Mega Hurts

"Ah, at last: Robot Wars enters the computer age!"

- Jonathan Pearce in Series 6

Mega Hurts (also spelled as Mega Hurtz) was a yellow box shaped robot based on a desktop computer. The original machine competed in Series 2 of Robot Wars, with four drive motors salvaged from Ford Fiesta windscreen wipers and a keyboard disguised lift.

The team failed to qualify for Series 5 after losing its qualifier to The Stag, which removed Mega Hurts' name stickers as well as scratching and denting the armour, failing to pierce the sides. This version had a radio modem between two computers instead of the traditional RC system. The team managed to qualify for Series 6 under the name Mega Hurts 2, which was slightly smaller and had an angry face on the computer screen (instead of the sighing face on the original machine), it also had two small side axes that automatically fired if a robot was within six inches of the robot. This version's front "keyboard" was upgraded to a flipper but the armour was very suspect as shown in its battle with X-Terminator.

For Series 7, the robot was redesigned as Mega Hurts LT (The LT stood for Laptop). This robot was a low box-wedge shaped robot with two flippers, one as the keyboard and the other as the flat laptop computer screen, constructed from polycarbonate with a steel chassis. Despite showing promise in its only battle, it broke down towards the end, and thus Mega Hurts LT crashed out of the competition.

Despite entering four series, the Mega Hurts team never made it past the heats, or even reached a heat final. The team also entered Series 3 with the less successful Tut's Revenge.

Series 2
"Forget roms, Craig, this one can ram!"

- Jonathan Pearce in Series 2

Mega Hurts fought in Heat K of the Second Wars for its first Robot Wars appearance. In the Gauntlet stage, Mega Hurts took the ramrig route, but got stuck half way down it due to the robots considerable width, but managed to break free, dodge the House Robots and reach the end zone, which put it second out of 6 on the leaderboard, more than enough to put it through to the trial stage of the Heat, which was King of the Castle.

After Plunderbird's run, the Mega Hurts team called the Plunderbird team chickens for driving into the Pit of Oblivion on purpose, and led a chorus of chicken noises in the pits, which was copied by several other roboteers.

However, this turned to look premature for Mega Hurts in the King of the Castle Trial, Mega Hurts was defeated fairly quickly (just 22.2 seconds) after getting driven off the podium by Dead Metal after the robot carelessly positioned itself in the balance and on the edge. The house robot delayed its attack to push it off, but when it did, Dead Metal went off with it. Dead Metal fell on the Computer Monitor, crushing it. This left Mega Hurts at the bottom of the leaderboard at the end of the Trial, eliminating them from the competition. "That's suicide, That is suicide! You're going, you're going, you're gone!"

- Jonathan Pearce as Mega Hurts is pushed off the ring in the Trial

At the end of the series, Mega Hurts was nominated for the Most Original Entry Award but lost out to Milly-Ann Bug.

Series 6
"Plenty of "ram" from the 24 volt motor, loads of "mega-byte" from the flipper, axe and spikes, but "monitor" this lightweight armour closely and you'll see this computer-bot could "crash" easily!"

- Jonathan Pearce sums up Mega Hurts with a lot of computer puns

The Mega Hurts team returned to the Sixth series of Robot Wars after a long interval away from the show, this time returning with an improved machine in Mega Hurts 2. In Heat B of the competition, Mega Hurts 2 was placed up against the number 3 seeds Firestorm 4, and two newcomers to the televised show in Colossus and Cedric Slammer in the first round melee. Mega Hurts 2 started reasonably well, but it was Firestorm 4 that did all of the aggressive work, first flipping Cedric Slammer over and then Colossus over, where neither of them could self-right. Then Mega Hurts was also flipped over by Firestorm 4, smashing its computer monitor. Mega Hurts was also unable to self-right, so Firestorm used pushed them into the pit. Soon afterwards, Firestorm 4 drove straight into the pit of its own accord, but as Mega Hurts and Firestorm 4 were the last two robots to be immobilised, they were both put through to the next round of the heat by the judges.

In the second round, Mega Hurts 2 was drawn up against the experienced X-Terminator machine. X-Terminator dominated the match (particularly the early stages), relentlessly hitting Mega Hurts with its axe, smashing the screen off the brand new computer monitor, though Mega Hurts did get underneath and push its opponent towards the end of the fight. X-Terminator lost its axe head eventually before cease was called. The judges' decision unsurprisingly went in favour of X-Terminator, eliminating Mega Hurts from the competition.

Series 7
In Heat H of the Seventh Wars, Mega Hurts LT was drawn up against the Cornish machine St. Agro, New Blood competitors Revolution 3 and newcomers The Scrapper in its first round melee. Mega Hurts LT started fairly well, narrowly missing robots with its flipper weapon. St. Agro came in to try to flip Mega Hurts LT, but the more experienced machine managed to stay on its wheels. After a while, St. Agro managed to properly flip Mega Hurts LT over, but Mega Hurts LT was just about able to self-right. After St. Agro had dispatched The Scrapper by throwing it out of the arena, Revolution 3 began to slowly grind to an unprovoked halt just as St. Agro flipped Mega Hurts LT over again, Mega Hurts LT couldn't self-right this time. Mega Hurts LT wheels were still very slowly spinning, however Refbot counted out Mega Hurts, even though Revolution 3 looked like it had been immobilised for longer. Mega Hurts LT was then flipped by the Arena Floor Flipper, before being dumped into the pit of oblivion by House Robot Growler. Cease was then called and Mega Hurts LT was eliminated from the competition.

Results

 * }


 * }


 * }

Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 1
 * Losses: 2

NOTE: Mega Hurts' Gauntlet and Trial runs are not included

Series Record

 * Series 1: Did not enter
 * Series 2: Heat, Trial
 * Series 3: Entered with Tut's Revenge
 * Series 4: Did not enter
 * Series 5: Failed to qualify
 * Series 6: Heat, Round 2
 * Series 7: Heat, Round 1
 * 2016 Series: Did not enter

Trivia

 * On entrance to the arena for its Series 7 battle, the Robot Wars announcer Stuart McDonald introduced Mega Hurts LT as Mega Hurts Limited, believing that the LT in the name stood for Limited, rather than Laptop.
 * Mega Hurts LT was one of seven robots from a team that had previously fought in 3 wars that went out in the first round of the Seventh Wars, the others being Aggrobot, Velocirippa, Metalis, Black and Blue, Major Tom 3 and Shredder Evolution.

Honours
Nominations
 * Most Original Entry - Robot Wars: The Second Wars