Scorpion

"They practised against an old tumble dryer to perfect the Scorpion's sting!"

- Jonathan Pearce

Scorpion was a competitor robot that was based on the arachnid of the same name. Its main weaponry was a 40cm rear mounted cutting disc, spinning at 7000RPM. For Series 7 the disc was powered by a Lem motor at 36v and the disc was running at 5,500RPM. The top speed of the blade was 360mph but was initially 140mph.

Over the series, two incarnations of Scorpion were created. The first, which competed in Series 4, was designed to look like a scorpion, with an additional spinning disc on each "pincer" capable of cutting through "90% of things we come up against" according to John Bell, spinning at 90mph and a chainsaw "nose". It was covered in a flammable fibreglass shell and was built on captain Geoff Smith's dining table. This design was made slightly different for its appearance in Extreme 1, where the head of Scorpion was flattened and the chainsaw was changed for a lifting arm.

The second incarnation was a flat box-wedge design, with the wedge sporting several ramming blades. This version of Scorpion was also invertible, well armoured but was not too responsive when flipped over. This version competed in Series 6-7. In Series 6, it was named Spirit of Scorpion, before being painted black and going back to its original name for Series 7.

Scorpion was originally called Locutus, named after Captain Jean-Luc Picard's Borg personality from Star Trek: The Next Generation. The robot consisted of the same basic electronics and arsenal of the Series 4 Scorpion. Under the name Locutus, it failed to qualify for Series 3.

In Series 4, Mentorn allowed Scorpion into the main competition without a qualifier, as they thought it would look good in the arena. The Scorpion model used in Extreme 1 also failed to qualify for Series 5, but Spirit of Scorpion qualified for Series 6, managing to defeat King B Powerworks in the qualifiers. For Series 7, Scorpion managed to rip apart Killer Carrot 2 and Sir Chromalot to qualify. "I still have in my shed a piece of Killer Carrot that he gave us from the damage we caused him. As for Sir Chromalot, he was swept up with a broom!"

- John Bell

Despite Scorpion's powerful weaponry, it only ever won two battles, with its only victory in the Championships being in Series 7, where it then lost to Dantomkia. It came second in the Tag Team Terror, paired up with Firestorm 2.

Series 4
Scorpion's first ever fight in the UK tournament saw it up against the 27th seed Sir Chromalot and another new robot to the competition Reactor. It got into a close range pushing match with the other two robots, and Sir Chromalot speared through its armour and punctured its tyre. Reactor came at it from the rear and pushed it towards the arena wall. Sir Chromalot pressured it, and Reactor charged in and flipped it withiits wedge. Unable to self-right, Scorpion was pushed onto the flame pit, where it was burnt and its tail was cut off by Sergeant Bash. Bash then torched the stump that was once the tail, setting it alight as Dead Metal sliced into the baseplate. Sir Killalot plucked it off of the ground, dropping it in the centre of the arena as cease was called.

Scorpion also took part in the Sumo Basho tournament where it placed 9th. It survived Shunt's first blow, but was pushed off sideways after just over 9 seconds, landing neatly on top of the tyres.

Scorpion later competed in the Tag Team Terror competition alongside Firestorm 2. The two beat Bigger Brother and Plunderbird 4 on a judges decision, despite Scorpion was flipped over and burnt again as it was in the main competition, Firestorm 2 was able to flip around Plunderbird and Bigger Brother with only a bit of a helping hand from Scorpion.

In the final against King B3 and 101, Scorpion was forced to fight alone after Firestorm 2 broke down after it's first charge. It was pushed around the arena by both robots already going at a very sluggish and eventually left virtually immobile itself next to its fallen partner with one of its wheels only partly working, with both opponents immobilised, King B3 and 101 decided to fight each other before cease was eventually called.

Extreme 1
Scorpion's only appearance throughout the entire two series of Robot Wars Extreme was a minor appearance in the first series, in the House Robot Rebellion alongside Plunderbird 5 and Stinger. In the battle, Scorpion proved much more sluggish than the other two and stayed out of the action at first, until Plunderbird 5 was pitted. Shunt then axed Scorpion's top. No visual damage was caused but Scorpion was pinned by Shunt and couldn't move, Shunt then dragged Scorpion around the arena for a while, later pitting Scorpion along with the already pitted Plunderbird 5, just as Matilda entered the arena, leaving Stinger to fight the cause alone.

Series 6
A brand new design for Scorpion, named Spirit of Scorpion, was entered into the sixth wars against previous semi finalist X-Terminator, Robochicken and newcomers Barbaric Response. It was rendered immobile mid-way through the fight, with Robochicken flipped over by X-Terminator, when X-Terminator then pushed Barbaric Response into the pit. A controversial judges' decision decided that Spirit of Scorpion had been immobile for too long before Barbaric Response was pitted, and was thus eliminated.

Series 7
"Looks deadly, but others have drawn its sting in the past."

- Jonathan Pearce as Scorpion enters the arena

For this series, the team kept the design from Spirit of Scorpion, but it was repainted black and given its original name again. It competed against Team Vader's new robot IG-88, Round 1 drop-outs The Stag and newcomers Tomahawk in Round 1, it began by pushing The Stag around the arena. But with Tomahawk immobilised by IG-88, it then turned its attention to pushing the statue-esque machine around with The Stag still in pursuit. But when The Stag reversed into the pit and Tomahawk being counted out, it also attacked IG-88, who tore off Scorpion's front panel, exposing its batteries.

Scorpion survived to go through to Round 2, where it fought the 5th seeds Dantomkia. Scorpion was able to slice into Dantomkia's side in the opening attack, but from then on, Scorpion found itself being flipped constantly around the arena by Dantomkia, nearly flipping it out at one end before scooping it up and charging Scorpion in an attempt to flip it out at the other end of the arena, however they also failed to do so here. Dantomkia then infiltrated Shunt's CPZ, who then get out of the way, to allow the seeded robot to finally flip Scorpion out of the arena.

Results

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Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 2
 * Losses: 5

Series Record

 * Series 1-2: Did not enter
 * Series 3: Failed to qualify as Locutus
 * Series 4: Heat, Round 1
 * Series 5: Failed to qualify
 * Series 6: Heat, Round 1
 * Series 7: Heat, Round 2

Robot Wars Live Events
Scorpion, rebuilt as Titan, made its first appearance at the new Robot Wars live events in Guildford in June 2013. Team Batter made its Robot Wars Live Event debut in June 2013 with Dantomkia mk4.

Outside Robot Wars
Scorpion competed in Techno Games, under the name Razerback. Razerback entered the Tug of War competition and the Sumo. Razerback lost its first sumo match

Scorpion still fights today as a regular contestant on the live circuit. For a while, it stuck to using the same design it had in Series 7, but was mostly unable to use the disc because of safety concerns. As such, it was later rebuilt, and the old disc weapon was replaced with a new double-headed pickaxe weapon, similar to that of Terrorhurtz. This weapon came from Hammertime which became a circular rambot. It was rebuilt and combined with the Team's other Heavyweight, Fortis, in late 2012 to become Titan, which finished 8th in the 2012 UK Heavyweight Championships, and 5th in the 2013 UK Championships. The team also competed on the Featherweight circuit outside of Robot Wars with Scorpion Junior which started out as a vertical spinner but was redesigned with a horizontal spinner similar to Fluffy and renamed Scorpion Evolution.

At the 2013 European Championships, Titan was named 'Most Aggressive Robot' by judge and Mortis team member Arthur Chillcot. John Bell, Sarah Bell, Sean Bell and Pip Bell are now team Batter. Team Batter are the current owners of Dantomkia mk4. Titan was recently sold to Team Hydra in September 2014.

They also built a heavyweight called BatterBot which sported the Dantomkia colour scheme before it was sold to Team Toon in 2007, which also when Dantomkia was sold. Team Toon then turned Batterbot into And His Army before being rebuilt into its current guise, Toon Raider.

Trivia
"Scorpion still exists to this day, and it is Scorpion's fault that the arena build rules in this country were changed. She is just too powerful now."

- John Bell


 * Since Robot Wars ended, there has been a ban on heavy rotating weapons in the Heavyweight Championships for safety reasons. Scorpion proved to be the main cause for this movement.