flipped it out of the arena, the first Out-of-the-Arena (OotA) in Robot Wars history. George Francis said this was an accident as he was originally only intending to slam Firestorm into the wall. The long awaited Grand Final against Hypno-Disc was reached. Chaos 2 had a fast start and both robots rammed each other. Chaos 2 used its flipper unsuccessfully, but bounced and landed on Hypno-Disc's disc, temporarily stopping it. With Hypno-Disc's weapon stopped, Chaos 2 drove in again and flipped Hypno-Disc onto its back. With the battle won, Chaos 2 then flipped Matilda and Shunt to celebrate its victory. Notably, this was the last grand final not to go to the judges.

Chaos 2 later entered the First World Championships, going in as one of the favourites. However it faced a tough battle with Killerhurtz, but to start with Killerhurtz didn't move and Chaos 2 lined up a broadside flip. Just before Chaos 2 could flip it, Killerhurtz sped off and came on the attack slamming its axe down, but Chaos 2 dodged it. Chaos 2 was moving quite sluggishly around the arena and Killerhurtz came on the offensive, but again missed with its axe. Both robots circled each other, until Chaos 2 reversed into Shunt's CPZ and the axes of Shunt and Killerhurtz came down, with Killerhurtz axing Chaos 2's flipper. Chaos 2 was in trouble as Killerhurtz wouldn't let go and Shunt's deadly axe was getting ever closer to Chaos 2's gas canister. Suddenly gas vented out of Chaos 2 and it was evident Shunt had found his target. However in a turn of events Shunt turned its attention to Killerhurtz and axed the Czech machine instead and Chaos 2 tried to escape. Killerhurtz got away and charged Chaos 2 again. Chaos 2 with its last ounce of strength dodged Killerhurtz and flipped it over. Despite its best efforts, Killerhurtz had suffered damage to its axe, couldn't right itself and was immobilised and Chaos 2 proceeded through to the second round.

In the next round Chaos 2 faced Razer, a match up many in the pits wanted to see. Both robots came together in the middle of the arena and started driving around each other trying to get their weapons into range. Chaos 2 then flipped Razer, but it landed on its wheels. However, after driving off the flame pit, Chaos 2 backed into Razer, allowing Razer to catch hold of it. Chaos 2 was then pushed into the arena wall as Razer punched through the rear polycarbonate armour, piercing its C02 bottle again, rendering the flipper useless. Chaos 2 was then pushed into Dead Metal's pincers by Razer and the house robot proceeded to slice into Chaos 2's flipper panels. After a deep gash was carved into its flipper from the saw, Dead Metal released Chaos 2 and, to avoid further damage, Chaos 2 reversed across the arena and into the pit, ending its run in the competition.

Series 4
"The only thing we've changed is my beard in a desperate attempt to look young!"

- Ian Swann before the first battle

Chaos 2 had a fairly easy Heat. It managed to flip around and immobilise both Atomic and Indefatigable before flipping the latter out of the arena. Chaos 2 came up against its first invertible robot in Round 2, Medusa 2000. It threw it around and nearly got it out of the arena several times. Eventually Medusa 2000 drove into Sergeant Bash and had its rear wheel crumpled, immobilising it. Atomic seemed to be immobilised almost from the start in the heat final. Chaos 2 threw it around before Sir Killalot grabbed it and crumpled the framework up. After this fight Craig Charles said that Chaos 2 seemed so much faster and more powerful than in the previous series, to which George Francis replied that he hadn't made any modifications to the robot. Chaos 2 came up against Steg 2 in the semi-finals. It flipped it several times and got flipped over once by Steg 2, before flipping it onto its side, where it ran out of CO2 gas and was immobilised. Round 2 against Tornado was over fairly quickly. Chaos 2 flipped it around before wedging it up against the arena wall and throwing it into a camera and out of the arena. The battle had in fact been fought 3 times but only the last one was shown on TV as in the first the arena wall had been damaged and in the second both robots were immobilised at the same time.

"After throwing them around a bit, we left them perched up against the fence. Ian said "That's it, we've won, leave him there", and I thought "Nah, I just have to throw them over, it's too tempting a target""

- George Francis' thoughts of the fight with Tornado

The first round of the final against Stinger was much harder than any of the previous battles. Chaos 2 got several flips in before having the plastic on the back knocked off by Stinger's mace, leaving all the electronics and the gas bottle exposed. However it came back and threw Stinger into Dead Metal's CPZ and nearly got it out of the arena. In the end the judges declared that Chaos 2 had won by just one point. The grand final up against the 19th seed Pussycat was just as difficult. Large pieces of polycarbonate were torn from Chaos 2 and it had another piece of plastic torn from the back. The blade on the front of the flipper was dented after Chaos 2 got it caught on the arena flipper. Eventually Pussycat's blade stopped working and twice Chaos 2 nearly got it out of the arena, but the flipper started running low on gas and Pussycat got stuck on its side because the blade normally assisted it in self-righting. Eventually the judges declared Chaos 2 the winner and Series 4 Grand Champion, becoming the only team to successfully defend the title in UK Robot Wars.

Chaos 2 also competed in the Northern Annihilator. It was ganged up on by Killerhurtz and Dominator 2. It nearly had Killerhurtz immobilised when it flipped it, leaving the axe stuck in the Arena floor. However in an attempt to get it out of the arena, Chaos 2 flipped it back on its wheels and took punishment from Killerhurtz's and Dominator 2's axes, eventually causing it to break down completely.

Extreme 1
"If you know anything about Robot Wars, you'll already know who we are"

- George Francis introducing his robot

Chaos 2 made numerous appearances in Extreme. It competed in the All-Stars Championship, the Second World Championship, the Challenge Belt, the Flipper Frenzy, and an International Mayhem match.

Chaos 2 made it to the Semi-Finals of the All-Stars championship. In its first round against X-Terminator 2 it struggled as the flipper wasn't closing properly, however X-Terminator's axe stopped it from self-righting properly and it was eliminated. Round 2 was fairly easy as Wheely Big Cheese made little impact as its flipper wasn't working properly so Chaos 2 continuously flipped it around and won on a unanimous decision. In the third round against Tornado it missed its first flipping attempt and instead flipped itself over. Tornado started pushing Chaos 2 around. Eventually Chaos 2 got Tornado wedged on the arena wall and nearly got it out, however the House Robots were getting in the way and Refbot knocked Tornado off the wall, where it eventually won on a judges decision.

Chaos 2 also fought Tornado in the Challenge Belt. It was much of the same, with Tornado pushing Chaos 2 into the side wall. Chaos 2 then threw Shunt off it with an explosive flip, before rushing out again. Chaos 2 flipped Tornado twice in quick succession, but was rammed into the side wall again. It was attacked by both Shunt and Dead Metal, but Chaos 2 dispatched Shunt with a flip. After escaping Dead Metal, Chaos 2 appeared to have lost mobility, and was counted out and thrown by the floor flipper. However, its flipper mechanism did still work afterwards, having been seen firing it just before cease was called.

In the Flipper Frenzy, Chaos 2 ganged up on Sgt. Bash with Thermidor 2 and Bigger Brother. Sgt. Bash's flamethrower was broken and the house robot itself was nearly thrown out of the arena. After trying to flip Refbot, Chaos 2 flipped itself over and was hit by Matilda's flywheel, proceeding to fall against the arena wall and onto its side, where it was unable to move. Since Bigger Brother and Wheely Big Cheese were already immobilised and Chaos 2 itself was technically immobilised, Thermidor 2 was declared the winner.

Chaos 2 surprisingly didn't last long in the Second World Championship. It flipped the Italian robot Mastiff repeatedly, Mastiff was still mobile but was weakening after every Chaos 2 flip. Whilst attempting to flip Mastiff into the pit, Chaos 2 accidentally flipped Mastiff away from the pit instead, before driving in itself. It was later followed by the Italian robot when Manta pushed it in after finishing off Ansgar.

Chaos 2 also fought an International Mayhem match against the Belgian robots Philliper and Alien Destructor, it was intended to be that the foreign machines would team up on Chaos 2. Only George Francis was in the control pod for this battle, Chaos 2 went into the arena already battle-scarred from previous bouts. It flipped both of them repeatedly and eventually left Philliper on its side where it remained until it was counted out by the Refbot. It continued to flip and shunt Alien Destructor suffering a few counter-attacks itself, but went to a judges decision, who voted Chaos 2 the winners.

Series 5
Series 5 started fairly well for Chaos 2. It now had much larger pneumatic rams, a larger gas bottle, more powerful batteries and improved armour. It threw Storm Force around in Round 1 before Storm Force started smoking and was eventually pushed into the pit as it was descending. Up against The Steel Avenger it threw the other robot around a lot, sustaining a couple of axe blows, before throwing it onto the corner of the arena wall where The Steel Avenger wobbled before falling out of the arena. After this bout George Francis received a broken light with a note of complaint on it from the Producers as a joke for The Steel Avenger being thrown on to it by Chaos 2. The Heat Final up against S.M.I.D.S.Y. was much harder. Chaos 2 threw it around numerous times before ramming it into the arena wall in an attempt to the throw it out. S.M.I.D.S.Y. got wedged up against the arena wall so Chaos 2 attempt again to flip them out again. It came in at the wrong angle and flipped itself over. This damaged its front armour, meaning that Chaos 2 couldn't self-right properly and S.M.I.D.S.Y. was slowly edging its way off the arena wall. Both robots were deemed to be immobilised so the judges called for a rematch, the first in Robot Wars history. The rematch started in similar fashion to the first match. Chaos 2 eventually got S.M.I.D.S.Y. up against the wall and succeeded in getting it out of the arena this time.

The first round of the semi-final up against Wild Thing was just about the hardest bout that Chaos 2 had ever fought, and George Francis described it as his best fight to date.

"In the semi-finals, we were up against Wild Thing, and it was a brilliant fight, it was the best fight I've ever had"

- George Francis

Chaos 2 flipped Wild Thing numerous times before Wild Thing pushed them towards the pit. Only the rear wheels went in and Chaos 2 pushed back and flipped it again. It managed to knock the pit release button off the wall. Wild Thing pushed it into the pit again, this time Chaos 2 tilted into the pit and the smoke plume activated as it had assumed that Chaos 2 had gone in, but Wild Thing's lifting arm was holding Chaos 2 up and preventing it from going in. Chaos 2 pushed back and cease was finally called. Chaos 2 was declared the winner as Wild Thing had done little apart from the pitting attempts and Chaos 2 was by far the more aggressive. Round 2 was equally difficult. Bigger Brother flipped Chaos 2 where it failed to self-right on its first attempt and vented an abnormally large amount of Co2 gas. It eventually did self-right and started to flip Bigger Brother. It failed in an attempt to get them out of the arena, and was flipped over from the side by Bigger Brother. At this point Chaos 2 was running low on gas and there wasn't enough left for it to self-right properly. Eventually it completely ran out of the gas and was counted out by Refbot, before being swept into the pit by Bigger Brother. Bigger Brother became the first robot to defeat Chaos 2 in the main competition and Chaos 2's record-breaking reign as UK Champion had ended.

Series 6
Series 6 began to show signs of a struggle for Chaos 2, as it had made virtually no modifications since its debut in Series 3. Despite this, it dominated the eliminator by flipping over Destructosaur, flipping itself over in the process. It then self-righted and threw Iron Awe 2 out of the Arena, before chasing Mighty Mouse around until Destructosaur was counted out. The second battle was much harder. Crushtacean was just the right size to grab hold of Chaos 2 and, whenever Chaos 2 attempted to flip it, it would flip itself forward. This caused it to get stuck against the wall several times. However, it was saved when Crushtacean opened up the pit and drove into it by accident. The final against Dantomkia was over fairly quickly. Chaos 2 got one flip in that got Dantomkia near the side wall. It then attempted to flip again and flipped both of them over. Dantomkia self-righted, but Shunt and Sir Killalot came in and pushed Chaos 2 up against the arena wall from which it couldn't self right properly. Dantomkia then came in and flipped Chaos 2 out of the arena when it had stopped attempting to self-right.

This was the only time Chaos 2 failed to make the Semi-Finals and likewise, was also the one time it was flipped out of the Arena. Chaos 2 did not return for the next wars. Dantomkia, meanwhile, went on to become the record holder to most OotA flips.

Extreme 2
Chaos 2 made a last one-off appearance in the second series of Extreme, in the All-Stars Championship. The Extreme 2 All-Stars tournament was intended to be a tournament only for robots who had made the Sixth Wars Semi Finals, however, as Wild Thing 2 was battle damaged, Chaos 2 took its place.

Here Chaos 2 fought against fellow former UK champion Razer. However, it would be the other robot in the heat, semi-finalist 13 Black, that would cause the most problems. Chaos 2 managed to flip Razer a few times before a large hit in its side from 13 Black managed to dislodge a drive chain, immobilising it. 13 Black then proceeded to attack the front end, causing major damage to the flipper and paintwork, before Razer then came in and punctured the perspex on the back, just as it had done in their previous encounter in the First World Championship. To add insult to injury, after it was counted out, Mr. Psycho placed it on the Floor Flipper, before repeatedly hitting Chaos 2's underside with its hammer, causing damage to its chassis. Finally, Mr. Psycho picked up the fallen champion, held it above the arena and carried it around for a little while, before eventually lowering it into the pit.

Chaos 2 retired after this loss, and as such, was Chaos 2's last appearance in Robot Wars. After its loss however, it underwent a major overhaul to repair the damage done to it by 13 Black, Razer and Mr. Psycho and is now in operating order again, even though it no longer fights in actual battles.

Results

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Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 24
 * Losses: 9

Series Record

 * Series 1: Entered with Robot The Bruce
 * Series 2: Entered with Chaos
 * Series 3: Grand Champion
 * Series 4: Grand Champion
 * Series 5: Semi-Finals, Round 2
 * Series 6: Heat Final
 * Series 7: Did not enter

Trivia

 * Chaos 2 was nominated for the Best Engineered Award in Series 4 after winning in Series 3, but lost to The Steel Avenger. Along with Nemesis and Mortis, Chaos 2 is the only robot to be nominated for the award it held the previous year, and then lose it.
 * Ironically, Chaos 2 and The Big Cheese, who met in the final of their heat, were the only losing heat finalists in Series 2 to reach that stage in the following war.
 * Chaos 2 was one of six robots to be a figurine for the Robot Wars Board Game.